Sapphire R7 260X OC 1GB Graphics Card Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging Gaming on a strict budget has become easier in recent years as entry level offerings from AMD and Nvidia have become increasingly more affordable with increasingly more power. The $100 price point is a good example of this with the R7 250X, R7 260 and R7 260X all being around that level alongside Nvidia's GT 740 and GTX 750. Today we are looking at Sapphire's R7 260X OC 1GB graphics card which can be had for as little as $115~ and as we already know the R7 260X offers an incredible amount of performance for the money since AMD dropped the pricing on it. As we note with all our non-AMD and non-Nvidia graphics card review what we are looking for is what the vendors have done with AMD's reference platform. Right off the bat we can see Sapphire have changed quite a few things with the R7 260X reference design, Sapphire have halved the GDDR5 memory to 1GB, equipped a custom cooler and downclocked the GPU and memory frequencies despite claiming this to be an "OC" GPU. As we can see in the specifications below this allows Sapphire to offer a more competitive price, but how good is the card's performance with these modifications? It is worth noting Sapphire aren't the only ones doing this, most other vendors offer R7 260Xs with frequencies between 1000 and 1100MHz and memory between 6000 and 6500MHz, finding ones with 1100/6500 or higher frequencies is more the exception than the norm, but they can be found. Packaging and Bundle The packaging is compact and cost effective. The front of the packaging points out that this is an OC version despite having lower actual clocks than the reference design. On the back we find a list of features about the R7 260X GPU. The accessory bundle is basic but appropriate for the price range of the card. A Closer Look The aesthetics of the card and very clean and pleasing. An all black design with silver accents and an 80mm fan: overall a very nice design. Underneath the fan we can see an "Intel stock cooler style" heatsink with an 80mm fan. Looking at the rear I/O we find a decent selection: DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort, surely something for everyone at this price point. A single 6 pin is required, and Sapphire provide an adapter if your PSU has no PCIe connectors. The graphics card is very short and conforms to a dual slot thickness. Around the back we see a black PCB and an easily removable heatsink if you want to change out the thermal compound or clean the heatsink. At the bottom we can see this cooling solution uses direct contact copper. Test System and Procedures Introducing our Newest Test System and Methodology When it comes to reviewing a graphics card we previously had a static test bench in which we put every graphics card we reviewed to give comparable results. However, the big flaw in this approach is that every graphics card used the same hardware so that we had stupid scenarios where we ended up testing a HD 7730 or GT 640 with an Intel Core i7 3960X and ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard - hardly a realistic scenario by anyone's judgement. With our new "low to mid range" test system we're looking to change that by using a different, and more appropriate, platform. We're opting for Intel's Z87 platform and a more modest Core i5 4440, and we're downsizing from 16GB to 8GB of RAM with a slower frequency of 1866 not 2133MHz. I did contemplate using a Core i3 4330 but I feared this might lead to GPU bottlenecks, especially as we got towards those mid range graphics cards. Based on current pricing (correct as of March 23rd 2014) this combination of the Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87, Intel Core i5 4440 and 8GB of 1866MHz RAM costs $450 compared to the $1670 of the previous aforementioned parts. We think this is an important change for delivering more realistic and useful content to you, our readers. As this is a "low to mid range" test system we will primarily be focusing on specific GPUs (correct as of March 23rd 2014) which are the AMD R9 270 and below and the Nvidia GTX 660 and below. For clarity this means the following GPUs: For AMD we have the R7 240, R7 250, R7 250X, R7 260, R7 260X and R7 265 while for Nvidia we have the GT 630, GT 640, GTX 650, GTX 650 Ti, GTX 650 Ti Boost, GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti. The second major change was the resolutions we test at. Since these are "affordable" graphics cards we will be testing there is no logical reason to test QHD (2560 x 1440), UHD (3840 x 2160) or Triple HD (5760 x 1080). Instead we used Steam's Hardware Survey to determine the three most popular gaming resolutions as we feel this is what you, our readers, will want to see the most - those resolutions are 1366 x 768, 1600 x 900 and 1920 x 1080. The third major change is our choice of games. After initiating a poll on our site to determine the most popular games you wanted to see in our graphics card reviews we've ditched Alien Vs Predator, Dirt Showdown and Sleeping Dogs in favour of Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty Ghosts. Acoustic Testing - Measuring Noise Levels We take acoustic measurements under three different scenarios: desktop idle, Furmark and Unigine Heaven. We take these measurements at the end of a five minute window of each, this is to ensure the maximum fan speed for the duration is reached to ensure the most accurate acoustic reading is taken. We use a decibel meter to take the measurement approximately 25cm away from the graphics card aligned at the same vertical height as the fan with the sensor pointing towards the graphics card. We disable the CPU fan, use an SSD instead of a HDD and isolate as much background noise as possible to get the most accurate results. Temperature Testing Like with our acoustic tests we take temperature tests under three different scenarios: desktop idle, Unigine Heaven and Furmark. We use TechPowerUp's GPU-Z utility to record the minimum desktop idle temperature and the maximum temperature during