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Why does R9 380 perform worse than R9 280X?

keymoo

keymoo

keymoo

Associate
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
230
Location
Bedfordshire, UK
PC1
PSU: BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W
Mobo: Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge)
Memory: G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
GPU: Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 280X DUAL-X
OS: Windows 10

PC2
PSU: Cougar STX 650W 80 Plus Corsair 430W V2 CX Series PSU
Mobo: Asrock A75M-HVS P1.80
Processor: AMD Llano A6-3650 2.60GHz Socket FM1
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866Mhz Memory Kit CL9 1.5V
GPU: XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB
OS: Windows 10

I ran the unigine valley benchmark for both PCs. Results:

PC1 (with R9 280X)
FPS: 67.1
Score: 2806

PC2 (with R9 380)
FPS: 40.1
Score: 1680

PC2 is bottlenecked by the CPU/mobo, I think. So I swapped the GPUs over in the PCs and here are the new results:

PC1 (with R9 380):
FPS: 63.1
Score: 2642

PC2 (with R9 280X):
FPS: 40.5
Score: 1696

I expected PC1 with the R9 380 to be much better than all the tests, but it wasn't, it was slower than the R9 280X. I was not surprised that the R9 380 in PC2 was no better than the R9 280 because it's being bottlenecked. Any ideas on why the R9 380 is so underwhelming?
 
arc@css said:
It's partly down to the 280X having more processing units (2072 units vs 1792).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. What's annoying is I paid about £100 for the 280X over a year ago, and I bought the 380 a month ago for £150. I feel like I made a bad purchase.
 
keymoo said:
Thanks for the reply. What's annoying is I paid about £100 for the 280X over a year ago, and I bought the 380 a month ago for £150. I feel like I made a bad purchase.
Click to expand...

That's a shame. I guess your best bet is to either ask the retailer as nicely as possible if they would take it back, explaining you made a mistake (highly unlikely, but maybe worth a try), or sell it soon to get as much for it as possible. Perhaps they will give you a credit note.
 
Last edited:
To be honest, yes, you did make a bad purchase. The 280x and 380 kinda trade blows. In newer games with tessellation usage the 380 often wins, but in older games the 280x often wins. (btw, the 380 is a 285 rebrand).

Honestly, you should have gone for the R9 390 or Nvidia 970. Try and return the 380, and save more for the 390/970. (390 would be my choice...make sure you update your motherboard bios first!).


p.s. I am amazed you only paid 100 for the 280X.
 
The 390 and GTX 970 are out of my budget (cheapest £240 on OC), the top I could pay was £150, so based on that it's probably not bad at all. In conclusion I got a real bargain when I bought the 280X, but it was second hand and the 380 was new. Makes a bit more sense now.
 
keymoo said:
One is my son's PC and the other is mine. It's fine I just wanted to understand why the card wasn't meeting my expectation.
Click to expand...

the 380 which is a 285 was basiclay replacing the 280 performance wise, you also have 380X replacing the 280X, so you card is a bit slower but not by much more like 10-15%
 
AMD's naming scheme can be misleading unless you've looked at benchmark comparison charts beforehand... hence your purchase of the 380 I guess.

I have a 280X Vapor-X which was bought brand new a year ago for £170 and I was hoping to upgrade recently to a 380X. Next-generation of same card, heaps more performance? Nope, not at all.

Sticking with 280X now until new AMD and Nvidia cards show up.
 
A case of re-badging old cards striking the consumer.

Edit: misread the OP! I think until manufacturers start making bigger jumps through new processes second hand is the real winner here.
 
jumeeno said:
AMD's naming scheme can be misleading unless you've looked at benchmark comparison charts beforehand...
Click to expand...

Especially true when the R270 was a 7870 rebrand, and the R370 is a 7850 rebrand.

It's a bit mean spirited, tbh. I wonder how many people were caught out by that little bit of trickery. If anyone "upgraded" from a 270 to a 370 they got a worse card.
 
I agree, I don't think the naming conventions of either sides cards do anything except hinder peoples purchases to be honest. Both naming schemes are usually confusing and crap. But even more so when a rebrand/refresh of older architectures takes place.

It really does pay to do your research before shelling out on new cards these days.

:(
 
The entire 300 series is pretty bland, in terms of performance it's about the same as the 200 series with the same last 2 digits. The majority of it is even just rebrands of the 200 series. Heck, my ancient 7950 is very similar to the 380 in terms of performance :p.

Hopefully Polaris will also bring an entire series refresh, I thought Nvidia was bad with rebrands a few years ago but not any more...
 
Both sides do it, remember the 760 replacing the 670 with lower specs and actually being just a tad slower but at the same price more or less.
As Foxeye just said the whole 7870 turning into the 270 and then the 370 only being a 7850.

The sooner we get off 28nm the better.
 
Orcvader said:
The entire 300 series is pretty bland, in terms of performance it's about the same as the 200 series with the same last 2 digits. The majority of it is even just rebrands of the 200 series. Heck, my ancient 7950 is very similar to the 380 in terms of performance :p.

Hopefully Polaris will also bring an entire series refresh, I thought Nvidia was bad with rebrands a few years ago but not any more...
Click to expand...

Whether you think it's 'bland' or not - I upgraded from a 7950 to a MSI 390X (bought for £324 over 6 months ago) and the performance difference was massive, pretty much double the FPS in many cases.

Very happy with my purchase, running 1440P 144hz Freesync and it's smooth as butter :)

I'll probably upgrade to Polaris quite soon after release, if it's a great card.
 
Dave2150 said:
Whether you think it's 'bland' or not - I upgraded from a 7950 to a MSI 390X (bought for £324 over 6 months ago) and the performance difference was massive, pretty much double the FPS in many cases.

Very happy with my purchase, running 1440P 144hz Freesync and it's smooth as butter :)

I'll probably upgrade to Polaris quite soon after release, if it's a great card.
Click to expand...

The point being that you could have upgraded to a 290X and got the same perf increase, more or less.

"The 300 series is bland" still remains true. Would anyone consider upgrading a 290 to a 390, for example? Maybe if you needed the extra vram for crossfire, but otherwise probably not.

And nobody would upgrade an 8GB 290X to a 390X. Nobody :p (I forgot about those 8gb 290 cards :p)
 
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