MSI Gaming Radeon R9 380 2GB Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Price

The MSI Gaming R9 380 2GB is available in the UK from OverclockersUK for just £158.99. It is also available in the US from Newegg.com for $209.99.

Overview

Today I had the pleasure of dealing with the MSI Gaming R9 380 2GB graphics card. It performed on par with the other R9 380’s that we’ve reviewed in the past week with some results being stronger thanks to the higher factory overclock. Despite being based on an older architecture, the matured manufacturing process by both AMD and MSI has given this old GPU a new lease of life.

Good –  The card is a stonker, even though it is a more budget orientated card; it really adds a feather to MSI’s cap. The fact that MSI include the same features into this as they would any premium graphics card shows they care for all markets. The cooling design is simply outstanding, offering some of the best scores we’ve seen on a gaming orientated graphics card. MSI have also bundled in some addition software such as the Gaming App which allows you to actively control features such as the frequency, fan speed and the LED logo.

Bad – The lack of VRAM really hinders this card at 4k. Okay it does lack the power to produce the frame rates, but the decay in performance isn’t in line from 1440p-4k as it was from 1080p-1440p. The overclocking capacity allows an addition 100MHz to be gained, sadly that isn’t transferred into tangible FPS gains.

Pros

• Amazing cooling capabilities
• Twin 6-pin power connectors helped with stable overclocking
• Great styling
• Very quiet operation

Cons

• 2GB VRAM slightly limits the performance at higher resolutions.

“A great option for the HTPC or budget gaming PC, providing great performance at 1080p and some 1440p games at the highest settings.“

Thank you to MSI for providing this review sample.