ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 and R9 380 reviewed: New cards for the mainstream (Updated)

Updated on 10 July 2015: This review initially stated that Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) and Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) would not be available on the Radeon R7 and R9 200 series cards, but AMD's latest Catalyst 15.7 WHQL driver now offers support for these features on older cards. The article has been amended to reflect this change.

Originally published on 18 June 2015:

AMD yesterday finally gave consumers what they’ve been waiting for – a new slate of graphics cards to serve as an alternative to NVIDIA’s second-generation Maxwell cards in 2015. Choice is always good for the consumer, and AMD’s 2015 offering consists of a comprehensive top-to-bottom line-up of cards for virtually every conceivable budget.

But as you probably already know by now, the R7 and R9 300 series cards are actually rebadges of existing cards. But despite being based on existing architectures like Pitcairn and Tonga, the cards will support new features like Asynchronous Shaders, Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC), and Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) that improve power consumption, efficiency and visual quality, so we’re not entirely rehashing old news.

And with AMD's Catalyst 15.7 WHQL driver update, older cards like the Radeon R7 and R9 200 series cards will also support FRTC and VSR. But while the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture on cards like the Radeon R9 290X supports a certain amount of Asynchronous Shader work, the 300 series cards support for DirectX 12 will enable gamers to realize the full potential of Asynchronous Shaders.

Another key thing to note is that AMD has positioned its cards which go by the R7 and R9 300 series monikers. Instead of the R9 cards comprising the higher end of the line-up, both R7 and R9 cards now round up the base of AMD’s 2015 product line-up, which has been expanded to include the Radeon R9 Fury X, Fury, and Nano.

With a US launch price of US$149 and US$199 respectively, the AMD Radeon R7 370 and Radeon R9 380 are quite a bit cheaper than their predecessors were at launch. For instance, the AMD Radeon R9 280 cost US$279 when it was announced in early 2014.

We’ll now take a look at more details on these new features in these rebadged cards before diving into the specifics with the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 and R9 380.

Asynchronous Shaders

First off, the R7 and R9 300 cards will support something called Asynchronous Shaders. The core of AMD’s GCN-based GPUs comprises large, highly parallel computation engines capable of processing thousands of individual pieces of data at the same time. These are fed by one central graphics command processor and multiple asynchronous compute engines (ACE).

The command processor handles the main graphics queues while the ACEs handle compute queues, which enables the GPU to handle multiple compute tasks simultaneously. This increases GPU efficiency and boosts performance, which in turn also helps to reduce latency and deliver more consistent frame rates.

Previously, task submission was usually queued on a single stream and gaps between rendering tasks would leave part of the GPU idling, which reduced GPU efficiency as there was a time gap between processing one thread and then waiting for the next.

Asynchronous shaders further address this by scheduling compute tasks asynchronously – or during the gaps in graphics workload when the GPU is idle – with graphics rendering tasks without waiting for the current rendering work to finish. This gets a more complicated when they have to submit tasks to multiple sources, but upcoming next-generation APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan will help in this area because they enable multi-threaded task submission.

Asynchronous shaders thus allow tasks from multiple threads to be submitted to the GPU and processed simultaneously, essentially reducing latencies in the graphics pipeline and improving efficiency and performance.

Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC)

The second feature is Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC), which will come in useful when playing games that run at very high frame rates on a monitor with a lower 60Hz refresh rate. For instance, even if the graphics card is capable of churning out 250fps, only 60 frames will get displayed every second, which means that 190 frames – and the resources that went to rendering them – have essentially gone to waste.

FRTC works by dispensing with the rendering of superfluous frames. It adjusts the GPU clock speed to deliver only the necessary frames, thus reducing heat, noise and power consumption. Furthermore, users have control over this entire process as they will be able to set a target frame rate for their games and applications.

Virtual Super Resolution (VSR)

And then there’s Virtual Super Resolution (VSR), AMD’s riposte to NVIDIA’s Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR). VSR allows users to get near-4K quality on a 1080p display by rendering the game at a higher resolution and then re-scaling it to fit the monitor. This has a similar effect to anti-aliasing, and should in theory result in higher fidelity images with smoother edges.

