Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC Review

1. Introduction2. Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC3. Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Unigine Valley Benchmark7. 3DMark Vantage8. 3DMark 119. Alien V Predator10. Sleeping Dogs11. Total War: ROME 212. Dirt ShowDown13. Tomb Raider14. Metro Last Light15. GRID 216. Splinter Cell: Blacklist17. Thermal Dynamics18. Acoustics Performance19. Power Consumption20. Overclocking21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

Today we take a look at the latest addition to the Sapphire R9 family of graphics cards. The R9 270X Toxic Edition follows in the footprints of the class leading R9 280X Toxic Edition which we reviewed last month. Is our review subject worthy of the ‘Toxic' moniker?

Sapphire have had a lot of success in the last year, releasing some of the finest AMD based solutions to hit retail. We are always a little excited to get our hands on a Toxic Edition card, because they are over engineered with some of the best cooling solutions available to the consumer.

The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition is the fastest R9 270X to grace our labs, with a core overclock to 1,150mhz. Sapphire have also overclocked the GDDR5 memory, to 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective). Available at only £179.99 inc vat – is this the most cost effective graphics card you can buy today?

The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC arrives in a gold coloured box featuring a robot on the front.

Inside the peripherals box is a quick start guide, a driver/software disc, an HDMI cable, as well as some video and power converter cables and a Crossfire connector.

The Sapphire solution is a heavy two slot card which is very dramatically styled. The cooler comprises a central gold/yellow fan contrasting against the two black fans on either side. On the rear of the card is a two tone backplate to enhance cooling performance and to reduce the risks of damage.

The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition takes power from two six pin PCI power connectors. Same as the reference design.

It is Crossfire capable in a 2, 3 way configuration. Next to the Crossfire connector is a Sapphire button. On this particular card this just switches between compatiblility with UEFI and non UEFI systems.

The I/O plate has a DVI-I and DVI-D connector, alongside a full sized HDMI and DisplayPort.

It is widely known that AMD Radeon HD 7xxx parts (and earlier) currently can support a maximum of 2 HDMI/DVI displays, and the rest must be DisplayPort connections (or active DisplayPort adapters).

AMD Radeon R9 Series can now support up to three HDMI/DVI displays for use with AMD Eyefinity technology. A set of displays which support identical timings is required to enable this feature. The display clocks and timing for this feature are configured at boot time. As such, display hot‐plugging is not supported for the third HDMI/DVI connection.

A reboot is required to enable three HDMI/DVI displays.DisplayPort outputs are supported in addition to the three HDMI/DVI displays (up to 6 in total).

The new Tri-X cooler is fantastic. It is built around 3 massive 10mm heatpipes which get direct cooling from the three large fans above. This particular card uses a 10 phase power delivery system and high quality black diamond chokes for maximum stability under load.

AMD's R270X is built on the 28nm process. The core on this Sapphire board is clocked 100mhz higher than the reference design at 1,150mhz and it has 32 ROPs, 80 TMU’s and 1,280 Stream Processors. The 2GB of GDDR5 is connected via a 256 bit memory interface. The memory is clocked at 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective) which is 100mhz higher than the reference board (1,400mhz or 5.6Gbps effective).

This high overclock should translate into a considerable performance boost over the reference card.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 beta 9 driver and Forceware 331.65 drivers. These drivers have the latest performance enhancements and bug fixes – all other cards used in previous reviews have been retested for the review today.

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.

Comparison cards:
AMD R9 270X Reference (1050mhz core / 1400mhz memory)
ASUS R9 270X Direct CU II TOP (1,120mhz core / 1,400mhz memory)
ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II OC (975mhz core / 1,400mhz memory)
VTX3D HD7870 Tahiti LE (975mhz core / 1500mhz memory)
VTX3D VChamp HD7850 (1000mhz core / 1225mhz memory)
ASUS HD7850 (860mhz core / 1,200mhz memory)
eVGA GTX760 SC (1072 mhz core / 1502mhz 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.


These are very strong results for the Sapphire solution, averaging almost 60 frames per second at 1080p. The eVGA GTX760 SC claims top spot in our performance chart, almost 6 frames per second ahead.
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.


The Nvidia cards perform better in this particular benchmark as AMD don't seem to spend any time optimising this engine. That said, the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC claims second place, averaging 66.4 frames per second.
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.


