AMD Radeon R9 380X Review: Fastest GPU Under $250

3DMark Fire Strike has multiple benchmark modes: Normal mode runs at 1920x1080, Extreme mode targets 2560x1440, and Ultra runs at 4K. GPU target frame buffer utilization for normal mode is 1GB and the benchmark uses tessellation, ambient occlusion, volume illumination, and a medium-quality depth of field filter. The more taxing Extreme mode targets 1.5GB of frame buffer memory and increases detail levels across the board. Extreme mode, and the more taxing 4K mode, are explicitly designed for CrossFire / SLI systems. GT 1 focuses on geometry and illumination, with over 100 shadow casting spot lights, 140 non-shadow casting point lights, and 3.9 million vertices calculated for tessellation per frame. And 80 million pixels are processed per frame. GT2 emphasizes particles and GPU simulations. Tessellation volume is reduced to 2.6 million vertices and the number of pixels processed per frame rises to 170 million.

3DMark Fire Strike

The results in our 3DMark Fire Strike testing look very much like those from Unigine Heaven on the previous page. Here, we also see the Radeon R9 380X handily outpacing the R9 285 and GeForce GTX 960, but trailing the more expensive cards.