DirectX 12

Finally, the new AMD cards will support the next-generation DirectX 12 API that gives game developers greater access to GPU hardware and more control over its resources.

DirectX 12 will support Multi-Threaded Command Buffer Recording that will finally allow developers to fully utilize the capabilities of modern multi-core CPUs. DirectX 11 couldn’t really break a game’s command buffer – the game’s list of things it needs to do to render a scene – into small, parallel and computationally quick blocks that can be spread over multiple cores.

DirectX 11 was also limited because of the inherent CPU overhead – the CPU spent a disproportionate amount of time on driver and API interpretations – which left less time for executing the actual game code that translates into real quality and frame rates.

DirectX 12 cuts through these limitations by overhauling the command buffer to reduce CPU overhead, distribute workloads more effectively over multiple CPU cores, and allow all CPU cores to communicate with the graphics card simultaneously.

This also goes hand in hand with the use of Asynchronous Shaders, which allows developers to implement compute jobs like dynamic global illumination and more realistic physics simulation in parallel.

In addition, developers will also find resource utilization much improved, so they will have more GPU resources on hand that can in turn be channelled to produce more visually pleasing graphics or better performance.

The ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 4GB is based on AMD’s Pitcairn GPU architecture, which was actually first featured AMD’s Radeon HD 7800 series of cards. That series of cards debuted in 2012, so other than the features covered in the previous section, we don’t really expect the Radeon R7 370 to bring anything new to the table.

The Radeon R7 370 is a rebadge of the Radeon R7 265. The Curacao graphics core in that card is actually a rebranded Pitcairn core, and the Radeon R7 370 shares the same 1024 stream processors as the R7 265, but with higher clock speeds.

The ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 comes with a factory overclock to 1050MHz out of the box, up from the 975MHz on the reference card. It also comes with an overclock profile that boosts the core clock by 20MHz to 1070MHz.

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) isn’t coming to AMD’s 300 series of cards, so the Radeon R7 370 still has just 4GB of GDDR5 memory. In addition, it has a 256-bit memory bus width and a memory clock of 5600MHz, which translates into a total memory bandwidth of 179.2GB/s.

The card is a dual-slot affair and measures just 214mm long, a sure fit for most compact PC cases. It sports ASUS’ signature DirectCU II cooler with 0dB-fan technology, which means that the fans are able to stop spinning entirely during light workloads or when the GPU temperature is below a pre-set level. This ensures that gamers will be able to enjoy as quiet an experience as possible – indeed, we weren’t bothered at all by noise from the card during our tests.

Two thick 8mm heat pipes help channel heat away directly from the GPU to the cooler’s fins for dissipation.

The cooler’s fans utilize something ASUS calls a wing-blade design that is supposed to increase air pressure on the edge of the fan blade and maximize air flow.

However, unlike the ASUS Strix R9 380 DirectCU II OC 2G, this card lacks a metal backplate and instead has an exposed PCB.

Round the back, the Radeon R7 370 has a fairly standard selection of display outputs, comprising one DVI-D port, one DVI-I port, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort connector.

It requires just a single 6-pin PCIe power connector the power it. The connector is in a slightly different position this time though. Instead of facing upwards, it now faces the front of the card, in the same direction of your chassis intake fans if you installed it in a standard tower PC case. This might actually help with cable management as the 6-pin connector should now be located closer to the cable routing cutouts on your case.

A single LED light above the power connector glows red when there’s no power. It glows green if a successful connection has been established – a nifty feature that should help you rule out loose connections when troubleshooting.

The ASUS Strix R7 370 4GB retails for S$339 locally, a price that places it squarely in the mainstream. AMD is targeting the Radeon R7 370 at online gamers who play competitive e-sports titles like League of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike Global Offensive. These games aren’t very demanding and are often played at 1080p resolution, which the Radeon R7 370 is designed to handle.

We’ll take a closer look at the card’s performance in our Results section and see if it lives up to its promise.