Again, the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC claims second spot in our chart, around 1,000 points behind the eVGA GTX760 SC.
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.If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.


The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC manages to oust the eVGA GTX760 SC at the top of the chart, claiming a final graphics score of 9,037 points.
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 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.

The eVGA GTX760 SC takes top spot in this Direct X 11 game, with the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC holding the second place, averaging 84 frames per second.
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.

These results are very impressive, averaging 40 frames per second, a couple of frames ahead of the Asus R9 270X DCUII TOP.
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.

A fantastic result for the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC, taking top spot, just ahead of the overclocked GTX760.
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 with the Ultra profile and 8 x MSAA.

The system averages 70 frames per second, taking top spot in this AMD favourable Direct X 11 engine.
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.

The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC holds the same average frame rate as the overclocked GTX760, but the minimum frame rate is slightly better.
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.

This benchmark is extremely intensive and seems to swing a little in favour of Nvidia hardware according to our testing in the last month. The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC scores well, averaging 44 frames per second.
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.

GRID 2 is one of the latest racing games from CodeMasters. The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC scores very highly, claiming second position, behind the overclocked GTX760.
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.

A very demanding engine when you crank the image quality settings. A lot of the cards on test today can't hold smooth frame rates at our settings, although the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC scores well, just behind the eVGA GTX760 SC.
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.


There is no doubt that that new Sapphire Tri-X cooler is leading the way. The thick heatpipes hold gaming temperatures at 62c in our environment, which is close to the top of the chart. Interestingly however, the Direct CU II cooler on the R9 270X from ASUS manages to perform slightly better.
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.

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. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.

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

The card is almost silent when idle, rising to a load figure around 35dBa when gaming. When idle, the fans spin around 1,000 rpm, and at full load the fans increase to around 2,300 rpm.
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 the synthetic stress test Furmark and record both results.

The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC card is demanding a little more power than the Asus R9 270X Direct CU II TOP. Still the card is reasonably efficient considering the gaming performance.
To overclock today we used AMD's Catalyst Control Center.


This particular card is supplied in a very heavily overclocked state, running at 1,150mhz. We managed to get around 7.5% out of it before artifacting and instability would occur. The final result of 1,235mhz is our best yet for a R9 270X.


The healthy overclock resulted in another 450 points in 3DMark 11, around 500 points ahead of the eVGA GTX760 SuperClock card.
The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC is an exceptionally high value for money graphics card, delivering superb frame rates with the latest Direct X 11 games at 1080p.

We have reviewed a handful of AMD R9 270X partner cards already, including the excellent Asus R9 270X Direct CU II TOP which gives the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC a pretty close battle for top spot under £200. The Asus solution is a little quieter and closely matched to the new Sapphire Toxic Edition but it is more expensive and doesn't overclock quite as well either.

The reference R9 270X is quicker than the HD7870 and is also slightly faster than the HD7870 Tahiti LE, which was a big seller in the last year for AMD partners. The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC is significantly quicker than the Tahiti LE and currently costs £179.99 inc vat right now. The HD7870 Tahiti LE was similarly priced around 6 months ago, so it is good to see the consumer is getting a sweeter deal as we head to the end of 2013.

The build quality of the Toxic Edition OC is fantastic. Sapphire are using their latest Tri-X cooler with 10mm heatpipes and have incorporated a 10 phase power system on this card to offer maximum stability under overclocked load situations. The use of high grade diamond black chokes is also reassuring to see, especially as this card is so highly overclocked out of the box.

While every card will overclock to a different level, the headroom on our particular review sample was substantial. We managed to push the core clock speed to 1,235mhz – which pushes performance well past the eVGA GTX760 super clocked card that we used in this review. Even with a recent price cut, the eVGA GTX760 SuperClocked retails for £206.99, which is £27 more expensive than the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition OC.

At £179.99 inc vat, the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic Edition is not only one of the fastest cards under £200, but it is also built to the very highest standards.

Pros:

• immense build quality.
• high out of the box overclocks
• plenty of manual headroom on the core.
• super cooling solution.

Cons:

• A lot of competition under £200.

Kitguru says: A superb gaming card, built to the highest standards and able to power the latest Direct X 11 titles at 1080p.

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