ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum Review
Published by Christian Ney on 06.11.13Page:
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| While our sample was behaving quite strangely and showed high power
consumption and temperatures which resulted in a low score on our
original ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum review, the one that we got from
retail/e-tail worked like a charm, so thankfully the problem was only
with the sample. Those results also influenced noise levels as well. The new Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum definitely offers great performance, has one of the best designs on the market, comes with a decent factory overclock and offers quite good overclocking features. Paired up with one of the top graphics card coolers on the market, it is definitely one of the R9 280X graphics cards that you should keep your eye on. We also have to point out that the Radeon 200 series is currently not a part of the Never Settle Forever program. This may change in the future but at the moment you don't get any free games for buying a Radeon 200 series graphics card unless the manufacturer specifies otherwise. Other than the lack of games, the bundle is good, as you get everything you would expect to get with such a graphics card. |
- Performance - Design - Factory Overclocking - Power Design - Overclocking features - Cooling - Bundle |
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Price - No game bundle |
|
| Cooling / Noise Level | + | - | |
| As noted, the ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum uses the same
cooler that we had previously seen on the Radeon HD 7970 Matrix and the
performance on both graphics cards is quite close. This is definitely
not a bad thing considering that it already did a great job back on the
Radeon HD 7970 Matrix and its noise levels are impressive as even under
load, the R9 280X Matrix is quite silent. There are some drawbacks as well. Despite the fact that we are looking at a triple-slot cooler, it actually had slightly worse temperature results when compared to the DirectCU II dual-slot cooler found on the TOP version of the same graphics card. These are mostly attributed to the extra copper plate placed between the core and the heatpipes on the Matrix cooler as well as higher voltage of 1.256V compared to 1.15V on the DirectCU II Top version. |
- Cooling performance - Noise levels |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| The ASUS Radeon R9 280 Matrix Platinum is definitely a fast
graphics card and ends up around 7.8% faster on average when compared to
the reference design R9 280X. Unfortunately, it is not clocked any
higher than the Radeon HD 7970 Matrix which even has a slightly higher
1'650 MHz clocked memory while R9 280X Matrix ends up at 1'600 MHz. The HD
7970 Matrix also never throttled down while R9 280X Matrix does, which is a
result of the new PowerTune Boost. The power consumption under load is higher than on other graphics cards and since it does not offer much more performance gain it has a slightly lower performance-per-watt. On the other hand, the power consumption of the whole system in idle is quite high at 58W, when compared to the 48W with the DirectCU II TOP version. |
- Performance | - Performance/Watt
- Power consumption in idle |
|
| Recommendation / Price | + | - | |
| The ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum scored 2.5 stars
in our old review due to a defective sample. The one that we picked up
from retail did much better and it appears that the price is left as the
only issue. With a starting price of 326 Euros excluding shipping costs across the EU, the 280X Matrix Platinum is too expensive. That's about 86 Euros on top of the cheapest R9 280X for example. The price cannot be justified by what you get since you could get the Radeon HD 7970 Matrix Platinum which is basically the same card for only 250 Euros. Furthermore the Radeon HD 7970 Matrix comes with the Never Settle Forever Bundle. As a result we simply cannot recommend the 280X Matrix. If one really wants a graphics card like the Radeon R9 280X Matrix, we do recommend to look for the Radeon HD 7970 Matrix instead. |
- Extreme Overclocking | - Price | |
| We gave the Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum from ASUS 4 out of 5 stars. | |||
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