Price and Availability
The Asus Radeon R9 270X (R9270X-DC2T-2GD5) is widely available and thanks to the decline in the demand in crypto mining, prices are back to normal as well. Currently, it has a retail price of $189.99 here. Prices has gone down significantly when this graphics card was first released. Same goes with most high-end and mainstream Radeon graphics cards.
Asus Radeon R9 270X DirectCU II TOP 2GB Review: Conclusion
After testing and using the Asus Radeon R9 270X for a couple of weeks, I find it to be a good mid-range graphics card. I was able to play most of the games at max settings and still getting decent frame rates (except for Crysis 3). Initially the card was priced higher than $209.99, but now that it has settled to the current price (not to mention you can get one for $199.99), the card’s price vs. performance ratio is quite great actually. Meaning, you are getting the performance (or probably more) for the money that you are paying for this card.
In terms of temperature, once again Asus’ DirectCU II didn’t disappoint me. At full load I was getting around 69° degrees Celsius and the card runs generally quite specially in light to medium load, but not in full fan rotational speed. My only complaint with the cooler is that it was somehow position a little bit further to the right, resulting in a gap between the output ports and the shroud, and the heatsink extending a little bit as well.
In terms of overclocking, I wouldn’t say that this is a graphics card that can overclock well. The sample that I got didn’t overclock much, specially the memory. Is it because Asus is using Elpida instead of SKHynix, or is it that I got a not-so-good sample that can’t overclock well? Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend overclocking for a 24/7 use or even during gaming sessions, since overclocking would result in more heat and higher power consumption.
The Asus Radeon R9 270X is not the best graphics card out there, but for its price you definitely get the performance that you paid for. This is a good graphics card specially for PC gamers who are in a budget, and I would say that it deserves the PC Enthusiast’s Highly Recommended award.
