In order to perform these tests, we have set up a fresh SSD on our VGA test bench which we have been using for quite some time now to test the cards; Windows 10 Pro with all the updates was installed on it, the latest AMD Crimson drivers but also Steam in order to be able to install the Ashes of Singularity game. The game does feature separate executable files for DirectX11 and DirectX12 but when we have used the DX12 executable, the game was falling back to DX11 so we needed to launch the game in DirectX12 via the Steam launcher shortcut.

Test Setup

CPU: Intel I5 4690K Retail @ 4.6GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX

Motherboard: BIOSTAR Z97X Gaming

RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 4x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)

Video: Currently reviewed card

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB + OCZ Vertex 460

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

The following cards participated in our tests:

HIS R7 360 Green iCooler OC

HIS R7 370 IceQ X2 OC

HIS R9 380 IceQ X2 OC

HIS R9 380X IceQ X2 Turbo

HIS Radeon R9 390 IceQ X2 OC

HIS Radeon R9 390X IceQ X2 OC

We have used the usual resolutions for today's monitors: 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 4K; regarding the level of details, we did indeed use ALL of the preset settings: Low, Standard, High, Extreme, Crazy. The reason of this type of performance review is to check how the cards do perform in this game at different settings but also which of them benefit from the DirectX12 performance boost.

DirectX11 Low

DirectX11 Standard

DirectX11 High

DirectX11 Extreme

DirectX11 Crazy