ASUS R9 280X Matrix Platinum Review

Rating: 8.5.

It is a busy week for AMD partners as they release a slew of new graphics cards vying for sales. In this review we look at the high end Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum which features a heavily customised three slot cooler and impressive out of the box overclock. Is this the card that you want next for a system upgrade?

Earlier this week we reviewed the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor X and it scored well in our review. I have to say it has been slightly disappointing to find that AMD have basically just tweaked their HD7970 GHZ Edition and brought it back out for release. Fortunately in the real world the hardware can still produce excellent frame rates at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

The Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum is their top model in this specific range and ships with a core overclock at 1,100mhz. The GDDR5 memory has also been overclocked to 1,600mhz (6.4Gbps effective).

Many of the AMD R9 280X graphics cards are priced between £250 and £290 but the Asus Matrix Platinum is one of the most expensive you can buy. At £319.99 inc vat this card really does need to deliver an incredible experience to justify the high asking price.


The ASUS R9 280X Matrix Platinum ships in the distinctive red Republic Of Gamers box. No image on the front, but …

… plenty of information on the gatefold style opening. This card has a ‘MATRIX LED load indicator' colour readout which shows various load states. The bundle is impressive, there is a video convertor, Crossfire cable, LN2 heatsink, VGA hotwire cables, software disc, ROG sticker and a Steelseries branded Diablo mousemat.

There are five colours in total. Light Blue is ‘Light Loading', Green is ‘Safe Mode', Pink is ‘Heavy Loading', Purple is ‘Medium Loading' and Red is “Extreme Loading'.

This is a big, heavy three slot card and is built to the highest standards we would expect from a premium ASUS product. Two large semi transparent fans reside behind a metal shroud. The card also has a backplate to aid cooling and protect the PCB.

Yes, it is a three slot cooler, which seems a little overkill for an R9 280X. It can also cause problems in some systems if you want to run in Crossfire due to the massive physical dimensions. That said, there are no shortage of outputs on the back of the card – a DVI-I, DVI-D and four DisplayPort connectors.

Two Crossfire connectors, if you have the space for the monster three slot cards.

The card demands power from two 8 PIN PCIE power connectors.


The R9 280X Matrix Platinum is a 20 phase super alloy power design. The DIGI+ VRM digital voltage regulation design augments precision overclocking capabilities which are supported with hardened Super Alloy Power chokes, capacitors and MOSFETs. Six thick copper heatpipes run along the full length of the card, supported by the two fans above.

ASUS are using Japanese made black metallic capacitors (Nichicon GT) which offer 20% low temperature endurance and five times longer lifespan.

3GB of SK Hynix GDDR5 is fitted to this board.

The ASUS R9 280X Matrix Platinum core is overclocked from 1,050mhz to 1,100mhz and the memory is overclocked from 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective) to 1,600mhz (6.4Gbps effective). The card has 32 ROP's, 128 TMU's and 2,048 Stream Processors. The 3GB of GDDR5 is connected via a 384 bit memory interface.
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.





For our review today we are using the latest Catalyst 13.11 and Forceware 331.40 drivers. These drivers have the latest performance enhancements and bug fixes.

We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by PCSPECIALIST and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page.

We are using a Dell 3011 monitor for this review. We test at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.

Comparison cards:
eVGA GTX760 SC (1072mhz core / 1502mhz memory)

Palit GTX770 (1046mhz core / 1753mhz memory)

MSI GTX780 (863mhz core / 1502mhz memory)
Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (lethal boost enabled) (1200mhz core / 1600mhz memory)

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Rome 2
Dirt Showdown
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
GRID 2
Alien V Predator
Splinter Cell Blacklist

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset.

A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the settings shown above at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

Excellent performance at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.
Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

We test with the settings above both at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.

Solid performance all round at both resolutions- although it is clear AMD need to spend a little time optimising this particular benchmark.Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

A good result, noticeably higher than the reference board, scoring 41718 points.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

A graphics score of 11,143 points places the Matrix Platinum right behind the HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.

Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.

To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”

A good score, only 300 points behind the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition.
Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 1920×1080 / 2560×1600 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.

Excellent results, just slightly ahead of the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor X edition which we reviewed earlier in the week.
Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

This game is still a system killer at these maximised settings. We test at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

A demanding engine at these settings, and it proves to be too much for all the hardware on test at 2560×1600, dropping below the sweet spot of 25 frames per second.
Total War ROME 2 is the eighth stand alone game in the Total War series, it is the successor to the successful Rome: Total War title. The Warscape Engine powers the visuals of the game and the new unit cameras will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time.

Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This will be realised using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles.