five minute runs of Furmark and Unigine Heaven. We also provide the ambient room temperature alongside those 3 temperature readings as we've had extensive user feedback about delta temperatures expressing their dislike and confusion towards the measure. When we test passive graphics cards we target the airflow of an 800 RPM 120mm case fan at the graphics card with an approximate distance of 30cm to simulate the airflow of a case fan, this is because passive graphics cards running on an open-air test bench are adversely affected by the still air of the room compared to inside a case where the channelled airflow of case fans allows them to function more effectively. Power Consumption Measurements Power consumption is again similar to acoustic and temperature tests. We use the desktop idle state, Unigine Heaven and Furmark scenarios to acquire power consumption figures. We use a killawatt meter to grab total system power consumption from the socket. During these tests we ensure all background applications are closed to ensure power consumption is influenced as much as possible by the GPU, not other system components or processes. During Unigine and Furmark we take the power consumption figures after 1 minute of the 5 minute run has passed, this is because after an extended period of time graphics card power consumption tends to drop as thermal or power limit throttling kicks in. It is also because we want to take the power consumption readings at the same stage of the Unigine Heaven and Furmark tests to ensure comparability. We acknowledge that measuring power draw from the wall is not the most effective measure but this is the only method available to us at the current point in time. Performance Summary To formulate our performance metric we use a weighted average method and each benchmark or test gets a weight of 1 out of a total calculation with 10 weights (meaning all resolutions and variations of the same test are only ever one weight). Those 10 weights are 1 for each test we so that means 7 games (listed below) and 3 benchmarks (also listed below). We calculate the relative score for each card in each test by dividing the cumulative frame rate/score of each card by the average cumulative frame rate/score from all the graphics cards in group. We then take those 10 relative scores and average those for each card, before dividing those averages by the average of the card being reviewed in the test so that the value of the card being reviewed is 1 and every other card’s performance metric is in relation to it. The end result are numbers that vary around 1 with 0.5 being half the performance of the tested card and 2 being double the performance of the tested card. We then convert those numbers into percentages to make them more readable so 1 becomes 100% and 0.5 becomes 50%. Test System: Motherboard - Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87 (Read our review here) Processor - Intel Core i5 4440 (Turbo Enabled) RAM - 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1866MHz 9-10-9-27 CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i with Quiet Fan Profile Power Supply - Corsair HX1050W Main Storage Drive - Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Chassis - Lian Li T60 Test Bench Displays - LG Flatron IPS224 Operating System - Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit We would like to thank Corsair, Gigabyte, Intel, Kingston, Lian Li and all our other partners who supplied us with test equipment and hardware. Their generosity makes our testing possible and without them we wouldn't be able to produce the reviews we do, so thank you! Benchmarks Used 3DMark 11 - Performance and Extreme Presets 3DMark (2013) - Firestrike and Firestrike Extreme Presets Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 - Extreme Preset BasemarkCL - Unoptimised, all tests ComputeMark - 1920 x 1080, Normal Luxmark - GPU test only Games Used Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - High, MSAA2X, SSAO Batman Arkham Origins - Normal, MSAA2X Battlefield 4 - Ultra Preset Bioshock Infinite - Ultra Preset Call of Duty Ghosts - Ultra Preset Metro Last Light - Very High, AF4X Tomb Raider - Ultra Preset Resolutions Used 1366 x 768 1600 x 900 1920 x 1080 Hardware Used Plug "killawatt" style electricity usage meter Benetech GM1351 decibel meter Software Used CPUID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Furmark Additional Comments Graphs using FPS measurements are sorted by their 1080p value as this is the most popular gaming resolution Power consumption, acoustic and temperature graphs are sorted lowest to highest unlike game/benchmark graphs that are sorted highest to lowest. Driver Configuration In order to give total transparency on our results we have provided the graphics driver revision used for each graphics card in the results. 3DMark (2013) "The new 3DMark includes everything you need to benchmark your hardware. With three all new tests you can bench everything from smartphones and tablets, to notebooks and home PCs, to the latest high-end, multi-GPU gaming desktops. And it's not just for Windows. With 3DMark you can compare your scores with Android and iOS devices too. It's the most powerful and flexible 3DMark we've ever created." From Futuremark.com. 3DMark 11 "3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads." From 3DMark.com. Unigine Heaven 4.0 "Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X." From Unigine.com. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a 2013 historical action-adventure open world video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sixth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, a sequel to 2012's Assassin's Creed III's modern story and a prequel to its historical storyline. