The Sapphire ITX Radeon R9 R380 is a perfect match for the Lian Li PC-Q21 Mini Tower pictured below.
Test Setup
We are testing with our X99 set up supporting DDR4, 2011-3 Socket CPU and some serious power and bandwidth for the GPU to play with. All updates to the Operating System, games and synthetic benchmarks are assumed, and a full defragmentation on the SSD after a fresh install before any benches are carried out. We will be testing in 1080p and UHD resolutions using the ViewSonic VP2780-4K 27-Inch UltraHD IPS Monitor.
- Processor: Intel i7-5820K
- Motherboard: Asus Rampage V Extreme Motherboard
- Memory: 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400Mhz @ 2666Mhz
- PSU: Corsair HX1000i
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
- Storage: Crucial BX100 500Gb
- Cooler: Reeven Justice RC-1204
Default driver settings were used for synthetic and gaming tests, we only changed the game settings to push the resolutions, we maintained the Ultra quality settings throughout. All game tests have the game settings screenshot included.
The games and synthetic benchmarks are fully patched as well, though they may change the net performance from time to time, only the fundamentally flawed games or apps would have a significant performance jump when patched, and we don’t use them for testing. Also, Futuremarks’ systeminfo needs to be fully up to date before you can call a benchmark result valid.
Our Charts
We use charts to describe the benchmark results. These use colours that can often be similar or even different shades of each colour. If this becomes hard to read, you can click on any of the legend entries on the chart to remove it, or if removed, to add it back in.
Testing Methodology
All synthetic and gaming tests are carried out several times with the best result taken. If the test is an online multiplayer, the same map is used each time and a ping constantly under 30ms is required before a test is valid. We always try synthetic and real world tests, for graphics cards, there is no better real world test than gaming.
Synthetic Tests
- AIDA64 Engineer
- 3DMark Professional
- Unigine Heaven 4.0
Real World Tests
- Battlefield 4
- Crysis 3
- Alien Isolation
- Batman: Arkham Origins
4K UHD Tests
We have introduced a couple of newer games into our testing cycle, Alien Isolation and Batman: Arkham Origins, Doom and The Division, some excellent game titles. We didn’t test the Sapphire ITX Radeon R9 380 with all the new tests, though we may retest the Sapphire ITX R9 380 in future reviews with all game tests.
If you have a game you would like to see tested, post a comment. We always run the benchmarks several times, taking the best results and recording them on the graphs, and only with the minimum diagnostic software running to capture the results.
Sapphire ITX Radeon R9 380 Graphics Card Review
Package and Bundle - 8
Performance - 8
Price - 8.5
Consumer Experience - 9
8.4
With some truly superb gaming performance on a small form factor layout, you need to look at this card for your next build or upgrade. The R9 Nano is out there too, but it's about three times the cost, and we don't think you'll want to spend that on one component of an ITX build. The Sapphire ITX Compact Radeon R9 380 will play a lot of your games in 1080p, maybe with some of the visual toys turned off, and sometimes not. We would be lying if we did not recommend this.