A bit late but as promised, here is our review of the GTX 950’s direct competitor from the red corner, AMD’s Radeon R7 370. This time, presented in the form of the ASUS Radeon R7 370 Strix OC. It has double the VRAM of the GTX 950 but with a lower clock. Would this card trump Nvidia’s offering? We find out!
Looks
ASUS started making and selling their Strix graphics cards a few months after the advent of the Nvidia GTX 780. The card sports a boxy design which, in our opinion, is not that enticing as it reminds one of a black brick with two fans. Twin heat pipes redirect the heat from the chip to the comparatively large heatsink. Instead of the usual side placement for external power, the card has it located at the rear.
The card features twin fans that produce 0dB (no sound) during light loads and ramps up once it reaches a temperature threshold of 65C. A benefit for users who go cranky about their VGA’s loud fans.
The card has four ports in total: two DVIs, one HDMI, and a Display Port.
For the full specs, head over to this link.
Test Benchmarks
We’ve made use of four popular tests for graphics cards: Furmark, Unigine Heaven, Star Swarm, and 3DMark. Do take note that we have not tweaked nor configured the card for these tests. We neither underclocked nor overclocked since for us, users would more likely just play the card for what it is outside the box.
Furmark is mainly used for stress-testing the card, giving us values for the upper limits of its temperatures. It’s also home to a strenuous benchmark utility that even gives warnings of destruction to the user.
Unigine, Star Swarm, and 3DMark, all output scores for reference with other cards. Again, we won’t be having comparisons yet. But feel free to base the values taken and compare them with results from other publications.
Furmark v.1.17 (Preset: 1080)
Ave FPS: 15
Idle: 40C
Max: 80C
The idle temp is not that surprising but the upper limits of the temps would be enough to make your PC into a portable heater (mild exaggeration).
Unigine Heaven
Star Swarm (Extreme, 1920×1080, D3D)
== Results ================================================
Test Duration: 360 Seconds
Total Frames: 9081
Average FPS: 25.22
Average Unit Count: 4021
Maximum Unit Count: 5416
Average Batches/MS: 506.66
Maximum Batches/MS: 1628.04
Average Batch Count: 22315
Maximum Batch Count: 139335
===========================================================
3DMark Firestrike
Gaming Benchmarks
We’ve compiled ten games to bench the ASUS Radeon R7 370 Strix OC. Three requirements for the games to be included in our benchmark graph: we have them on hand, they are the usual things that people play, and they are graphically demanding. The games below fit the bill of our guidelines in one way or another.
| ASUS Strix R7 370 OC (1080P) | |||
| Game | Min | Ave | Settings |
| Metro: Last Light Redux | 17.29 | 30 | High, SSAA |
| Fallout 4 | 21 | 39 | Ultra, All View Distances MAX |
| Witcher 3 | 23 | 30.2 | High, Hairworks OFF |
| Ryse: Son of Rome | 23 | 39.5 | Normal |
| Battlefield 4 | 38 | 51.74 | Ultra |
| Assassin’s Creed Syndicate | 28 | 37.8 | Medium |
| Rome II: Total War | 37 | 61.1 | Very High |
| Shadow of Mordor | 35.6 | 56.5 | High |
| Rainbow Six: Siege | 27.5 | 67.8 | Very High |
| Dota 2 | 74 | 98.6 | Best Looking |
Compared to our prior review of the GTX 950 from Gigabyte, we’re seeing low scores here despite them being under the same price segment. The R7 370 does provide a decent number of frames, but for the same money, you’ll get more out of Nvidia’s GTX 950 in terms of video games.
Conclusion
It’s an ASUS card, it’s silent, and it’s a bit cool. But at the end of the day, the ASUS Strix R7 370 pales in comparison with what the other team has to offer. It can play games with an average framerates of 30FPS and that in itself is good enough. The 4GB VRAM may sound like a large number but in reality, is not that much of an advantage.
If the games of yesteryear are your kind of thing, then the card is good enough, but should you warrant for a marginally large improvement of 5-10 FPS, best add a few more bucks and take home an Nvidia GTX 950 instead. Given that green team offers a lot of freebies with their cards, it’s hard not to pass this up.
To be fair, the poor results from our benches can be attributed to Nvidia’s influence on the games themselves. Is it a good practice for graphics providers to meddle with game development? Well, it’s up to you to decide.
The ASUS Strix R7 370 OC comes with a 3-year warranty and has an SRP of PHP 9,360 for the 4GB variant and PHP 8,170 for the 2GB variant.
