AMD Radeon R9 380 2GB CrossFireX Graphics Cards Review

Introduction

Here at eTeknix, we strive to give the consumer the best possible advice in every aspect of technology. Today is no different, we are extremely keen to bring you the CrossFireX review of the recently released AMD Radeon R9 380 2GB graphics cards. In most consumers minds, the R9 380 2GB is just a rebranded R9 285 with slightly increased specifications and shiny new cooling designs. While this is the case, the matured manufacturing process has allowed AMD to reap every bit of performance from the Tonga GPU and then handed it to sub-vendors and given a boosted overclock.

In the test bench today, we have the ASUS STRIX R9 380 (review available here) and MSI Gaming R9 380 2GB (review coming soon). In the independent reviews, these cards proved that there was still some performance in the aging architecture, but didn’t give us the impression that this would be a viable upgrade option for those already with the R9 280 or R9 285 GPU’s.

We inserted both graphics cards onto our Core i7 5820K and X99-based test system, ensuring adequate spacing for optimum cooling and that both have access to sufficient PCI-e bandwidth for CrossFire operation. Due to the variations in the cards themselves such as power inputs and clock speeds, this isn’t an ideal scenario for CrossFireX; however, both GPU’s have been downclocked to as close as possible to each other to give the best possible results.