I think one of the most interesting things about video cards is that the performance you see from the cards is always changing. The cards are staying the same obviously, but after a launch we will see numerous driver updates, some of those include updates that improve and optimize in game performance both across the board and sometimes just with specific games. AMD recently introduced their Omega driver that included speed improvements and a LONG list of usability fixes. Well today I just happened to have an R9 280 from Gigabyte on hand. I’m going to see what sets their card apart from the competition and we will also have the chance to see how the new drivers perform as well. Along with that I am introducing a few new benchmarks into our 2015 benchmark suite, enjoy!

Product Name: Gigabyte R9 280

Review Sample Provided by: Gigabyte

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Packaging

For packaging the R9 280 from Gigabyte comes in a black box with a large blue eye design on the front. There isn’t too much on the front other than the branding as well as logos showing that this is a Gigabyte Windforce card and that it is overclocked. Around on the back there is a lot more going on. Gigabyte includes a breakdown on the Windforce cooling on the card with a few small photos.

When we dig into the box the card itself sits in a cutout section in thick foam and is wrapped up in a static protective bag. For accessories you get a mini DisplayPort to full sized DisplayPort adapter along with two Molex to 6 and 8 pin adapter cables. Gigabyte also includes a Crossfire cable in that nasty bronze color as well. For documentation you just get a small quick guide along with the drive disc.

Card Layout and Photos

So the Gigabyte R9 280 is an interesting one. For starters this is the only R9 280 that Gigabyte makes, additionally it is just listed as THE R9 280. Without any other designations I honestly would have expected this to be a reference card but this is an overclocked Windforce card. For the overclock this card runs at 950 MHz with a boost clock of 1072 MHz. For reference the stock R9 290 runs at 827 MHz with a boost clock of 933 MHz. So that is a nice overclock. Memory clock speeds are unchanged though. The card itself is interesting, Gigabyte basically bolted three large fans onto a large heatsink. It’s the equivalent of a tiny card with a huge motor sticking out of the hood. The cooler is both longer and taller than the PCB making this a fairly large card. I do love the look of the cooler though with its all black fan shroud.

Gigabyte uses three thick heatpipes to pull the heat from the GPU in the middle out to the other two fans for the most efficient cooling. Beyond the thin fan shroud on the fan side of the card, everything else is basically open. This is needed because the three fans blow directly down and the heatsink fins run vertical, so the air needs to go somewhere. He top and bottom of the card both have metal brackets but both are very open to avoid air blockages.

For display connections the R9 280 has a nice mix. You get one DVI, one full sized HDMI, and two mini DisplayPorts. Typically I would prefer to see two DVI and a full sized DisplayPort rather than the mini, but they did include an adapter as well so the second plug is just a bonus. If you haven’t transitioned to DisplayPort at all with your monitors and you are running more than two displays you are going to need an additional adapter.

For power the Gigabyte R9 280 requires an 8-pin and a 6-pin for power. Gigabyte was careful to leave room around the plugs to give good access to both plugs as well.

The R9 280, being based off the older HD 7900 cards, still has Crossfire bridges. The newer R9 290 and 290X run their crossfire through PCI. Having two bridges means the R9 280 can support tri/quad Crossfire if you decide to expand in the future.

On the back of the card we get a peek at the black PCB. More importantly we can see that Gigabyte used a skinny back bracket to help support the heatsink over on the left. Additionally along the top the metal framing attaches in three spots giving the card a lot of rigidity. This won’t compare to a full backplate,, but it is a nice touch, especially with the Windforce heatsink being so large and long.