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag received positive reviews, with critics praising the open world gameplay, side-quests, graphics and naval combat." From Wikipedia. Batman: Arkham Origins "Batman: Arkham Origins is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal and released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, it follows the 2011 video game Batman: Arkham City and is the third main installment in the Batman: Arkham series. The game, played from a third-person perspective, focuses on Batman's combat and stealth abilities, detective skills, and gadgets for combat and exploration. Arkham Origins is the first game in the series with multiplayer capability." From Wikipedia. Battlefield 4 "Battlefield 4 is coming to PC, powered by the advanced technology of DICE’s proprietary Frostbite 3 engine. Blur the line between game and glory in Battlefield 4. With dynamic destructable environments, vehicular combat, and the chaos of all-out-war with 64 players, Battlefield 4 on PC will be an unmatched interactive experience. In addition to its hallmark multiplayer, Battlefield 4 features an intense, dramatic character-driven campaign that starts with the evacuation of American VIPs from Shanghai and follows your squad's struggle to find its way home. There is no comparison. Immerse yourself in the glorious chaos of all-out war, found only in Battlefield." From Battlefield.com. Bioshock Infinite "BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter like you’ve never seen. Just ask the judges from E3 2011, where the Irrational Games title won over 85 editorial awards, including the Game Critics Awards’ Best of Show. Set in 1912, players assume the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target? Elizabeth, imprisoned since childhood. During their daring escape, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond -- one that lets Booker augment his own abilities with her world-altering control over the environment. Together, they fight from high-speed Sky-Lines, in the streets and houses of Columbia, on giant zeppelins, and in the clouds, all while learning to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities, and immersing players in a story that is not only steeped in profound thrills and surprises, but also invests its characters with what Game Informer called “An amazing experience from beginning to end." From Bioshockinfinite.com. Call of Duty: Ghosts "Call of Duty: Ghosts is a 2013 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward, with assistance from Raven Software, Neversoft and Certain Affinity, and published by Activision. It is the tenth primary installment in the Call of Duty series, and the sixth developed by Infinity Ward. The video game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U on November 5, 2013, with Treyarch handling the port for the Wii U." From Wikipedia. Metro: Last Light "Metro: Last Light (formerly Metro 2034) is a first-person shooter and horror video game developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was released in May 2013. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features a mixture of action-oriented and stealth gameplay. The game exists in the universe of the novel, Metro 2033, and its sequels, written by Russian author, Dmitry Glukhovsky, but does not follow any direct storylines from the books. Metro:Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the canonical ending from the novel, ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones.Metro: Last Light features technology which boasts of lighting effects and improved physics claimed to set a new graphical benchmark on the PC and consoles." From Wikipedia.org. Tomb Raider "On 5 March 2013, Square Enix released Tomb Raider, billed as a reboot of the franchise. In Tomb Raider, the player is confronted with a much younger Lara Croft who is shipwrecked and finds herself stranded on a mysterious island rife with danger, both natural and human. In contrast to the earlier games Croft is portrayed as vulnerable, acting out of necessity, desperation and sheer survival rather than for a greater cause or personal gain." From Wikipedia.org. Performance Summary With our reviews stuffed full of a large number of benchmarks and games at different resolutions and using different settings it can be difficult to get a feel for the overall performance of a graphics card we are testing. As a result we've created a performance summary metric. The metric is simple, but my explanation isn't, if you're interested in that explanation then see the test systems and procedures page. Compute Performance The rise of GPU acceleration, GPGPU and various forms of parallel computing mean that the compute performance of GPUs is a noteworthy consideration when choosing which graphics cards to buy. We run three GPU compute benchmarks to give you an idea of how much compute performance each graphics card has. Basemark (OpenCL) Basemark CL by Rightware is a comprehensive benchmark tool designed to measure the performance of OpenCL 1.1 implementations on various devices ranging from desktops to embedded systems. Basemark CL uses OpenGL ES 2.0 or OpenGL 2.1 for rendering, depending on the platform. From Rightware.com. ComputeMark (DX11 Compute) ComputeMark is first 100% DirectX 11 Compute Shader benchmark and ultimate GPU burner. From ComputeMark.com. Luxmark (OpenCL) LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmark tool. The idea for the program was conceived in 2009 by Jean-Francois ‘Jromang’ Romang. The idea was quite simple, wrap SLG inside an easy to use graphical user interface and use it as a benchmark for OpenCL. From LuxRender.net. Noise Levels The noise levels produced by a graphics card is an increasingly important consideration for PC users and Gamers these days. While fan noise is unlikely to ruin the gaming experience, no one likes a noisy graphics card and no one will argue with the fact that quieter is better. Many users are willing to sacrifice temperatures to gain a noise advantage, but with better cooling solutions being developed it is increasingly common to be able to get both better cooling and better acoustic performance than a reference solution on most custom cooled graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD partners. That said both AMD and Nvidia have stepped up their game too with regards to acoustics on their reference coolers. Ultimately, acoustics will always be a big deciding factor when there is often very little differentiation between graphics cards using the same GPUs. For more details on our acoustic testing procedures please see the test systems and procedures page. