Revisiting the Radeon R9 280X / HD 7970

[Julio Franco]

Continuing along with revisiting some of our favorite old graphics cards, today we'll be checking back in with the Radeon R9 280X, which is also to say that we're checking back in with the 7970 GHz Edition, both of which are essentially a factory overclocked Radeon HD 7970, so we'll technically be revisiting that, too, the very same card we first reviewed in December 2011!

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1592-revisiting-radeon-r9-280x-radeon-hd-7970/

 

[Potato Judge]

That R9 280x gave me my potato gaming fix for 3 years before it "semi" died and had to be replaced. Pretty solid card for 1080P.

 

[meric]

Still a decently capable 1080p card if you don't mind the power consumption. I run a 380x alongside a i5 4460 and I got more than acceptable frame rates in some popular titles like witcher 3 etc

 

[veLa]

Just like the GTX 680, it's still a competent card if you still haven't moved up to 1440p.

 

[merikafyeah]

R9 280Xs are also great for hackintoshes. They hit that budget/performance sweet spot like no other card.

And as I said in my post on "Revisiting the GTX 680", yes they definitely edge out the GTX 960.

 

[Vito05]

I've been using AMD Sapphire 280X 3G for 4 years now, and I can still play anything today. I plan to use it until 2020. Awesome performance for such an old REBRANDED card!

 

[Nightfire]

Damn, Tahiti really did she well. The gtx 680 was actually closer to the 7950 than the 280x even with the rare 4gb version.
Combined with amazing compute performance, these will go down as one of the greatest gpus of all time.

Great article, Steve!

 

[ET3D]

I love these articles. Very relevant in the current market, but also interesting from a technical perspective of how old cards age.

 

[GreyFoxx]

I had a standard R9 280 3GB and it was excellent for 1080p, you could also OC that S**t out of it and it still ran golden! I later upgraded to a 1070 and sold the 280 to a miner for the same price I paid for it

 

[Colonel Blimp]

Thank you for this, given my moan on the "Revisiting the GTX 680" comments page!

Looks like I'll be hanging on to my 280x for a while longer, even though both fans died and I've cabled tied 2x 80mm case fans powered by Molex's to it

In fact, I was running this with a Phenom 965 up until last November and was seriously concerned I'd have to replace everything, a budget I didn't have.

Ended up going Ryzen 1600 and keeping this, so glad I did, it's like having a new card.

Great job. Great card.

 

[GreenNova343]

Still a decently capable 1080p card if you don't mind the power consumption. I run a 380x alongside a i5 4460 and I got more than acceptable frame rates in some popular titles like witcher 3 etc

Yeah, similar situation here. My 380 is paired up with an FX-8320, & has been more than sufficient for my sub-1080p gaming needs (primary monitor maxes out at 1600x900) -- performs extremely well in SC/SC2, Diablo II/III, Overwatch, & even Fallout 4 & DiRT 4.

 

[Lounds]

Thank you for this, given my moan on the "Revisiting the GTX 680" comments page!

Looks like I'll be hanging on to my 280x for a while longer, even though both fans died and I've cabled tied 2x 80mm case fans powered by Molex's to it

In fact, I was running this with a Phenom 965 up until last November and was seriously concerned I'd have to replace everything, a budget I didn't have.

Ended up going Ryzen 1600 and keeping this, so glad I did, it's like having a new card.

Great job. Great card.

I've done a similar thing, but I've got the 7870XT which was actually a Tahiti GPU slightly cut down, it should of been the 7930, still runs most things I want to play. Also Ryzen 1600 is the best budget cpu in my life time.

 

[hansrotech]

Still hanging onto my MSI 7970 Lightning, the EK water block for it allowed me to push the core to 1150 mhz without adjusting core voltage, memory is boosted in speed to 1600mhz. I believe It will keep soldiering on until it either fails or decide to go with VR.

Has been a very solid GPU, longer lasting than even the mighty Radeon 9800pro (poor thing died as I did not hear its fan fail).

 

[UncleSharkey]

Unfortunately even the used video card market sucks.

 

[DZillaXx]

Nice article! The 7970 holds up pretty well. Would have liked to have seen a Overclocked Test for both this and the GTX680, but we can get a pretty good idea regardless.

