Looking for a new graphic card for your upgrade? We have some graphic cards up for review and first on our list is the Radeon R9 R270x OC Edition from PowerColor. Radeon released a mid-level graphic card for consumers who want to play some high-end games on 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second. The R9 270X was the successor to the HD 7850 model, promised to have more power but still maintain the same power usage. We put on a test drive at the R9 270X and see if this will meet the gamers’ expectation.

Here are the specifications of the graphic card:

It’s good to see that the R9 270X still uses the GCN architecture from the previous line but with boosted performance, it promises to have 30+% more power from the previous line, more specifically the HD 7850 model. It also features the Eyefinity Technology where you can hook up multiple monitors in a single card (using the HDMI, DVI and Displayport connections), it also has the App Acceleration that can help add more juice on the processing power to your main processor, this helpful in running software that eats a lot of processing power. If your monitor is 3D ready, you’re in luck as this card features HD3D technology that can provide stereoscopic 3D images and videos from games and movies.

Some of the R9 270X variants offer two or three fans on the card, the unit we reviewed only had one fan, it made us worried with the processing power of the R9 270X, as a single fan could not handle the intense heat, but after sessions of gaming on high settings and the temperature reaching up to 70 degrees Celsius, the R9 270X can still handle it without crashing thanks to the design of the copper foil that dissipates heat out into the fan. Fan noise is also minimal even if we try to strain the card in running games in very high settings.

The R9 270X can handle 4K resolution (4096 x 2160), which is good news for people who have monitors or HD TVs that support 4K resolution for that ultra HD experience.

For the performance, we used Unigine Heaven DX11 for the Benchmark and so far the scores are pretty good and the frame rates reached around 55 to 60 frames per second. We tried a couple of games on the R9 270X, namely Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Phantasy Star Online 2.

First on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, we maxed up the settings to see if the graphic card can handle it. After 2 hours of playtest, the game was able to get around 30 frames per second, but after some tweaking on the settings (more on reducing on , we managed to get a higher framerate to the game (at around 35-40). We try reducing the resolution and the graphic card can handle the game at 50-60 fps (using 1600 x 900 resolution). We uploaded a video of the game to check on the quality and framerate that the R9 270x can provide. The video below was set on max settings with 1080p resolution.

Next on the line was Phantasy Star Online 2, we maxed all the settings and even the resolution, during the whole Closed Beta Test of PSO 2, we were using the R9 270X, and the results are impressive. The game never drop below 50 frames, giving a really smooth gameplay for the whole beta test. We used the graphic card for our PSO 2 Gameplay Video which can be viewed below.

Summing it up, the R9 270X is a good investment if you are looking for a mid-range graphic card that can provide really good results, you can still play newer games in max settings on exceptional frame rate. If you are worried that the single fan can’t handle the heat of the video card from overclocking, you can spend more and opt for the TurboDuo Edition, both have the same specs for the performance. But if you are confident that your rig can provide good ventilation, sticking with the OC Edition will not disappoint you.