Technical Data / Specifications

ASUS ships its Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top card with the core clocked at 1'070 MHz and the memory at 1'600 MHz (6'400 effective). Compared to the R9 280X reference clocks the Top has a nice factory overclocking, 70 MHz on the core and 100 MHz (400) on the memory. This should give a nice boost in performance, especially in games that scale with memory bandwidth.

Although the R9 280X has the PowerTune Boost functionality we never saw it in action. We mean that, although the manufacturer advertises it otherwise, the DirectCU II Top has technically a core clock of 970 MHz and a boost clock of 1'070 MHz. During our testing, the card was always running at full speed of 1'070 MHz under load, we didn't experience any clockdown.

AMD themselves are being obscure on that point too, the reference R9 280X has actually a base clock set at 850 MHz with a boost clock of 1'000 MHz but AMD just write down "GPU Clock Speed: Up to 1 GHz". The latter is not wrong but it's not exact either.

	ASUS DirectCU II Top	Radeon R9 280X	Radeon HD 7970 GHz
Chip	Tahiti XTL	Tahiti XTL	Tahiti XT2
Process	28 nm	28 nm	28 nm
Transistors	4.31 billion	4.31 billion	4.31 billion
GPU clock	1'070 MHz	1'000 MHz	1'000 MHz
GPU Boost clock	N/A	N/A	1'050 MHz
Memory GDDR5	3'072 MB	3'072 MB	3'072 MB
Memory clock	1'600 (6'400) MHz	1'500 (6'000) MHz	1'500 (6'000) MHz
Memory interface	384 Bit	384 Bit	384 Bit
Memory bandwidth	307.2 GB/s	288 GB/s	288 GB/s
Shader Cores	2'048	2'048	2'048
TMUs	128	128	128
ROPs	32	32	32
TDP	xxx Watt	250 Watt	250 Watt
PCB Type	Custom Design	Reference Design	Reference Design
Lenght (PCB - Total)	26.8 - 28.7 cm	xx.x - xx.x cm	xx.x - xx.x cm
Height (PCB - Total)	12.2 - 14.8 cm	xx.x - xx.x cm	xx.x - xx.x cm
Slots	2	2	2
Cooler	DirectCU II	AMD Reference	AMD Reference
Launch Price	$XXX	$299	$499

ASUS decided to equip the R9 280X DirectCU II Top with the latest revision of their famous DirectCU II cooler. It is exactly the same that equips the GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II series, no changes have been made. In this case you get no less than five heatpipes, two six millimeter, two eight millimeter and one massive ten millimeter. The heatpipes have been nickel plated but on the bottom part in contact with the core. Soldered to the heatpipes you find the fin stack which is being provided with fresh air via two 95mm fans. The fan closer to the I/O shield is one odd hybrid axial/radial fan ASUS like to call "CoolTech". They claim that this fan is able to provide a higher airflow than standard axial or radial fans at the same noise level. In case of the second fan you find a standard axial fan. Both fans are being manufactured by Everflow and strangely share the same model, T129215SU.
Overall the cooler is well made and finished. Thermal paste has been spread all over the core in large quantity and memory chips aren't actively cooled.



Like most of ASUS' recent high-end cards the PCB has been completely reworked and the power design beefed-up. A closer look at it shows a 10 phase power implementation for the main power design where the GPU gets eight (there are five on the reference card) and the memory two. Going further we see, on the left side of the PCB, two additional phases for the IO and one phase for the pll.

The MOSFETs of the main power design are being actively cooled via an aluminium heatsink/thermal pad combo. The manufacturer decided to equip its 280X with only the metal reinforcement located at the top end of the card to prevent bending rather than the full backplate + reinforcement solution like on the GTX 780. A cost efficient solution that doesn't protect the card unfortunately.
Components wise ASUS makes use of high quality so called Super Alloy Power components. Last but not least, located at the rear of the PCB there are several voltage reading and modification points (VDDCI, MVDD, VDDC, OVCI, OVM, OVC) and the ROG Connect soldering points.

Checking the voltage regulation chip we find a digital multi-phase controller labelled Digi+ ASP1211 for the GPU, probably a rebranded CHiL 8228 or 8318.
There are two unidentified Richtek 2-phase controllers labelled 02=FF 42G on this card. The one closer to the PCIe power connectors is taking care of the memory and the one close to the CrossFire connectors is taking care of the IO.



The memory chips used are made by Hynix and carry the model number H5GQ2H24AFR R0C. They are specified to run at 1'500 MHz (6'000 MHz effective).

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 12 - DIRT Showdown
Page 2 - Technical Data / Specifications	Page 13 - Far Cry 3
Page 3 - Preview & Delivery	Page 14 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 4 - Test Setup	Page 15 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Page 5 - 3DMark Fire Strike	Page 16 - Metro: Last Light
Page 6 - Unigine Heaven 4.0	Page 17 - GTA V
Page 7 - BattleField 3	Page 18 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - Borderlands 2	Page 19 - Fan Speed / Noise Level
Page 9 - Bioshock Infinite	Page 20 - Temps - Idle / FurMark / BF3
Page 10 - Crysis 3	Page 21 - Performance/Price & Performance/Watt
Page 11 - Call of Duty Black Ops 2	Page 22 - Conclusion