ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II OC 2 GB Video Card Review

Videocards/VGA Reviews by stefan @ 2014-08-04

The ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II VGA card shares the hardware with the more expensive 270X variant, but has lower stock clocks; from our experiences regarding overclocking with this card, we could say that it can easy surpass the R9 270X clocks or ever surpass it. Those who search the best bang for the buck VGA cards and won’t game on higher resolutions than Full-HD should put this card on their short list.

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Product Features, Specifications

Product Features:

 

DirectCU II

 

20% cooler and 3X quieter

 

Flattened copper heatpipes make direct contact with GPU surfaces so heat is dissipated more efficiently, delivering 20% cooler, 3X quieter performance and 6X greater airflow than reference.

 

975 MHz Boost Clock

 

975 MHz Boost clock for better performance and outstanding gaming experience.

 

Super Alloy Power

 

Enhanced durability and cooling

 

Exclusively-formulated alloy components boost performance by reducing power loss, enhancing durability, and achieving cooler operation. Choke concrete cores eliminate buzzing sound under full load while capacitors assure a 50,000-hour lifespan: equivalent to 2.5 times longer than traditional capacitors.

 

ASUS GPU Tweak Utility

 

Real-time Graphics Tuning and Live Streaming

 

Shows detailed specs and actual card status with GPU-Z

Sync GPU clocks and voltages for easier overclocking

Monitoring widget provides real-time detailed multi-parameter info

Automatically checks and updates drivers and BIOS versions

Stream on-screen action to the web in full HD, with just a click

Set your own headline for the streaming window

 

2GB GDDR5 Memory

 

On-board memory for the best gaming experience & the best resolution 2GB GDDR5 Memory

 

 

Graphics GPU Features

 

Powered by AMD Radeon™ R9 270

 

AMD Eyefinity™Technology

Extend the view across up to 6displays to immerse yourself ingameplay and entertainment

 

CrossFire X Support

Multi-GPU technology for extreme performance.

 

AMD HD3D

Immerse in stereoscopic 3D gaming and get up close and personal with your favorite stars while watching Blu-ray 3D. AMD HD3D is also designed for professionals who create complex visual effects and detailed data visualizations.

 

PCI Express 3.0

Delivers double the bandwidth per lane of PCIe 2.0 for faster GPU-CPU communication.

 

Microsoft DirectX 11.2

Brings new levels of visual realism to gaming on the PC and get top-notch performance.

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

 

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Comment from Casecutter @ 2014/08/14
Great review! Nice detail in pictures and overview, always like to see what you’d be getting. While nice to see this level of card ran on a i5 system. Sure an i7 (Hyper Threading) doesn’t make a huge difference, it’s just nice for mainstream folks builds running mainstream cards. Not sure I find the noise result all that beneficial as you don’t state the idle or gameplay dBA, so not sure if that translates to useful information. Perhaps provide that you never notice the fan speed above XXX. Have a look a the text in the noise it says “GPU fan was controlled by the latest version of the HIS iTurbo utility”.

Great that you give the B-M results with varying settings and resolutions, doing so does shows how perhaps spending more for a card can prove advantageous, while might not depending on titles someone plays. Could say the title list is a little Nvidia intrinsic, and some not all that relevant. Would like to see BF4, Assassin's Creed, and COH2. Honestly I was surprised of the 270 in many cases at 1080p the gap when the AA levels where brought up didn’t skew super out of bounds. I would’ve though the processing of the GTX 760 should’ve really been an advantage.

One thing folks should be made thoroughly conscious of… is the Inno3D GeForce GTX 760 iChill HerculeZ 3000 Edition, is no slouch of a card it’s a 3-slot, 3-fan beast. OC’d at 1059Mhz, a Boost clock of 1124 Mhz (9%), while the memory is a little tweaked as well at 6210 Mhz. It’s is the Top-Shelf purchase for the utmost mainstream buyer, calling for 50% more cash (verse the Asus) to step-up to a card of such “class”. Be mindful this modestly OC (5-6%) Asus 270, which is ranked two entire reductions in “class” for both price and power (1x 6-pin); to even “stay close” to such a card is a huge accomplishment. An R9 270 is more often reliable step up from “entry” into mainstream. Would’ve like to have seen a GTX750 Ti in the results, because that’s what Nvidia has in the mix as more the rival to that R9 270.

I would’ve enjoyed seeing the Asus B-M with the OC of 1100Mhz and 6000mhz, that’s where the bang-for-buck is truly the narrative. The other would’ve been power numbers, nothing extra ordinary just even a kill-o-watt showing idle, while gaming of one or two titles (even OC’d), and perhaps run in “long-idle monitor-off state” to see what AMD’s Zerocore delivers.

Edit: Have been waiting for the forums account to get validated to post this. I see you have the Gigabyte 750Ti Ultra Durable BLACK review up now that should make a great assessment..
Comment from Stefan Mileschin @ 2014/08/15
I would like to respond to the request regarding BF4 & Co benchmarks: I do not use such games since they do not offer official benchmarking tools and I find user-made time-demos non-conclusive.

Also, re-benching the card for over 23 hours in Overclocking mode seems a little bit inconclusive also because there is no guarantee that all retails cards get to the same frequencies.
Comment from Casecutter @ 2014/08/15
True and reasonable Thanks'
Cc

 

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