Sapphire Launches Radeon R9 270X Dual-X 4GB Card

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Sapphire has announced a custom R9 270X graphics card with 4 GB of GDDR5 graphics memory.

Sapphire Launches Radeon R9 270X Dual-X 4GB Card : Read more

 

[lunyone]

Come in under $400 and you would probably have a winner! This will probably be closer to $500, but we will see.

 

[AMD Radeon]

Is there any reason why we would buy 4GB memory in 270X? considering that it is not a high end GPU

 

[chicofehr]

I'm looking forward to their 8GB R9 290X card. 4GB is not going to be much in a couple years. I'm already maxing my 3GB with Skyrim and I want to push it all to 4k/8k textures but it just comes to a crawl when I try.

 

[shahrooz]

I thought it has 2 270Xes on board

 

[psychodegu]

I'm really have a hard time seeing how you would need 4GB, even with 3 or 4 cards the 270X would not get very good fps on 4K. Unless you have anther need for that much vram, which I'm am not seeing yet, what is the point?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Come in under $400 and you would probably have a winner! This will probably be closer to $500, but we will see.

what? should be more like under $300. $500 is delving into r290 territory.

 

[oxiide]

I'm really have a hard time seeing how you would need 4GB, even with 3 or 4 cards the 270X would not get very good fps on 4K. Unless you have anther need for that much vram, which I'm am not seeing yet, what is the point?

No, you're absolutely right. You'd never use a midrange card like the 270X in a situation where you'd really need more than 2 GB of RAM and its probably not a very smart purchase for an informed customer.

I think Battlefield 4 can actually use a little more than 2 GB at mainstream resolutions, but I don't think how big of a deal it is.

 

[razorskiss1000]

How about litecoin mining? I know that memory speed is the most important there, but is there a secondary importance for memory size?

 

[cats_Paw]

litecoin and bitcoin mining are mostly money scams on a large scale. Its well done, so its not obvious at first, but with some basic economy knowledge and a few hours googleing its history its easy to spot.

 

[Tyler humphrey]

lol @cats_paw , are you completely ignorant? I go to a technology school and a substantial amount of my friends have made money from mining litecoins.

 

[razorskiss1000]

@cats_paw While I necessarily won't agree or disagree to that statement; physical money itself is scam (AKA fiat currency). Its really what people want to say its worth. Any back to my original question, does memory size have a big impact on litecoin mining?

 

[universal remonster]

"Is there any reason why we would buy 4GB memory in 270X? considering that it is not a high end GPU "

"No, you're absolutely right. You'd never use a midrange card like the 270X in a situation where you'd really need more than 2 GB of RAM and its probably not a very smart purchase for an informed customer."

Actually, an "informed customer" would indeed know a situation where more than 2GB would be needed. In a single card setup, yes, 4GB would not be utilized as the GPU just isn't fast enough to fill it. The purpose of cards such as this is for a cross fire setups and in that case would definitely benefit. In a dual card setup, the amount of memory from both cards do not add to each other - Even though 2x4GB video cards would have 8GB physically, effectively you still only have 4GB of VRAM total. This is because all graphic information is "mirrored" between the VRAM on the first and second video cards, and then each GPU renders alternate frames. So in a cross fire set up, really you would need to think of this more as a 2GB per GPU card since the other half of its 4GB VRAM also contains the information being rendered on the 2nd crossfire card.

When you see cards like this, or in the past the Asus Ares series with a ton of VRAM, they are niche cards for people looking to run dual/triple/quad SLI or Crossfire.

 

[Jasmine23]

"This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to find today. After the holidays it is such a relief to find some bargains to give my wallet a break. Thanks for sharing this great find and Happy New Year!"

 

[Keso Tomias]

i have this since december 30 2013, the card runs at 1070 clock speed with effective 5600 memory speed. the card hits 70 degrees at full load and 40 degrees idle. the card is great i can run crysis 3 at ultra settings with 16X FXAA and 2X MSAA.

