Of the two SAPPHIRE NITRO Series cards featured in this issue, the R9 380 4GB leverages the newer architecture. That said, it’s still not completely new; the GPU in this graphics card is nearly identical to the one used in the Radeon R9 285, which launched less than a year ago under the codename Tonga. This card’s 28nm GCN 1.2-based GPU, code-named “Antigua”, features 5 billion transistors, 1,792 stream processors, 112 texture units, and 32 ROPs. Compared to GCN 1.1-based GPUs like those on the Radeon R9 390 and 390X, it is capable of parallel instruction processing between SIMD lanes, better compute task scheduling, and enhanced compute and media processing capabilities, thanks to a new set of 16-bit floating-point and integer instructions.
As with the other SAPPHIRE NITRO card we looked at, the biggest new features are its cooler and board. There are metal plates on the top and bottom edges of the cooler, with the SAPPHIRE logo painted onto the top piece. The heatsink is threaded with copper heatpipes and a thick copper plate rests against the GPU. The memory chips and VRM also make contact with the heatsink via the thermal pads between them, ensuring this card keeps cool when you’re pushing it hard. There are two quiet-running 100mm fans on this card and they remain motionless until heavily loaded, thanks to the IFC-II (enhanced Intelligent Fan Control) technology. Each fan also features dual ball bearings, which provide longer effective lifespans and greater reliability. All that cooling power will come in handy, considering SAPPHIRE ships this card with a factory overclock of 985MHz for the core. The memory clock is set to 1,450MHz, and it runs on a 256-bit bus with 4GB of GDDR5 for the frame buffer, which is a must-have for gamers who want to play at resolutions higher than 1080p.
According to SAPPHIRE, the Black Diamond chokes it uses on the NITRO Series cards operate 10% cooler and are 25% more energy-efficient than typical chokes. The firm also uses 16,000-hour capacitors, which ensures your card will continue running reliably for longer than you’ll ever need it to.
The card measures a hair under 9.5 inches long, making it good for smaller form-factor chassis, though the cooler extends above the bracket by nearly an inch, to accommodate the large diameter fans. You’ll need a pair of 6-pin PCIe power connectors to run this card and at least a 500-watt power supply. The back bracket accommodates dual-link DVI-I, DVI-D, mini HDMI, and DP output to a monitor.
In the benchmarks, 1,920 x 1,080 seemed to be where this card performs best. Scores in Dying Light were very respectable at both the low and high resolutions, though if you plan to play more demanding games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, plan to reduce settings or limit your resolution to 1080p to get the best experience.
Gamers looking for a lot of performance for not a lot of scratch will find lots to love about SAPPHIRE’s NITRO R9 380. BY ANDREW LEIBMAN
Specs
GPU: 28nm Antigua (Tonga Pro)
Clocks: 985MHz core, 1,450MHz memory
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Frame Buffer: 4GB GDDR5
Factory Overclocked: Yes
Ports: dual-link DVI-I, DVI-D, Mini HDMI, DisplayPort