A new brand name can’t disguise some familiar traits
Until this review, VTX3D wasn’t a brand I’d encountered. It is, however, one that is owned by the TUL Corporation of PowerColor fame. Why they need a different name in the European and Asian market I’ve no idea, but the name seems to be as far as the changes go, as the VTX3D R9 285 seems to embody many of the traits I’d expect given this heritage. Specifically: it’s not the quickest video card ever made, but remarkable value for money all the same.
AMD launched the R9 285 reference cards back in September last year, making the technology in this card at least a year old. However, of the entire 200 series, this is the only card that uses Graphic Core Next (GCN) 1.2, where all the others either don't use that architecture, or use GCN 1.0/1.1. The GPU was used in the Tonga PRO, the same one found on the R9 380, now renamed ‘Antigua’. It has no less than five billion transistors that are organised into whopping 1792 stream processors, 112 Texture mapping units (TMUs) and 32 Render Output Units (ROPs).
So, unless you’ve got some insane task for it to perform, that’s plenty of GPU power. However, to marshal all that video horsepower effectively the card also needs lots of memory bandwidth, and the R9 285 has a 256-bit wide pathway and 2GB of GDDR5 to provide 176GB/s. This relatively limited memory spec divides this design from the very high-end 200 series, which provide 512-bit wide paths, but it’s still a dramatic amount of bandwidth to service the GPU.
The reference R9 285 core and memory clocks are 918MHz and 1375MHz respectively, and the VTX3D version modestly boosts the core to 945MHz and leaves the memory speed unchanged. You can tweak these up higher, if you’re feeling brave, but stability will eventually be compromised at some point.
VTX3D did give this design two 80mm fans, blowing across a heat sink, and how fast they rotate is controlled by a board mounted thermostat. These can get clearly audible if you stress the card out with a benchmark, but generally it’s pretty quiet when challenged with most games.
The other aspect of this design you need to be made aware of is the outputs. With this much power available to you, thoughts may naturally drift to multi-display gaming, and the card comes with single DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort connections enabling four monitors to be connected merely by cables. If you’ve got a DisplayPort hub, that could go up to six, though for gaming most people typically use three.
As this is a DX12 compliant design, I chose to test it under Windows 10 on my trusty LGA 2011 test system, where I pitched it against its R9 290 big brother and a modern Nvidia equivalent, in the form of the GTX 950. The results show that this card equal to about 70% of its high-end R9 sibling, though depending on the resolution you’re running, there could be much less of a noticable difference when it comes to playing a game. It’s a good 10% quicker than the GTX 950, however, and even manages to edge out the GTX 960 above that.
What I’ve also started to do when benchmarking video cards is to run 3DMark’s API Overhead test, to get a handle on potential DX12 performance. Where the Nvidia cards perform better on processing DX11 calls, the architecture of AMD's R9 285 is superior at DX12, achieving a very healthy 16.7 million API calls per second. That compares with 14.8m on the Zotac GTX 950 AMP!
When you consider what this it costs, those are pretty amazing numbers, and mark out this card as a true bargain. If it has any sort of design weakness, though, it’s the requirement for dual six-pin PCI-E power lines. Despite this, TDP is just 190 watts, at least 35W less than the R9 280 it evolved from, and the R9 380 that has arrived to replace it. If AMD could only manage to fabricate this GPU using a 22nm process, and reduce that down to less than 150 watts, it would only need one PCI-E line and all would be a little better with the world.
However, with nearly as many Teraflops on offer as the R9 280 at much lower power consumption, this card seems to have the almost ideal mix of features. The only caveat to that high praise is that VTX3D have already discontinued it, presumably in favour of the R9 380. So if you want one at this price, I’d hunt for it while they’re still available.
VTX3D is clearly a name to watch in the future, though, if you like your video cards both cheap and blindingly fast – just like this one. Mark Pickavance
Decent last-gen AMD GPU technology that keeps on giving.
Specifications
Graphics Engine: R9 285
Video Memory: 2GB GDDR5
Stream Processor: 1792 Units
Engine Clock: 945MHz
Memory Clock: 1375MHz (5.5Gbps)
Memory Interface: 256bit
Bus Standard: PCI-E 3.0
Cooler: 2 slot Fan sink
Power Connector: Two 6-pin PCI Express Power Connector
Crossfire Support: Yes
OpenGL: 4.3
DirectX Support: DX12
Minimum System Power Requirement: 500W
Display Connectors: DL DVI-I, DL DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort