The AMD Radeon R9 285 Thread

Kaapstad · 8 Sep 2014 at 10:07

More reviews placed in OP.

Guru3D
Hardware Luxx
Hitech Legion
Vortez

sieze2 · 8 Sep 2014 at 10:18

FoxEye said:
More to the point, it's not offering any progress since the 7950 came out 3 years ago.

Not only is the performance not an improvement, but the price/perf is no better than the cards it replaces - in fact worse.

AMD have done this twice now. When the 280X was released it was more exensive than the 7970 was at the time.

Now the 285 is out it's more expensive than the 280.

The point is that we aren't going forwards at the moment, with each "new" generation prices are being bumped up a little before continuing their gradual decline. And what you get for you money stays roughly the same.

Whereas ideally with each new gen you should get more for the same money.

That's exactly how I feel about it....you totally nailed it. Each gen in is only 10% better, and you don't really get more for the money as mid range cards seem to have gone up overall.

sieze2 · 8 Sep 2014 at 10:20

Kaapstad said:
They are really nice looking cards too.

Just for the record the Dual x cooler is quite good, as long as you don't over clock, then it becomes much louder.

Wodgy · 8 Sep 2014 at 10:52

The r9 285 seems like a great card. ( Unfortunate that I bought an XFX 280 DD about 2 week before this was released).
However, I believe a lot of people are overestimating this card. From most comparisons ( Toms hardware etc) the 280 and 280x almost always come out on top. Especially using mantle on certain games.

FoxEye · 8 Sep 2014 at 11:34

humbug said:
To be fair this is simply a 280 replacement, in that is has features the 280 does not, like Free-Sync, True Audio, XDMA. In terms of performance at its slowest its as fast as a 280 while at its fastest its faster than a 280X, its a different architecture, a much better architecture with twice the Tessellation performance, and better memory management, hence the reason its faster than the 280X in some games.

In all the benchmarks I've seen (haven't read them all

) the 285 is consistently slower than a 280X. By a fair bit.

I'm not bothered about the new features and the power consumption is disappointing giving how much it was hyped as being AMD's answer to Maxwell.

humbug · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:06

FoxEye said:
In all the benchmarks I've seen (haven't read them all ) the 285 is consistently slower than a 280X. By a fair bit.

I'm not bothered about the new features and the power consumption is disappointing giving how much it was hyped as being AMD's answer to Maxwell.

At its fastest: 5% faster than a 280X

3DMarh 11: the same performance as a 280X.

At its slowest: Slightly faster than a 7950.

Out of 11 benchmarks it is:

Faster than a 280X: 3 times

Faster than a 7970: 7 times

Slower than a 7970: 1 time

The 7970 is clocked at 925/1375 http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/296/radeon-hd-7970.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_285_review,1.html

Wodgy · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:19

humbug said:
At its fastest: 5% faster than a 280X

3DMarh 11: the same performance as a 280X.

At its slowest: Slightly faster than a 7950.

Out of 11 benchmarks it is:

Faster than a 280X: 3 times

Faster than a 7970: 7 times

Slower than a 7970: 1 time

The 7970 is clocked at 925/1375 http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/296/radeon-hd-7970.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_285_review,1.html

I am far from an expert but in real world gaming performance the 280x ( even the 280) in a lot of cases seems to prevail over the 285.
Maybe the next gen of games will implement the new features better and be more biased towards the 285.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-285-tonga,3925.html

humbug · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:25

Wodgy said:
I am far from an expert but in real world gaming performance the 280x ( even the 280) in a lot of cases seems to prevail over the 285.
Maybe the next gen of games will implement the new features better and be more biased towards the 285.

In what way? what makes you say that? do you have a 280/X and 285? for you to say that one would assume that you do.

How do you come to that conclusion? is there something you know reviewers are doing wrong? can you give us an example?

Wodgy · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:29

humbug said:
In what way? what makes you say that? do you have a 280/X and 285? for you to say that one would assume that you do.

How do you come to that conclusion? is there something you know reviewers are doing wrong? can you give us an example?

I just posted a link like you.

2013 · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:30

Hi I already have a 280x, would I need to upgrade ?

could some give me some information, I know for someone buying a new card the 285 would be better, but does someone have a comparison 285 vs 280x, will there be a 285x to follow ?

Gregster · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:32

2013 said:
Hi I already have a 280x, would I need to upgrade ?

could some give me some information, I know for someone buying a new card the 285 would be better, but does someone have a comparison 285 vs 280x, will there be a 285x to follow ?

Stick with your 280X bud. Nothing in it by all accounts

FoxEye · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:36

Gregster said:
Stick with your 280X bud. Nothing in it by all accounts

"Nothing in it by all accounts".

Not so. Many reviews benchmark the 280X considerably faster than the 285. In Crysis 3, in Metro:LL, BF4, etc.

humbug · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:38

Wodgy said:
I just posted a link like you.

Yep.

Faster than 280X: 1

Faster than 280: 3

Same as 280: 3

Slower than 280: 1

Whats wrong with that?

@ 2013, get a 290

Wodgy · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:40

humbug said:
Yep.

Faster than 280X: 1

Faster than 280: 3

Same as 280: 3

Slower than 280: 1

Whats wrong with that?

Nothing. I just thought via that review that the 280x is faster in most games.
Believe me , if I realised the 285 was being released I would have opted for that instead of my 280

.

2013 · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:44

Well the 280x does what i need, Ive not had the need to upgrade, Im just thinking about the extra features like direct x 12 support.

I don't know but im assuming this is a on-board feature bios upgrade can add the feature.

humbug · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:45

Wodgy said:
Nothing. I just thought via that review that the 280x is faster in most games.
Believe me , if I realised the 285 was being released I would have opted for that instead of my 280 .

ok ^^^^

humbug · 8 Sep 2014 at 13:47

2013 said:
Well the 280x does what i need, Ive not had the need to upgrade, Im just thinking about the extra features like direct x 12 support.

I don't know but im assuming this is a on-board feature bios upgrade can add the feature.

I think there will be a 285X as Tonga has 2048 Stream Processors lurking in it.

It may even have a 384Bit bus and 3GB of Vram.

Gregster · 8 Sep 2014 at 14:27

FoxEye said:
"Nothing in it by all accounts".

Not so. Many reviews benchmark the 280X considerably faster than the 285. In Crysis 3, in Metro:LL, BF4, etc.

Fair enough

meldarthx · 8 Sep 2014 at 14:35

Hmmm......285 is interesting as everything I've gathered its replacing 280......not the 280X...

That will be replaced by the 285X which should come early Oct......I think that is the confusion.

Differences; 285 - tru audio; will do full freesync in games; not just video; and updated 1.2 gcn; and slighly smaller gpu, but more transistors crammed into it.

David Bisset · 8 Sep 2014 at 15:10

Lots of people comparing this with the 280X ... shows the branding is a bit of a mess that people are getting confused.

If they'd just kept the 7950 & 7970 named as they were then these replacements could slot in neatly to the new lineup. :S