Partner Cards: 10 Radeon R9 270 And 270X Boards, Reviewed

[FormatC]

We're not particularly fond of AMD's reference Radeon R9 270-series cooling solution. Fortunately, most of the company's board partners have their own heat sinks and fans. We take 10 cards and measure their clock rates, thermals, and acoustics.

Partner Cards: 10 Radeon R9 270 And 270X Boards, Reviewed : Read more

 

[blackmagnum]

Boost clocks are the luck of the draw; maybe it's time for mainstream liquid-cooled graphics cards, since we are reaching the limits of air cooling. Do you agree?

 

[logang]

Wow the ASUS card stays cooler at load when you are measuring it in F than when you are measuring it in C

 

[emad_ramlawi]

Conclusion by me, cause Tom hardware missed it :MSI Twin Frozer cooler is a beast that covers all the major points, it keeps cool and quiet, and not that large, it would fit in normal cases.Any card using that cooler is great, i am highly interested in full benchmark between :MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti VS MSI Radeon R9 270

 

[wtfxxxgp]

No concluding remarks or did I miss something?

 

[mpdugas]

GPU cooling designs that exhaust waste heat into the PC case simply rob Peter to pay Paul.

 

[Aggelos Moody]

I had the asus r9 270x and RMA'd it twice for random framedrops without even getting hot or anything, just random gpu load to 100% for 2 secs and back to normal, of course the annoyance of that could break every game's experience and so I'm waiting for my 3rd one if the store won't agree to refund. So sad for getting my first asus product. It could be nice to have benchmarks for consistency as well like we used to for the older articles like this one

 

[envy14tpe]

I'd love to see a roundup comparing models across the board and see if there is a general trend. Ex. compare all Sapphire Dual-X, Toxic, and Vapor-X that are 270, 270x, 280x, 290, 290x....that way we could say "this technology in the design has the tendency to be..."

 

[vertexx]

Thanks for the roundup - real useful info here - and no conclusion or awards necessary - you're simply giving us some good information to make a buying decision, and I like that.

I can personally attest to the MSI Gaming R9 270X. While MSI stretches this year's Twin Frozer a little too far all the way up to the R9 290X, the R9 270X thru 280X are right in the sweet spot of this cooler's capabilities.

I have the MSI 270X in a Silverstone SG05 for one of the family gaming PCs. I picked it up in December for $200 on Newegg. When it's not used for gaming, it is scrypt mining for a little extra cash for the boys. Overclocked and with a slightly tweaked fan profile, it pulls in 400-425KH/s and stays at 70C at 50% fan RPM, and the tonal quality is also very good with the larger fan blades.

Currently at $250 on Newegg, it's a little steep unless you want to mine on the side for a little ongoing cash rebate on the card. The $200 that I paid was definitely a bargain, but I think the card is worth $220-230 based on gaming, cooling performance and overall quality.

 

[KelvinTy]

Wow! Those noise comparison videos! I am very surprised at the Gigabyte Tricool thing, they were extremely quiet in a demo rig (@ full load) in a shop near me.

 

[Embra]

Tom's is quoting the Newegg price of a Sapphire Vapor-X at $300??I find it to be $230. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202059

 

[clonazepam]

To Admins, etc. I find it slightly annoying that I have to return to the first page of the article to regain the ability to sort the comments by 'oldest first'. From any other page in the article, it automatically sorts the comments by 'most recent' with no option to change it.

 

[ykki]

Sapphire Dual-X doesnt look very badass compared to the other cards here but really trumps them in temps and acoustics. looks CAN be decieving.

 

[JS]

Typo in table should be corrected to "160 °F"Model: Asus DirectCU II, Full Load: "106 °F" (currently incorrect)

 

[JS]

Typo in table should be corrected to "160 °F"Model: Asus DirectCU II, Full Load: "106 °F" (currently incorrect)

 

[Lord_Kitty]

Sapphire Dual-X doesnt look very badass compared to the other cards here but really trumps them in temps and acoustics. looks CAN be decieving.

Yes, appearances can be deceiving, as it is a 270, which has a lower TDP.

 

[Soul_keeper]

Two things I wouldn't mind seeing in this review:
default voltages added to the feature table
power usage comparison

 

[Tuishimi]

My crossfired Sapphire Toxic 270X cards stay fairly cool and quiet when I am gaming. I have the Asrock Extreme6+ mobo tho' and I think I run into the issues with the VRM.

 

[Mathos]

This pretty clearly justifies why I've always stuck with Sapphire when it comes to AMD/ATI cards with aftermarket coolers. And if I don't use one of theirs, it's a PowerColor PCS+ version as a second choice. The DualX Design on the 270 is basically the same one used on their HD7850, which runs well, and allows the 7850 to run at the same clocks as the 270.

 

[RedJaron]

Conclusion by me, cause Tom hardware missed it :MSI Twin Frozer cooler is a beast that covers all the major points, it keeps cool and quiet, and not that large, it would fit in normal cases.Any card using that cooler is great, i am highly interested in full benchmark between :MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti VS MSI Radeon R9 270

The PowerColor card is a little heavier due to the backplate, but is overall smaller and has extremely similar specs. I'd say it deserves mention too. As for the R9 270 vs 750 Ti, the 270 will smoke the 750 in gaming frames, but will pull twice the power to do so.

GPU cooling designs that exhaust waste heat into the PC case simply rob Peter to pay Paul.

Depends on your case and setup. Good ventilation and exhaust can take care of that recycled heat before it causes problems with other components. And axial fans are much quieter than centrifugal ones.

This pretty clearly justifies why I've always stuck with Sapphire when it comes to AMD/ATI cards with aftermarket coolers. And if I don't use one of theirs, it's a PowerColor PCS+ version as a second choice. The DualX Design on the 270 is basically the same one used on their HD7850, which runs well, and allows the 7850 to run at the same clocks as the 270.

I too have stuck with Sapphire for a while. I'm pretty disappointed in this Vapor-X, though. Past Vapor models have been very quiet considering their overclocks, but this one is terribly noisy.

 

[airplanegeek]

All the cards in the youtube videos seem way louder than the cards in Tom's video player...

 

[chaosmassive]

1. at 2nd page, "HIS iPower IceQ X² Turbo H270QMT2G2M R9 270 2 GB" memory clock 100 mhz, typo error?2. Sapphire Dual-X 100365L R9 270 2 GB, the only card has 1 connector 6-pin power, not included into (+) pros?

 

[alexoncunha]

PCS+ is the "winner": Cool / Quiet ratio excelent. Sturdy. Not so big...Seems perfect choice for me.

 

[buzznut]

So you're reviewing a bunch of video cards with no kind of comparison? Why lump them all together if that's the case? Definitely seems like one of those articles that have a part two waiting in the wings. We are certainly capable of drawing our own conclusions, but just pouring over data doesn't give the whole picture. I suggest you go back and finish this one.

 

[bigj1985]

I will tell you guys from personal experience that after havig a card with the Gigabyte Windforce 3X I will not divert from Gigabyte cards until someone else comes out with a better solution. Listen to me when I tell you the Windforce coolers ARE AWEOSME!!I have a gtx 570 which is a power hog. At "stock clocks" (the card comes heavily overclocked) the fans on the card NEVER reach above 40%, it's whisper quiet, and the GPU undrr full stress barely breaks 50 C. I've had the card running @ 980 core with bumped voltage and the hottest I've seen the card is 62 C. Oh and did I mention the fans never went above 40%? Lol. My aging GTX 570 SOC is the quitest thing in my rig that shold tell you something.