Which one has more potential in the 1,000 yuan market? R9 370X vs. GTX 950

For graphics card manufacturers, the 1,000-yuan market can be said to be a "battleground", and its importance is no less than that of the flagship market. Unlike flagship products, consumers in the 1,000-yuan market not only require graphics cards to have performance that can meet their needs, but also have a very good price-performance ratio. Earlier in the 1,000-yuan market, AMD's new product was the Radeon R9 370 graphics card, but this graphics card did not show a high combat effectiveness in front of the GeForce GTX 950 released by NVIDIA later. For this reason, AMD quickly followed up and launched the more powerful Radeon R9 370X graphics card.

Currently, the GTX 950 and R9 370X graphics cards are mainly priced between 1,099 yuan and 1,299 yuan.

The GTX 950 graphics card uses the GM206-250 core of the 28nm process, has 768 CUDA cores, 48 ​​texture units, 32 ROP units, 128-bit memory bus width, and 2GB memory capacity, which can basically be regarded as a simplified version of the GTX 960 graphics card. It has a certain performance advantage when facing the R9 370 graphics card. In order to suppress this opponent, AMD must come up with a more powerful product, and the R9 370X was born in this environment.

The R9 370X graphics card uses the 28nm Trinidad XT core, which is similar to the R9 270X graphics card in terms of specifications, and also has 1280 stream processor units, 80 texture units, 32 ROP units and 256-bit video memory bus width, but the video memory capacity is available in 2GB or 4GB. In addition, it should be noted that since AMD has not announced the specific frequency parameters and TDP parameters of the R9 370X, the corresponding data in the above table is actually the R9 270X graphics card.

In our GTX 950 graphics card simultaneous evaluation , AMD's R9 370 graphics card for the 1,000 yuan market did not show strong performance in front of the GTX 950, and the latter's performance was nearly 15% ahead of the former. Therefore, the R9 370X graphics card can be said to be AMD's new weapon to fight back against the GTX 950. So is this new weapon competent? This time we selected a representative from each of the R9 370X and GTX 950 graphics cards to see if they can bring you a wonderful battle.

XFX R9 370X 4G Demon Edition Graphics Card Introduction

In the battle between R9 370X and GTX 950 graphics cards, the latter is represented by the Renaissance GTX 950-2G5 War Demon graphics card, which is close to the public version GTX 950 in all aspects, and the frequency parameters are slightly higher than the public version settings. For details, you can browse our first review. The representative of R9 370X graphics cards is the XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card, which has a frequency parameter slightly higher than the public version R9 370X/270X settings, and is close to the Renaissance GTX 950 graphics card in terms of positioning.

The XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card is a non-official version, equipped with a self-developed dual-fan Cool Soul III cooling system, a 4+1+1 phase power supply design, and two versions with different video memory specifications: 256-bit 2GB GDDR5 and 256-bit 4GB GDDR5, priced at 1,099 yuan and 1,199 yuan respectively. Considering that most GTX 950 graphics cards on the market are priced at 1,199 yuan or more, this time we chose the 4GB video memory version of the XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card.

In terms of frequency parameters, the core/memory frequency of the XFX R9 370X Demon Edition is 1070/1400MHz (memory data frequency is 5600MHz), which is slightly higher than the settings of the public version R9 370X/270X graphics cards, and is a slightly overclocked version product. It is worth mentioning that the XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card is divided into an online mall version and an offline channel version. The Demon Edition belongs to the offline channel version, while the online mall version is named R9 370X Black Wolf. The only difference between the two is the outer packaging, and the pricing and basic configuration are exactly the same.

The graphics card is equipped with two DVI, one HDMI and one DP interface

According to XFX, the TDP of the R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card is only 130W, so it only needs a 6-pin external power supply interface to maintain stable operation. At the same time, this 6-pin interface adopts a reverse design, that is, the buckle is facing outward, which can avoid conflict between the external power cord and the heat dissipation air guide cover. It is a more user-friendly design.

The XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card adopts a 4+1+1 phase power supply design, of which 4 phases are core power supply, located on the left side of the GPU, while 1 phase of memory power supply and 1 phase of I/O power supply are located on the right side of the GPU. All 8 GDDR5 memory particles are arranged on the front of the PCB, and the display output interfaces are all covered with EMI metal shielding covers.

XFX R9 370X Demon Edition GPU

The XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card is equipped with a 4-phase core power supply. Each phase uses a fully solid-state capacitor and ferrite inductor design, and is equipped with a total of three MosFETs, one up and two down, which can meet the power supply needs of the Trinidad XT core.

