ASUS Radeon R7-370 STRIX Review

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Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

If you track back the AMD R7-370 GPU, then you will need to go back in time, three years. The GPU design is based on Pitcairn Pro and sure while it has had tweaks and iterations, really it's more of the same based on first gen GCN architecture. This card can be looked at as a Radeon HD 7850 in disguise or something in the 265/270 series. The specs are almost similar with the exception being a small Boost frequency tweak that allows it to clock towards 975 MHz and for this STRIX model 1050 MHz. So the big question remains,will this card be a viable option to purchase ? Honestly, we doubt that the AMD user base hasn't already purchased a card similar or better than this in the past three years. Hence I have no idea who i should recommend it to ?

Cooling & noise Levels

Now please understand that we did not receive a reference card today, instead we received a board from ASUS the STRIX OC version, as such we can't comment on the reference cooler and its performance. The STRIX card runs cool enough, though we see an anomaly as the thermal sensor reports roughly 70 Degrees as maximum through software. 
 

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Power Consumption

The card is rated having a 110 Watt TDP, we see numbers closer to 150 Watt. We measured roughly 145 Watts. If you pursue the multi-GPU road then with two cards we think a 600~700 Watt PSU will be more then sufficient, but do keep in mind to have a bit of reserve. So yeah, it's not great to have a GPU consuming that much power, but it could have been a lot worse.

Game Performance

The AMD R7-370 in most scenarios performance wise can run games at Full HD, albeit you will find yourself forfeiting on image quality settings pretty fast. If for whatever reason you want to purchase a 370, then please do get the 4 GB version as we feel that 2GB is just too little. Another note I like to make is that this product does not support Freesync, and if any product out there could have really benefited from a technology like Freesync, it's a lower performing product like this.

Concluding

Nothing is really new with the R7-370, not even the price performance ratio. AMD re-used an old chip and clocked it marginally faster with slightly faster memory. A good option however is a 4GB model. The AMD Radeon R7 370 will be available next week starting at a price of $149 USD. But make no mistake, this card is based on the core essence that it the Radeon HD 7850, with a newer GPU iteration combined with a tweak here and there. ASUS overall has a nice offering with the STRIX design, it cools okay, looks very nice and sure for the money 1080P gaming is in close vicinity. It's a lovely product they made overall. But yes, it's just very hard for me to recommend a three year old tweaked GPU that is just marginally faster opposed to the previous generation products, so I am just not going to do that.

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