The ASUS Strix Radeon R9 380 is a higher end card for gamers who want to game at resolutions surpassing 1080p. At its official announcement at E3, AMD singled out 1440p resolutions as the target for the Radeon R9 380.

The Radeon R9 380 is based on AMD’s Tonga GPU architecture, which first made an appearance on the Radeon R9 285 late last year. It appears that the Radeon R9 380 is actually a rebadge of this card with higher clock speeds.

The ASUS Strix Radeon R9 380 2GB ships with an out-of-the-box factory overclock of 990MHz, a notch up from the 975MHz on the reference card. But while the reference card supposedly comes with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, the version of the ASUS card we have with us has only 2GB of memory.

We find it a little strange that ASUS would choose to release a 2GB version of the card given that AMD explicitly stated that the Radeon R9 380 is designed to handle 1440p resolutions. As we’ll see in our results later, 2GB unfortunately isn’t really enough to handle gaming at resolutions above 1080p. Fortunately, there will in fact be a 4GB version released later on, but we don’t have many details on that as of now.

It has a 5500MHz memory clock and a 256-bit memory bus width, which translates into just 176GB/s of memory bandwidth, lower than that the 179.2GB/s on the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 which has 4GB of video memory.

As this is a custom card, it also features ASUS’ dual-slot DirectCU II cooler and a solid metal backplate that we really like. The brushed metal plate confers pleasant heft to the card and prevents the PCB from flexing.

The DirectCU II cooler utilizes the same wing-blade 0-dB fan technology to maximize air flow and ensure silent operation.

It is however longer than the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 (271mm vs 214mm), and ASUS has managed to pack an additional 10mm heatpipe, in addition to two 8pmm copper heatpipes. These are in direct contact with the GPU and help channel heat away from it. Given that this is a more powerful card than the Radeon R7 370, it’s probably a wise decision on ASUS’ part to beef up the cooler with the additional thicker heatpipe.

Moving on to the back of the card, we see a standard array of display connectors including one DVI-I port, one DVI-D port, one HDMI output, and a DisplayPort connector.

Power is delivered to the card via a single 8-pin connector, a change from the 2x 6-pin design on the reference card. And like on the R7 370, there is an LED light above the PCIe power connector that glows red when there’s a faulty connection or no power, and white when all is well.

The ASUS Strix Radeon R9 380 2GB commands a S$60 premium over the Strix Radeon R7 370 4GB at S$399, which places it above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, but quite a bit below the GeForce GTX 970 and AMD Radeon R9 280X.

Test Setup

We’ve just updated our graphics test bed to the following specifications:

• Intel Core i7-5960X
• ASUS X99-Deluxe (Intel X99 chipset) motherboard
• 4 x 4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDRR-2133 (Auto timings: CAS 15-15-15-36)
• Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD (OS)
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB (Benchmarks + Games)
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
• Intel INF 10.0.20

We rounded up three other custom AMD cards from ASUS and Sapphire to compare the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 4GB and Radeon R9 380 2GB against. We chose these cards because they were aimed at the mainstream market when they were released, which more or less aligns them with the Radeon R7 370 and R9 380. We would love to have also tested a few other more directly comparable cards like a Radeon R9 285 and a GeForce GTX 960, but as we just rolled over to a new testbed, those updates will have to wait another day. Below is the full list of cards tested and their driver versions:

• ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 DirectCU II OC 4G (AMD Catalyst 15.20 Beta)
• ASUS Strix Radeon R9 380 DirectCU II OC 2G (AMD Catalyst 15.20 Beta)
• ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP (AMD Catalyst 14.12)
• ASUS Radeon R9 280 DirectCU II OC 3G (AMD Catalyst 14.12)
• Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X OC (AMD Catalyst 14.12)

We used the beta version of the Catalyst 15.20 drivers that were supplied on the CD that came with the newly launched graphics cards.

Benchmarks

As this is our first review of the Radeon R7 370 and R9 380, we’ll be running our complete suite of synthetic and gaming benchmarks to get an idea of the full performance characteristics of AMD’s new cards.