Our Test Rig and Procedures

Synthetic Benchmarks

To start off my testing I ran the Gigabyte R9 280 through our synthetic benchmark suite. Going into 2015 I made a few big changes to our testing and in the synthetic tests I added the 3DMark Ultra benchmark that tests at 4k. The R9 280 isn’t exactly the card you are looking for to push that resolution but it should be interesting as more results come in to see how it compares. As for the other 3DMark results, the Gigabyte R9 280 with an updated driver outperformed the Sapphire R9 280 that I tested a while back by a little over 500 points in the standard “performance” benchmark. This bumped the R9 280 up over the GTX 770 and put it in under the R9 285 ITX card that we tested this fall. In the “Extreme” benchmark the GTX 770 pulled ahead slightly but there was still a noticeable improvement over the other R9 280 again due to driver improvements mostly. In Heaven Benchmark that favors the Nvidia cards slightly the R9 280 came in just below the overclocked GTX 760’s and had exactly the same average FPS as the other R9 280. It’s clear the driver improvements didn’t find any extra performance for Unreal based games.

In-Game

So the main reason we all get dedicated video cards is to increase our gaming performance. So when it comes to our testing, In-Game performance is obviously the most important. For 2015 I added three new games into our testing to replace older games. Each of the new games is tested at both 1080p and 1440p, because of that I couldn’t split up our results by resolution as cleanly as before. So forgive me for  just how long this page is with so many graphs on it.

So how did the Gigabyte R9 280 perform in game? Well at 1080p 7/11 of the games tested had an average FPS of 60 or higher and the other 4 were still above 30. That is an impressive number considering every game tested is run at the highest possible settings. For 1440p testing I tested the Gigabyte R9 280 in eight games. The higher resolution is demanding with half of the games having an average of less than 30FPS at their highest settings. Surprisingly though 1 was above 30 FPS and three were over 60 even! Two of those three were the newest games in our test suite GRID Autosport and Sniper Elite 3.

Cooling, Noise, and Power

While the other benchmarks are important, the difference between matching GPU cards is typically minimal. Where manufactures can really stand out is when it comes to cooling performance, noise, and power consumption. Because of that this part of our test suite can sometimes be the most interesting even if typically not everyone worries about their cards power consumption or noise. To start things off, I ran through Heaven benchmark to put the Gigabyte R9 280 under load to check its power consumption. Under load our test bench with the card pulls 396 at peak. This is just below the GTX 770 reference card and well under what the Sapphire R9 280 pulled. The R9 285 is still a more efficient card, but that is still a low enough number that you shouldn’t have to worry about getting a big power supply to run one or even two Gigabyte R9 280’s.

So when running the R9 280 are you going to need to run earplugs? Well typically three fan cards almost always run noisier. This wasn’t any different with it running a few decibels higher than the other R9 280 tested at 100% fan speed. At 50% fan speed it is actually one of the loudest cards tested, sadly this is the downside of having an additional large fan on the card.

So did the triple fans help keep things running cool? Well this card ran one degree cooler than the Sapphire R9 280 and as a whole it is on the lower side of charts with a peak load temperature of 62. I would have liked to of seen the performance be a little better when compared to the other R9 280 but the numbers are still good.

Overall and Final Verdict

Now that I have taken a closer look at the Gigabyte R9 280 and ran it through all of our new and improved benchmark suite we have a better idea of where it stands. For starters, the new AMD drivers really breathe new life into the R9 280, this card performed well above the last R9 280 that I tested and a lot of that was driver related. With that it falls into a sweet spot with in game performance. Every game tested was more than playable at its highest settings at 1080p. 1440p not so much, but that is expected from a card at this price point. The other thing I really liked about the card was the all blacked out design, a lot of manufactures go with colors to set themselves apart but in this case it is nice to know the card will look good in nearly any build.

It wasn’t perfect though, the large heatsink performed well in cooling testing but was a little noisy overall. On top of that the cooler was larger than the PCB, making this a bigger card than a lot of other R9 280’s. Really though for a lot of people though the size of the card won’t be an issue. Noise wise is isn’t going to make you go deaf, it’s just louder than a lot of other card designs. You will have to decide if that is an issue for you. As for price, well this card is listed much lower than the GTX 770 that it performed on par with multiple times so when you compare it there it is a good deal but when compared to other R9 280’s it is a little on the high side. If all out cooling is what you need at the cost of size and noise then this is the perfect card for you. If you want something a little quieter you can most likely find another R9 280 at a little better price.

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.