We'll begin our analysis with a couple of synthetic benchmarks, starting with 3DMark Firestrike:

We don't believe that the newest iteration of 3DMark is an ideal measure for comparing GPU architectures, but it does give us a useful glimpse into the Radeon product stack. Despite the slightly lower core clock and memory bandwidth compared to the Radeon R9 280, we see the Radeon R9 285 perform faster than its predecessor and land right between the Radeon R9 280 and 280X. Indeed, the improvements that AMD has made to the Tonga GPU have a substantial impact here.
Now let's see if Tonga's strengths will manifest in a GPGPU processing scenario. We took Sandra 2014 SP3's GPGPU cryptography benchmark for a spin:

The Radeon R9 285's lossless color compression can't help it here, and the new card's performance reflects its slightly lower core clock rate when it comes to GPGPU processing. Having said that, performance per watt have increased as we'll see in the power test results later on. Now let's move on to the game performance benchmarks.
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- The Radeon's GCN Is Updated Again: The Tonga GPU
- Asus Strix Radeon R9 285
- Gigabyte R9 285 WindForce OC
- Test Setup and Benchmark Suite
- Synthetic Benchmark Results
- Titanfall and Battlefield 4 Results
- Thief and Arma 3 Results
- Grid Autosport and Assassin's Creed IV Results
- Watch Dogs and Far Cry 3 Results
- Idle Power Consumption Results
- Gaming Power Consumption Results
- GPGPU Power Consumption Results
- Temperature and Noise Results
- Radeon R9 285 Holds its Own at $250
Good to see AMD have tackled the noise and temperature issues that have plagued it's previous 28nm cards as well but it's a bit late in the day given that 20nm shouldn't be to far off now.
Also, on the last page, you guys wrote R7 270X instead of R9, and in the chart it says "Relative to Radeon HD 7950 Boost". Oh, and in the Pros section, it says the 285 has R9 260 like performance?
[EDIT by Cleeve]
Thanks for the proofread, fixing it now!
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I prefer get a r9 280 and downclock get same results. I can't see the point of this heat on graphics. maybe drivers. OR THIS IS HAWAII XT! Too much Heat!
I think the guys see if they hit the OC the room Will burn! maybe a problem with drivers.
Last time i see that Heat 290x tests. lol!
But in fact, the memory interface was cut by a third (384 bit -> 256 bit), not half.
[Edit by Cleeve]
Good point, fixed! Thx.
[/edit]
[Edit by Cleeve]
Good catch, fixed but might take a while to populate.
[/Edit]
Faster memory would have helped but more would not have made much of a difference: most of the extra memory on GPUs with more memory channels gets filled with extra copies of resources to improve availability. Without those extra channels, filling more RAM with extra copies would make little difference.
The R7 265 is faster than the R7 260X, yet the R9 285 is slower than the R9 280X?
The R7 265 is faster than the R7 260X, yet the R9 285 is slower than the R9 280X?
Yea this should have been named 275 or 275x.
The 280X probably should have been the 285, and this card should have been released as the 280X. Or it could be next-gen; call it the 380 or 375.
The 270/280 are just rehashes of HD7xxx designs while the 285 is a cut-down 290... and the 285 does beat the 280 enough times to earn its place in the 28x range.
Give the 285 a 6GT/s memory interface and it would slot in more solidly between the 280 and 280X.
The R7 265 is faster than the R7 260X, yet the R9 285 is slower than the R9 280X?
Indeed, naming schemes are always kind of bogus.
260< 260X < 265
280<=285< 280X
That's just the way it is.