Sapphire Dual-X R9 270 Review

Rating: 8.5.

This week AMD launch their new R9 270 graphics card – set to replace the HD7850 at the lower end of the enthusiast gaming market. Thankfully today we haven't been forced to review a reference AMD solution and instead we can focus on some higher grade partner cards.

We all love to see the reviews of the high end hardware such as the R9 290X and GTX780 Ti, but they account for a very small percentage of overall company sales for AMD or Nvidia. The high volume sales come in the lower end market and AMD have been keen to replace their long term HD7850 before the end of the year. The new R9 270 should be priced in the same zone, while bringing more power to the table.

The R9 270 is set to compliment the faster R9 270X, much like the HD7850 paired up with the HD7870 in the past. US pricing of the 270 is set at $179, or 134 euros in Europe. We therefore expect UK pricing to be between £130-£140 inc vat.

The official specifications for the R9 270 are shown above. AMD have given the card 1,280 Stream Processors – the same as the R9 270X version. The 270 core clock is significantly reduced, with AMD stating a maximum speed of 925mhz. Both partner cards we are reviewing today are overclocked and ignore the reference rating.

The R9 270 has 32 ROPS and 80 Texture Units with 2GB of GDDR5 connected via a 256 bit memory interface. Memory speeds are rated at 1,400mhz, or 5.6 Gbps effective. Typical board power is rated to 150W, which is the same as the HD7850 before it. The basic specifications are identical to the R9 270X, with lower core clock speeds differentiating the models.

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