AMD R9 285 Graphics Card
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,223 words · ~6 min read
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The AMD R9280 launch was a confusing one
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at the time because to the informed eye, it was obvious that what AMD had done
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was create a lot of fanfare with a Hawaii launch event for what was other
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than the R9 290 and 290X, which both featured newly designed silicon,
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basically an exercise in taking existing card designs and giving them a shiny new
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name. That means the current 200 series
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is actually a mix of old and new hardware designs. It's fine from a
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performance standpoint as long as the pricing makes sense, but it can lead to
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confusion. Even at that launch event, AMD talked a lot about true audio, a
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feature that up until now has only been supported on the R9260X and
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R9290 series. And then again at CES this
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year, they showed off Freync, a dynamic refresh rate technology similar to
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G-Sync to reduce screen tearing, but since revealed that that also only works
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on part of their current lineup because of this mix of old and new technology.
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So with that out of the way, on to the card we're introducing today. The
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R9285 based on new code name Tonga
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silicon might not be earthshattering from a performance standpoint, but what
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it does aside from delivering great power efficiency is bring the $250 price
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point in line with high-end enthusiast cards from a feature standpoint with
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improved mantle support along with support for true audio, bridgeless
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crossfire, updated power tune, dynamic performance optimization, and finally
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freeync.
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With the purchase of a qualifying Intel processor, SSD, or Knuck, you could
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instantly win an Intel gaming jersey and be entered in the draw for the ultimate
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system. Click now to learn more. Now, when I said the card wasn't going to
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deliver groundbreaking performance, I probably wasn't telling the very clever
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among you anything you didn't already know. When we look at its specs compared
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to the R9280 whose price point it pretty much replaces. It features the same
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number of cores, texture, and render output units. It has a slightly lower
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clock speed. It has a narrower 256-bit memory bus with 33% less memory overall.
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So that's 2 gigs of DDDR5. Then it has a slightly higher memory clock to
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compensate for some of those other deficiencies. And it features a 5% lower
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TDP, meaning that heat output will be reduced. Of course though, with GPUs,
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it's never about comparing specs head-to-head directly. And AMD has made
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some tweaks under the hood that will improve tessellation performance,
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compute performance, and memory performance that they hope will make up
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for some of these spec deficiencies. On
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top of that, AMD has added a couple of multimedia features, including automatic
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configuration of the speakers in your iinity monitor or TV setup as left, mid,
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and right channels, along with hardware H.264 4K encode, and decode support that
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will significantly reduce power consumption when playing back 4K
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content. This is a feature that even the new Hawaii R9290 series GPUs don't have.
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AMD's engineers have been busy. Now, AMD
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didn't send us a reference card, so let's take a minute to appreciate the
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specifics of the Gigabyte Windforce Edition card that we have received. Like
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all Gigabyte Windforce graphics cards, it features an open airflow
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non-reference Windforce branded cooler. That enough Windforce for you? This one
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features a dual heat pipe and aluminum fin design that did a great job of
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keeping the 285 cool in our testing. It's got two DVI ports, HDMI and display
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port. It's got dual 100 mm fans. It's
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got reversed PCI Express power connectors, which is actually quite nice
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for cable management. A PCI Express 16x slot on the bottom, and no bridge
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connector at the top is needed thanks to the XDMMA Crossfire support in the Tonga
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GPU. But you don't just want to watch me stare at this GPU thing for seven
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minutes, do you?
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No, no. You want to know about the performance? Well, here it is. Take it
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away, Luke. All right, guys. Remember how I used to sound like a zombie all the time? Well, I'm back. Uh, first of
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all, none of these cards are actually overclocked. A large number of you guys
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have been asking us to run our benchmarks not overclocked for some time
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now, and we've decided to see how it goes. There's also been a platform
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change. We have swapped out our old platform for a new ASUS X99 Deluxe
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motherboard, a 5930K running at stock,
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and 16 GB of GSkill memory, also running at a stock speed of 2133 MHz. Due to a
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horrible naming scheme, it can be a little bit confusing figuring out where the R9285 lands in AMD's product stack.
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To try to show where the card falls in the general graphics card landscape, we
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decided to benchmark it against a GTX 760, which should be fairly similar in
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both price and performance. Then I threw it against a GTX 750Ti and an
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R9290 in order to represent some other fairly common price points as well. AMD
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fans will be happy to hear that the R9285 performed admirably in the games
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that I tested in, beating out the GTX 760 in two out of three tests and
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proving its worth in its price bracket. To be honest though, this is pretty much
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exactly what was expected of this graphics card as the graphics card game
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has been pretty easy to predict as of late. Well, that's it for Zombie Voice.
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Back to you, Linus. So, there you have it, folks. It performs about as
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expected, but here's something you might not have expected. AMD is refreshing
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their Never Settle game bundle program. Now, it's Space Edition, and this one
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qualifies for the gold level, so you can pick up to any three of the 29 games
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available. Check it out. For gamers buying graphics cards, an appealing game
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that they were planning to pick up anyway can be a very compelling value
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ad. So, it's conclusion time. You get a
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DirectX12 GPU that's feature complete compared to the rest of AMD's lineup and
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performs about like you'd expect an AMD GPU that costs 250 bucks to perform.
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Hard to go wrong. Not the most stunning or exciting conclusion ever, but this
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isn't the most stunning or exciting card ever either. Not that being a trusty
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workhorse is a bad thing. It's sold a lot of R9280s for AMD, and it'll do the
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same with the R9285. Thanks for watching, guys. Like
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