Overall and Final Verdict
So at the end of the day how does the R7 370 Strix compare to the Sapphire R7 370 Nitro and the recently launched GTX 950? Well the higher overclock over the Sapphire did give a surprisingly good boost in performance in a lot of our benchmarks. Being able to compare the Asus R7 370 Strix to the Asus GTX 950 Strix was also very nice and helped show that with similar overclocks and coolers the performance gap between the two isn’t as big as I thought in our initial review. The GTX 950 is still a faster card when running at 1080p like most would at this budget. The additional memory and larger memory interface on the 4GB 370 Strix is nice and does help when running at higher resolutions, but it isn’t enough to pull the R7 370 ahead overall. The Strix also ran a lot warmer than I would have liked, especially when compared to the 950 and the Sapphire 370.
So is this the card to get when you are building out your new budget gaming rig? Well the GTX 950 does give more performance at a slightly better price. The in game performance of the 370 Strix was still great and more than enough to play nearly anything out right now at medium/high settings. I think if the price on this card came in at the $159 price point it would make it a good deal but currently it is $20 more. Because of that I think it’s really going to come down to preference. If you are leaning AMD this will still be the way to go, but those on the edge who don’t have a preference will most likely look at the slightly better value that the GTX 950 is offering right now. No matter what direction you end up going, you are still getting great performance at a price that makes it really possible to play everything on the market at a near console price for a whole build.
Live Pricing: HERE