Card has held up very well over the years, other than the rocky first year of its life with their drivers.


When these were around $70-80 used this was my goto card to recommend people looking for a used card with power. At the current Price, Go GTX1050TI and get the warranty and lower power usage.

Would love to see the HD7870 (270x) next.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It simply amazes me that a new 6 year old flagship can STILL hold its own at 1080p, the resolution it was designed to perform at.

10 years ago, you'd be insane to think that would be possible.

Incidentally, the only other GPU I can think of that had a long lifespan was the ATI 9800 pro, and even that pales in comparison.

Cmon AMD, give us the next 7970!

 

[Joaquin Marti]

Awesome article! Been rocking my 280x for 4 and a half years now, and the way things are looking I'm going to keep it for another year or two at least. I want to update my FX6350 to a Ryzen 5 but money is tight and RAM prices are through the roof...

 

[Rockstarrrr]

Damn, Tahiti really did she well. The gtx 680 was actually closer to the 7950 than the 280x even with the rare 4gb version.
Combined with amazing compute performance, these will go down as one of the greatest gpus of all time.

Great article, Steve!

Its great, yes, and it will be fondly remembered. But in 2013, it rival was 770, which was OC 680, yes, but still faster.

 

[maestro0428]

I had an ASUS r280x which I sold during the first crypto craze for double what I paid for it.

 

[Lionvibez]

I'll still be on my MSI 7970Ghz Boost card right now if I didn't start getting artifacts on the display. It was a good run had it for 5 years recently just upgraded to the RX580. But this articles sums it up well. The 7970Ghz was the new Radeon 9700\9800pro but lasted much longer.

Mine was water cooled so I'm going to put the stock cooling back on it and see if I can revive her.

 

[Shadowboxer]

I have a pair of these in crossfire. I think they suck! They were good but I should have replaced them last year.

I’m curious as to why it looks like only easy to run semi popular games were tested? Try running AC syndicate on this card or Titanfall2. Or even PUBG? Don’t see why that game wasn’t tested? It’s like the most popular game ever!

 

[Steve]

I have a pair of these in crossfire. I think they suck! They were good but I should have replaced them last year.

I’m curious as to why it looks like only easy to run semi popular games were tested? Try running AC syndicate on this card or Titanfall2. Or even PUBG? Don’t see why that game wasn’t tested? It’s like the most popular game ever!

All those games run fine on an R9 280X, PUBG was discussed in the article and Titanfall 2 is extremely easy to run. This card also plays AC syndicate relatively easily. If you're the least bit realistic with quality settings at 1080p the 7970/280X works very well as expressed by numerous people in this thread.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

I have a pair of these in crossfire. I think they suck! They were good but I should have replaced them last year.

I’m curious as to why it looks like only easy to run semi popular games were tested? Try running AC syndicate on this card or Titanfall2. Or even PUBG? Don’t see why that game wasn’t tested? It’s like the most popular game ever!

OK, here's the list of games I run at 1080p with smooth gameplay.

GTA5, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, BF1, Assetto Corsa, Fallout 4 with mods.

Pretty sure some of these are quite popular.

Can't vouch for any others like PUBG, others may be able to advise here.

 

[GreenNova343]

I have a pair of these in crossfire. I think they suck! They were good but I should have replaced them last year.

I’m curious as to why it looks like only easy to run semi popular games were tested? Try running AC syndicate on this card or Titanfall2. Or even PUBG? Don’t see why that game wasn’t tested? It’s like the most popular game ever!

Probably because they already tested the R9 380/380X in PUBG (https://www.techspot.com/article/1551-pubg-graphics-benchmarks/), & didn't feel like wasting their time doing it again?

Sure, they doesn't look great on Ultra @ 1080p...but seriously, when a GTX 1080TI struggles to get above 100FPS average at 1080p (& has a 50FPS gap between minimum & average) -- & on a Coffee Lake Core i7 to boot!! -- I don't think there's any reason to be concerned with the 380's performance (or by extension the pre-rebadged 280 & 7870 versions), especially if you turn the details down a bit. That kind of performance hit can be placed more on PUBG than on the GPU.

 

[BadThad]

R9's are still good cards today, just turn the graphics down a bit and you're gold. What's sad is that gamers have to resort to buying old tech because of miners!