This is a full list of the benchmarks used:

• Futuremark 3DMark 2013
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• Crysis 3
• Tomb Raider
• Hitman: Absolution
• Thief

For our temperature and power consumption tests, we used the Fire Strike Extreme benchmark in 3DMark 2013.

Before diving into the hard numbers, here's a table to show how the Radeon R7 370 and R9 380 stack up against the competition:

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[caption=ASUS Strix R7 370 4G and R9 380 2G compared against competitive SKUs]

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Performance Results

3DMark 2013

In 3DMark 2013, the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 DirectCU II OC 4G fell behind all the other cards. The ASUS Strix Radeon R9 380 was a good 54% faster than it in 3DMark Fire Strike. This increased slightly to a 58% lead in the more demanding Fire Strike Extreme test, which renders at a resolution of 2560 x 1440, a resolution that AMD claims the Radeon R9 380 will have no problem in handling.

However, when it came to Fire Strike Ultra which renders at 3840 x 2160, the limitations of the 2GB of video memory on the Strix Radeon R9 380 started to show. Its score of 1216 was roughly on par with the Strix Radeon R7 370, which should have been a much slower card. Both cards were also over 40% slower than the previous generation’s ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP in Fire Strike Ultra. The 4GB version of the Strix Radeon R9 380 – when it is released – should fare much better.

Ultimately, the ASUS Radeon R9 280X came out on top of all the other cards here. But as we mentioned earlier, the expansion of AMD’s graphics card line-up with the Radeon R9 Fury X and Fury means that while the Radeon R9 280X might have been situated close to the top of the line-up, that isn’t the case with the Radeon R9 380.

The Radeon R9 380 is a mainstream card. And if you take into account the fact that the ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP launched at S$549, its performance lead over the 2GB version of the Radeon R9 380 suddenly seems a lot less substantial.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

We ran Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor starting at a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels and scaled it up all the way to 5,120 x 3,200 pixels on our Dell UltraSharp U3011 monitor. On Ultra settings with HD textures enabled, this game can be really demanding and consume quite a bit of video memory.

At the lowest tested resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels, the ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP was the clear winner. The ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 4GB and R9 380 2GB found themselves limited by their smaller memory bandwidth of 179.2GB/s and 176GB/s respectively, and were both approximately 63% slower than the Radeon R9 280X. The more generous 307.2GB/s of bandwidth available to the Radeon R9 280X clearly helped it gain a lead in the initial benchmarks. Nevertheless, we’d still expect the 4GB version of the Radeon R9 380 to do better.

At the far more demanding resolutions above 1600p, the Radeon R9 280X lost its commanding lead, although it still retained its top position. The Radeon R9 380 even fell behind the R7 370, no doubt again paying the price for its 2GB of memory versus the 4GB on the latter card.

Crysis 3

In Crysis 3, the ASUS Strix Radeon R9 380 managed to inch its way to the top at Ultra settings with anti-aliasing disabled, whereas the Radeon R7 370 was once again in last place. It managed a fairly playable 29FPS at the resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pxiels with no anti-aliasing, which we’d say is quite a respectable figure for a card of its price.

But when we turned on 8x MSAA, all the cards took a huge performance hit, but the Radeon R9 280X again reclaimed first position, albeit by a small margin.

Tomb Raider

The results in Tomb Raider reflect what we saw in 3DMark 2013. The ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP was once again the fastest card here, while the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 was behind by a significant margin. It was almost 62% slower than the Radeon R9 280X, while the Radeon R9 380 was just 8% behind it. The Radeon R9 380 also managed to surpass the Radeon R9 280, a fairly good result here.

Hitman Absolution

The results in Hitman Absolution reinforce what we saw in Crysis 3 – the Radeon R9 380 doesn’t really fare well with anti-aliasing enabled. On Ultra settings with anti-aliasing disabled, it managed to claim the top position in both tested resolutions, but it again ceded the place to the Radeon R9 280X when we enabled 8x AA.

The limitations of its 2GB of video memory were also clearly demonstrated when it posted a measly 6.84fps at the 2,560 x 1,600 pixels resolution with 8x AA, nearly half that of the Radeon R7 370.

