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Review: Sapphire Radeon R9 285 Dual-X OC (28nm Tonga)

by Tarinder Sandhu on 2 September 2014, 13:00

Tags: Sapphire, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacijr

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1080p - Just Cause 2

Homepage: justcause.com | Publisher: Eidos Interactive | Developer: Avalanche Studios

Just Cause 2 is one of the older titles in our suite and uses DX10 visuals. It's no longer cutting edge, but it's still a lot of fun and can be used to cross-reference older reviews.

Remember how we spoke about the benefits of the Tonga architecture that may not be evident when looking at a spec sheet? Here's an example of where the spec sheet doesn't lie. Reduced memory bandwidth and lack of available compression optimisations open to the R9 285 means poorer performance than the outgoing R9 280.

92 per cent of frames are what we'd class as fast and smooth, while the slowest are under the magical 30ms barrier. We're witnessing console-beating performance yet again... at ultra-quality settings.

The trio of cards all offer very creditable performance, pushing out almost all the frames within 17ms. Lower average framerates explain the limited potential of the R9 285 in this title.