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power hungry components inside a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is very important to keeping power bills under control. Power is often correlated to heat and so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and Nvidia have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming important to maximise performance. See details of our power consumption testing procedure on the test systems and procedures page. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when choosing a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are extremely important. Lower temperatures are always better and with AMD and Nvidia opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account it is important that graphics card vendors use high performance cooling solutions in order to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching dangerous temperatures are now in the past but the importance of lower temperatures still remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds. That said temperatures are one of the most important non-performance related properties on a graphics card. For details on our temperature testing procedures please see the test systems and procedures page. Overclocking & Overclocked Performance The overclocking ability of a graphics card is an important buying consideration irrespective of whether the graphics card is low end or enthusiast level. I'm sure everyone will agree that the more extra performance from overclocking - the better. In our overclocking we push each graphics card to its maximum stable core and memory frequencies. Typically we also raise the power limit to the maximum and where possible raise the voltages if this results in higher overclocks being achieved. We always aim for "24/7" stable overclocks that DO NOT result in potential heat on longevity issues so if we do raise the voltage it is still kept within safe parameters. The latest beta version of MSI's Afterburner software is the overclocking utility of choice: this is because MSI Afterburner Beta versions typically allows you to circumvent overclocking restrictions - particularly those set by AMD. Overclocking didn't match that we achieved with other R7 260Xs: the GPU Core and the memory was lower than with other cards. For reference here are the overclocked results we have achieved with all R7 260Xs Sapphire R7 260X OC 1GB GDDR5 - 1185MHz Core and 1590MHz Memory (Elpida) AMD R7 260X 2GB GDDR5 - 1245MHz Core and 1800MHz memory (Hynix) HIS R7 260X OC 2GB GDDR5 - 1250MHz Core and 1925MHz memory (Hynix) The main let down is the use of Elpida memory which results in limited overclocking headroom, the fact only 1GB is present also means some games become VRAM limited. The GPU overclock was still decent considering the R7 260X is already an "overclocked HD 7790", on another day you might be able to overclock higher than 1200MHz if you got a better chip but sadly we didn't. Overclocked Performance Final Thoughts Pricing The Sapphire R7 260X 1GB OC graphics card costs £75 at Amazon UK. We couldn't find the same 1GB OC version we reviewed here today anywhere else but we found the 2GB version available for $132 at Amazon and $119.99 at Newegg in the USA. The 2GB version can be found in the UK for £79.99 at Amazon, just £5 more than the 1GB variant. The Sapphire R7 260X OC 1GB & 2GB graphics cards come with 2 year warranties. Overview Sapphire's R7 260X 1GB OC graphics card is a mixed bag but still a solid product. Our results show it nudged ahead of the stock R7 260X in a few games but as we've mentioned the Sapphire R7 260X had the benefit of being tested with slightly newer drivers which explains that variance. Aside from that it was marginally slower than both other R7 260Xs we tested due to having a lower clock speed on the GPU and memory and having less video memory. Of course the difference in user experience is marginal, our summary results show it is only 1-2% slower than other R7 260Xs yet it costs a fair bit less and is incredibly cost effective - which is a good thing. The overall design of the card is also pleasing, it runs really quiet, looks very nice and keeps the GPU cooler than the reference design. Okay, it isn't the best cooling solution we've tested but it does the job, allows for overclocking and keeps temperatures in a good region. Overclocking wasn't a strong point of this card either with the GPU core not winning the silicon lottery and the use of inferior Elpida memory which never overclocks very well. Hynix memory is the best for overclocking but most vendors choose Elpida and Samsung as it is cheaper and more widely available. I think the fact Sapphire offer 1GB and 2GB versions for such similar prices makes the 1GB model almost redundant: it makes more sense to pay a little more to get a much more future proofed experience, but at least the 1GB model is there if you really don't need 2GB and what to save a bit of money. The final point I want to draw upon is the "OC" moniker Sapphire use. Let me make this absolutely clear: this card runs at lower clock speeds than the reference design, it is not overclocked in any way. I think Sapphire should rename the card, it is misleading. Pros Runs very quiet Lower temperatures than stock/reference design Good pricing 1GB and 2GB models available Cons Lower clocks than reference model Elpidamemory chips limitsoverclocking potential Not overclocked - misleading title "The Sapphire R7 260X 1GB OC graphics card is a solid buy if you're looking for something capable of 1080p gaming on a strict budget. It won't blow your socks off with anything special or innovative but it will offer you good performance with silent operation and at a decent price." Thank you to Sapphire for providing this review sample.