The video memory is SK Hynix's GDDR5 particles, with a single capacity of 512MB and a total capacity of 4GB for 8 particles

The graphics card uses XFX's self-developed Cool Soul III cooling system, which is equipped with a pure copper base and 4 6mm nickel-plated pure copper heat pipes , which are combined with aluminum fins by reflow soldering, and the fins are treated with fin buckles. The radiator is equipped with two 9cm silent fans and uses easy-to-disassemble and clean technology. You can easily remove the fan for cleaning by pinching the buckles on both sides of the fan.

XFX R9 370X Demon Edition graphics card packaging

XFX R9 370X Demon Edition Graphics Card Accessories

Test platform and related setting instructions

The test platform is based on a Core i7-3770K processor overclocked to 4.0GHz , equipped with an ASUS ROG Maximus V Formula motherboard, GSkill DDR3-1600 8GB dual-channel (4GB*2) memory and an XFX XTR 550 power supply. The operating system used is Windows 7 64-bit SP1 Ultimate Edition, the GTX 950 graphics card uses the GeForce 355.82 WHQL driver, and the R9 370X graphics card uses the Catalyst 15.8 Beta driver.

Test platform

XFX R9 370X graphics card installed in the test platform

Game performance test: R9 370X leads GTX 950 by about 6%

The test mainly focuses on performance testing. In addition to the 3DMark benchmark test, we also added "Tomb Raider", "Grand Theft Auto 5", "Sniper Elite 3" and other games for testing. The R9 370X graphics card also conducted a performance experience under the Mantle API.

Judging from the test results, the performance of the R9 370X graphics card has caught up with or even exceeded the GTX 950 graphics card. In some games that support the Mantle API, the performance of the R9 370X graphics card will be further improved. However, the overall lead is not very large, about 6% to 7%, and the impact is not obvious in actual games.

However, the R9 370X graphics card has an advantage that the GTX 950 graphics card cannot match, that is, the video memory capacity. Currently, the R9 370X on the market has two versions: 4GB video memory and 2GB video memory. The price difference between the two is not big, and the 4GB version is still the main product promoted by the manufacturer; while the GTX 950 graphics card has many options, most of them are only equipped with 2GB video memory, which can easily form a bottleneck in some applications with a high video memory usage rate. For example, in "Grand Theft Auto 5", even if the game has high requirements for the graphics card, under the premise of maintaining a certain frame rate, the R9 370X graphics card with 4GB video memory can choose to enable a higher level of image quality, while the GTX 950 graphics card with only 2GB video memory can only choose the next level of image quality.

The gap is even more obvious in the test at the 4K resolution level. In the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra mode, the performance of the R9 370X graphics card is nearly 15% ahead of the GTX 950 graphics card. This means that if players want to experience 4K resolution, the R9 370X graphics card obviously has greater potential.

As for power consumption, although AMD has made some optimizations to the R9 370X graphics card, this cannot reverse its disadvantage in this respect. Basically, in daily applications, the platform power consumption of the R9 370X graphics card is always about 30W higher than that of the GTX 950 graphics card platform, and even up to 40W under full load. However, under the premise of certain performance advantages and 4GB video memory capacity advantages, I think most players can accept this power consumption difference.

Summary: R9 370X graphics card has higher usage potential

In the competition in the thousand-yuan market, NVIDIA's GTX 950 graphics card defeated AMD's R9 370 graphics card, but AMD quickly launched the R9 370X graphics card to fight back, and the latter has caught up with or even surpassed the GTX 950 graphics card in performance.

It is true that in terms of energy consumption, the R9 370X graphics card is not higher than the GTX 950 graphics card, but most of the R9 370X graphics cards on the market are equipped with 4GB video memory, and the price difference is not much compared with the 2GB video memory version, so the R9 370X graphics card can perform better when facing programs with high video memory usage. In addition, its support for new technologies such as Mantle API and DX12 means that it will be better than the GTX 950 graphics card in terms of potential use in the future.

Currently, the pricing of R9 370X graphics cards is mostly between 1,099 yuan and 1,299 yuan. For example, the XFX R9 370X 4G Demon Edition graphics card used in this test is priced at 1,199 yuan. The GTX 950 graphics card at the same price actually only has an advantage in power consumption. In comparison, the R9 370X is obviously a more worthy product in the current thousand-yuan market.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.