Price and Availability
XFX released both a 2GB and 4GB variant of their Radeon R9 380. They also have the Double Dissipation model and Black Edition model. Currently, the available models are: XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB R9-380P-4255, R9 380 2GB R9-380P-2255, and R9 380 2GB R9-380P-2285 BLACK Edition. At the time this review was published, the three cards were priced at $229.99, $199.99 and $209.99 respectively. XFX is offering 2 years of end user warranty.
XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB Review: Conclusion
After testing and playing with the XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB for several weeks, I’m quite satisfied with its overall performance and the gaming experience it delivered. XFX’s Double Dissipation technology and Ghost Thermal 3.0 proved to be quite effective as the graphics card runs very silent most of the time, even in full load. I just wished they made an all-metal shroud design with a backplate to further improve its looks and aesthetics. I’m also happy to report that there was no coil whine issue that has been plaguing the current GTX 900 series graphics card.
Between the 2GB and 4GB variant, I would recommend that you go with the 4GB variant. The Radeon R9 380 is very capable when it comes to 1080p gaming, and most modern day games now also rely on the graphics card’s memory as well. While I was playing some of the latest games, like Assassin’s Creed Unity and The Witcher III, the graphics card was already consuming around 3GB of its memory. This basically means that 2GB of memory may no longer be enough for some games, specially graphics intensive games.
Now, the GeForce GTX 960 is the direct competitor of the Radeon R9 380. When it comes to performance, the XFX Radeon R9 380 is very much capable of competing against the GeForce GTX 960. I just wish AMD would release driver updates that would further optimize the performance of the graphics card sooner and more frequent. The GTX 960 4GB’s price plays around $220 to $255 depending on the brand and model. Meanwhile, I saw the XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB’s price went for as low as $199 just a few days ago at Newegg. I’m not sure why the price went back to $229. Nevertheless, the Radeon R9 380’s price/performance is very competitive and attractive.
Finally, I think the XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB Double Dissipation is a very capable and well-performing graphics card. Its core architecture isn’t really new, but it brings better performance compared to its predecessors and better price/performance vs the GTX 960. If you are looking for a graphics card and your budget is around $200, consider this graphics card on your top list, specially if you are gaming at 1080p.
Im getting 80C with 80% fan speed with good airflow in case, is this normal? It gets pretty loud up at 80% fan speed.
During our test, we did reach 80C max. But we just set the fans to auto. If you bump up the fan speed above 60% it will start to get loud. 90% to 100% is unbearably loud already. Try setting it to auto.
All right thanks for the help, I’ll try that out.
You shouldn’t be able to easily hit 80’C without really limiting airflow and holding a constant 100% load… furmark could probably do it. if you think you may have a fan issue or fan failure, we can send replacements free of charge. please let us know. xfxsupport.com
Mark at XFX
That’s right, 80C was the maximum possible temp and the fans were set to auto. The 80 is not constant as well, probably it went 80 at one point. We find the cooler to be very effective and they shouldn’t hit that temp on a normal basis. The temp should be just around 50C to 70C, depending on the environment.