Thief

The Radeon R9 380 was neck-and-neck with the Radeon R9 280X in Thief at all the tested presets and resolutions. However, the Radeon R7 370 trailed all the cards, coming in at a good 54% slower than the Radeon R9 380 at the resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels and Very High preset.

Thief is probably not very demanding when it comes to video memory. At the higher resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels and Very High preset, the Radeon R9 380 was only a single frame behind the Radeon R9 280X and over 50% faster than the Radeon R7 370.

Temperature and Power Consumption

The ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 and R9 380 DirectCU II cards performed quite well in our temperature tests. After looping Fire Strike Extreme for 15 minutes, we measured a peak temperature of 68°C and 69°C for both cards respectively. Although they are based on different GPU architectures, their similar thermal performance could be attributed to the DirectCU II cooler on both cards.

When it comes to power, the more powerful Radeon R9 380 unsurprisingly consumed 91 watts more at load than the Radeon R7 370. However, its lower core clock of 990MHz was probably the reason why it consumed quite a bit less power than the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock of 1070MHz.

Overclocking

When it came to overclocking, the Radeon R9 380 overclocked far better than the Radeon R7 370. We managed to push the core clock on the former card to 1110MHz, an increase of 120MHz over the out-of-the-box speeds, and also achieved a memory clock speed of 5800MHz. This translated into an 8% gain in 3DMark Fire Strike and a nearly 9% increase in Fire Strike Extreme. The largest improvement was seen in Fire Strike Ultra, where the card posted a nearly 12% improvement over its stock speeds.

On the other hand, while we managed to hit a core clock of 1150MHz and memory clock of 5800MHz on the Radeon R7 370, we didn’t see corresponding gains in 3DMark 2013 where the score in Fire Strike improved by a mere 4 points. Furthermore, not only did the score in Fire Strike Extreme remain unchanged, we even saw a very slight drop in Fire Strike Ultra.

This was similar to what we observed on the Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X, which is also a Pitcairn-based GPU. From what we’ve seen so far, it seems that Pitcairn doesn’t take very well to overclocking.

Value-Added Mainstream Cards

In sum, the ASUS Strix Radeon R7 370 DirectCU II OC 4G and Strix Radeon R9 380 DirectCu II OC 2G aren’t really anything new, but we knew that already. However, what is new is the value they offer to AMD’s 2015 line-up of mainstream cards and consumers.

At S$399, the Radeon R9 380 is carving out a niche for itself that hovers between the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 and GeForce GTX 970. The price and performance jump between the latter two cards is fairly substantial, and the Radeon R9 380 slots right in between, but at a price that is far closer to the GeForce GTX 960 (it sells for S$369).

The 2GB version we reviewed doesn’t always live up to AMD’s promise of delivering playable frame rates at 1440p, but seeing as we haven’t reviewed the 4GB variant, we remain cautiously optimistic in this department.

On the other hand, the ASUS Radeon R7 370 is targeted at even more price-conscious buyers at just S$339. It doesn’t deliver cutting-edge performance, but it does seem capable of delivering playable frame rates at 1080p resolutions in most modern games. AMD says that it has made the card for players of online multi-player games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which actually aren’t that graphically demanding to begin with.

The games we tested the cards with are a lot more taxing on the GPU, so performance might appear more than a little wanting. As a result, if you’re on a budget, only play less graphically intensive MMOs, and don’t foresee yourself moving on to more demanding titles, the Radeon R7 370 is right up your alley. However, if you want something more future-proof or play wider range of titles, you’re better off looking elsewhere.

The Radeon R7 370 and Radeon R9 380 might be rebadges of previous-generation cards, but AMD has also included support for certain value-added features like Asynchronous Shaders, FRTC, VSR and DirectX 12 in a bid to keep them relevant for mainstream gamers in 2015.

We aren’t necessarily fans of the practice of rebranding old cards and tacking on a speed boost, but AMD has put in quite a bit of effort to differentiate the cards in its R7 and R9 300 series of cards. And for the prices and performance numbers we’re getting, you just might be getting more bang for your buck with AMD’s current-generation of mainstream cards.

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