QHD (2560x1440) Gaming Results
AMD is making a lot of noise about the Radeon R9 380X being designed for 2560x1440. Consequently, the company can’t really blame us for running our benchmarks at QHD using the settings that PC gamers want to see. Since AMD also says its Radeon R9 380 is a true FHD-oriented graphics card, we need to examine how these claims hold up in light of the six to ten percent delta between the two cards.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The difference between AMD’s Radeon R9 380X and 380 is nine percent in this benchmark at QHD. That's up from six percent at FHD. The game certainly isn’t playable using either graphics card without significantly lowering some of the settings, though.
Grand Theft Auto V
Again, the Radeon R9 380X’s advantage over the 380 increases at the higher resolution. This time it rises from five to 11 percent. Forty FPS isn’t a great result, but it’s still considered playable. Sixty FPS could be achieved with a few lowered graphics settings.
Metro: Last Light
AMD’s new graphics card manages to hold onto the nine percent lead over the 380 that we saw at 1920x1080. We’re puzzled again by the fact that the theoretically slower Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 is able to keep up and finish right between AMD’s two similar boards. Without tessellation, AMD’s offerings would likely come out ahead, though.
Then again, the exact order doesn’t really matter since none of these cards provide a smooth gaming experience. At this resolution, you'd want to use the Medium graphics preset and a dialed-back tessellation setting to make AMD's Radeon R9 380X more playable.
Bioshock Infinite
The Radeon R9 380X increases its lead over the 380 again, this time from six to nine percent. That still isn't noticeable when you actually play the game, though. Both graphics cards produce playable results, and the 380X’s frame times aren't appreciably better.
Tomb Raider
AMD's Radeon R9 380X is 13 percent faster than the X-less 380 in this benchmark at QHD, up from almost 10 percent in FHD. Tomb Raider also marks the first example of a test where the two cards yield a noticeably different subjective experience.
Battlefield 4 (Campaign)
Even though Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 960 beats the AMD Radeon R9 380 once again in Battlefield 4, the 380X beats it in turn to the tune of 10 percent. Unfortunately, none of the cards are actually playable. For that, you'd need to drop the quality preset a couple of notches.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
This is the first time the Radeon R9 380X’s advantage over the 380 actually shrinks. It was 16 percent at Full HD, and now it's 13 percent at QHD. Again, you'd need to compromise graphics quality to make Middle-earth playable at 2560x1440.
Thief
The Radeon R9 380X almost doubles its lead from eight to 15 percent. The difference still isn’t really all that noticeable during actual gameplay though, which is generally very choppy. Lowered graphics settings would give every contender a much-needed boost, of course.
Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 960 doesn’t stand a chance, likely due to its 2GB of GDDR5. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a model on-hand with more graphics memory.
Ashes of the Singularity
We’re again looking at the render times of individual frames from the different views. The total rendering time is congruent with how demanding the benchmark scenes are.
And again, we report the number of CPU calls, along with the ratio of rendered frames.
Bottom Line
We wouldn’t go so far as to call AMD's Radeon R9 380X unsuitable for 2560x1440, but there are certainly settings you won't get to enable if you try to make QHD happen. Maxed-out presets are simply too demanding. Drop the slider a few levels, though, and the new card should generally provide a playable experience.
The one problem we have with this situation is that you could say the same thing about AMD's cheaper Radeon R9 380. The difference between them is never large enough to make a practical difference. Depending on the title and the graphics settings, the 380X might be a bit faster or a bit less slow, but that’s about it.