 

[Keso Tomias]

O yes the card cost 10400 pesos here in the Philippines. 42 pesos per 1 dollar so basically the card cost 247$. (Prices may vary depending to your location and taxes are higher here compared to other countries)

 

[psychodegu]

Actually, an "informed customer" would indeed know a situation where more than 2GB would be needed. In a single card setup, yes, 4GB would not be utilized as the GPU just isn't fast enough to fill it. The purpose of cards such as this is for a cross fire setups and in that case would definitely benefit. In a dual card setup, the amount of memory from both cards do not add to each other - Even though 2x4GB video cards would have 8GB physically, effectively you still only have 4GB of VRAM total. This is because all graphic information is "mirrored" between the VRAM on the first and second video cards, and then each GPU renders alternate frames. So in a cross fire set up, really you would need to think of this more as a 2GB per GPU card since the other half of its 4GB VRAM also contains the information being rendered on the 2nd crossfire card.

When you see cards like this, or in the past the Asus Ares series with a ton of VRAM, they are niche cards for people looking to run dual/triple/quad SLI or Crossfire.

In my original comment I questioned if you would get a good enough fps with 3 or 4 of these cards in crossfire. It seems if you need the vram and want the power that would require more then 1 card you might as well get the 290 or 290X.

 

[universal remonster]

"In my original comment I questioned if you would get a good enough fps with 3 or 4 of these cards in crossfire. It seems if you need the vram and want the power that would require more then 1 card you might as well get the 290 or 290X"

As I use single cards only I would agree with your statement that getting a more powerful card seems like a better solution than running more than 2 midrange cards. However, I was replying to the quotes from users AMD Radeon and Oxiide who were questioning if there was any purpose at all for having 4GB on a midrange card.

 

[Yanto123]

I just installed an MSI R9 270X 4GB today. An excellent card with great cooling.
I am getting avg 60 frames/sec on BF4 at 1080p with everything set at ultra, HBOA and 2xAf, this is on the Golmundb railway map which is not so intensive. On Parcel storm I am getting avg 40 frames/sec, this is probably one of the most intensive maps.
I dont know why some reviews say this card will only play BF4 on high settings to get decent frame rates as this is clearly not the case.
Also before anyone says it, i got the 4gb version of the card as it leaves me with the opportunity to crossfire at a later date when i have more cash to spend and will give me a decent amount of Vram which the 2gb version would not, for future games.
At the end of the day it all comes down to how much you can afford to spend at the time. When I purchase another one in 6 months or so, they will probably only be around the £100 mark.

 

[Svend Knutsen]

I got this card for $212 incl. shipping on Newegg (was supposed to come with a BF4 voucher but didn't). For me there's a very good reason for getting a mid-range card with 4GB of DDR5. Outside of my regular job (media manager for convention center) I'm a graphic/motion designer on a budget and that extra memory comes in handy when rendering After Effects projects, I'm hoping to cut my render times by quite a bit. Won't get a chance to install and test until tomorrow though. Yanto123, I'm excited that you're able to get 60 FPS on BF4 at 1080p. I was a little nervous about game settings and knowing I can play on Ultra is an unexpected bonus!

 

[psychodegu]

I'm a graphic/motion designer on a budget and that extra memory comes in handy when rendering After Effects projects, I'm hoping to cut my render times by quite a bit.

Well if it helps with rendering time, I guess I could see the point of this card then. Does having more then one of these cards speed up rendering time even more? If it does then I can definitely see getting several of these over a 290.

 

[Swerazer]

I bought this car at about 220euros, It perfoms way better than the MSI GTX 760, It beats the 760 in every FPS game i've tried with about 15-30 fps!!!!!I'm playing BF3 at EVERYTHING Ultra ONLINE! 32 players! Around 90fps V-sync ON (60Hz screen) This card is the best card you can buy around that price, I'm playing Bioshock Infinite ULTRA with 100+FPS, BF4 ULTRA 70+FPS, I could'nt believe that i bought this card so cheap when i saw how it performed, It's amazing.