To test the cards today we use the ULTRA profile settings shown above at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.

Again, pretty much as we would expect for an overclocked HD7970, scoring in the top half of the chart.
Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

Today we test the hardware at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 with the Ultra profile and 8 x MSAA.

A favourite engine for AMD hardware and drivers, shown by the results.
After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.

We use the ULTIMATE profile shown above and test at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

The game is fully playable at these high settings, even at 2560×1600.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike.

4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.

We test this game with the built in benchmark with very high quality settings at 1920×1080 – details shown in the image above.

Slightly lower results than the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition, as we would expect.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid.  It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.

We test at 1920×1080 with the Ultra image quality preset, as shown above. 8x MSAA was enabled to improve image quality.

All of the hardware in this review can power GRID 2, right up to 2560×1600 with high anti aliasing. The Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum falls in between the HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition and the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor X.
Splinter Cell Blacklist is the sixth installment in the series.

The game begins with Sam Fisher and his old friend Victor Coste who are about to depart from Andersen AFB in Guam when an unknown enemy force destroys the entire base. Assisted by hacker specialist Charlie Cole, Sam and Vic manage to escape, although Vic is injured after protecting Sam from a grenade. Soon after, a terrorist group calling itself “The Engineers” assumes responsibility for the attack and announce that it was the first of a deadly countdown of escalating attacks (called “The Blacklist”) on United States assets, declaring that they will halt the attacks only after the U.S. government accomplish the demand of calling back all American troops deployed abroad.

We test with a series of high image quality settings as shown above and with 4x MSAA and 16 x Anisotropic filtering enabled.

Very high image quality settings, but no problems powering the game, averaging 45 frames per second.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature.

We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.


Surprising to see such a huge 3 slot cooler not delivering a better result in this test, peaking at 74 degrees when gaming. This rises to 83c in the synthetic Furmark test. By comparison the Vapor X cooler on the Sapphire R9 280x is around 11c cooler under the same conditions.

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

An exceptionally quiet card, it would be difficult to hear any noise inside a gaming system. We do however feel Asus should have been slightly more aggressive with their fan profile as the temperatures recorded on the last page could be lower.
To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.

The ASUS R9 280X Matrix Platinum demands more power than the reference board and the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor X.
For our overclocking tests today we used the latest version of MSI Afterburner as well as the proprietary ASUS ROG Edition GPU Tweak software. Both software packages delivered the same final results.


The Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum is shipped in a high state of overclock, but we managed to get another 88mhz from the core before we ran into problems. We experimented with a lot of voltage settings in both software packages and came to the same conclusion that this was pretty much as good as we would get on air cooling.
There is no doubt that the Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum is engineered to the highest standards. Not only is it supplied in a very high state of overclock, but the results are very close to the flagship Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition of the last generation. The Matrix Platinum is much quieter than the older Sapphire card, which will please many people.

An argument has been made that the R9 280X is just basically a reflashed HD7970 GHZ Edition, but in the real world these are still very capable graphics cards that can power the latest games at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.

While we aren't questioning the performance of the Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum, we are surprised to see a triple slot cooler fitted to a R9 280X, even if it is overclocked. Many users who want to run high end Crossfire find it difficult to make room for 6 slots … just for a simple 2 way Crossfire configuration.

We wouldn't mind so much if the triple slot ASUS cooler was leading the way in regards to cooling performance, but the Vapor X cooler on the Sapphire R9 280X delivers a lower thermal output while taking up only two slots. There is no doubt that the ASUS cooler is one of the quietest on the market, but we had hoped that a triple slot cooler built to this standard would perform better.

Every card, even within the same range will overclock to a slightly different level, and our particular review sample hit close to 1,200mhz. This is impressive and pretty much close to the highest result we have seen for a HD7970 with air cooling.

The cost of this card is rather high in the United Kingdom, Overclockers UK are already listing this card at £319.99 inc vat – placing it as one of the most expensive R9 280X available at launch. We would expect prices to drop a little, although the high engineering standards from ASUS and their reputation mean they can command a price premium and still sell well.

This is certainly one of the best R9 280X solutions you are likely to get, however we do question the use of a triple slot cooler. It makes sense on the ultra high end ARES cards but we don't believe a R9 280X needs something quite so gargantuan.

Pros:

• very high state of overclock, out of the box.
• very quiet.
• built to the highest standards.
• excellent bundle.

Cons:

• Expensive.
• triple slot cooler.

Kitguru says: A beast of a card with no expense spared by ASUS. The cooler is ultra quiet however the fan profile could be set up with a slightly more aggressive profile to drop temperatures further. Is a triple slot cooler really necessary on a R9 280x?

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