AMD Radeon R9 380
AMD graphics card specifications and benchmark scores
At a Glance
AMDAMD Radeon R9 380 Specifications
Radeon R9 380 GPU Core
Shader units and compute resources
The AMD Radeon R9 380 GPU core specifications define its raw processing power for graphics and compute workloads. Shading units (also called CUDA cores, stream processors, or execution units depending on manufacturer) handle the parallel calculations required for rendering. TMUs (Texture Mapping Units) process texture data, while ROPs (Render Output Units) handle final pixel output. Higher shader counts generally translate to better GPU benchmark performance, especially in demanding games and 3D applications.
R9 380 Clock Speeds
GPU and memory frequencies
Clock speeds directly impact the Radeon R9 380's performance in GPU benchmarks and real-world gaming. The base clock represents the minimum guaranteed frequency, while the boost clock indicates peak performance under optimal thermal conditions. Memory clock speed affects texture loading and frame buffer operations. The Radeon R9 380 by AMD dynamically adjusts frequencies based on workload, temperature, and power limits to maximize performance while maintaining stability.
AMD's Radeon R9 380 Memory
VRAM capacity and bandwidth
VRAM (Video RAM) is dedicated memory for storing textures, frame buffers, and shader data. The Radeon R9 380's memory capacity determines how well it handles high-resolution textures and multiple displays. Memory bandwidth, measured in GB/s, affects how quickly data moves between the GPU and VRAM. Higher bandwidth improves performance in memory-intensive scenarios like 4K gaming. The memory bus width and type (GDDR6, GDDR6X, HBM) significantly influence overall GPU benchmark scores.
Radeon R9 380 by AMD Cache
On-chip cache hierarchy
On-chip cache provides ultra-fast data access for the R9 380, reducing the need to fetch data from slower VRAM. L1 and L2 caches store frequently accessed data close to the compute units. AMD's Infinity Cache (L3) dramatically increases effective bandwidth, improving GPU benchmark performance without requiring wider memory buses. Larger cache sizes help maintain high frame rates in memory-bound scenarios and reduce power consumption by minimizing VRAM accesses.
R9 380 Theoretical Performance
Compute and fill rates
Theoretical performance metrics provide a baseline for comparing the AMD Radeon R9 380 against other graphics cards. FP32 (single-precision) performance, measured in TFLOPS, indicates compute capability for gaming and general GPU workloads. FP64 (double-precision) matters for scientific computing. Pixel and texture fill rates determine how quickly the GPU can render complex scenes. While real-world GPU benchmark results depend on many factors, these specifications help predict relative performance levels.
GCN 3.0 Architecture & Process
Manufacturing and design details
The AMD Radeon R9 380 is built on AMD's GCN 3.0 architecture, which defines how the GPU processes graphics and compute workloads. The manufacturing process node affects power efficiency, thermal characteristics, and maximum clock speeds. Smaller process nodes pack more transistors into the same die area, enabling higher performance per watt. Understanding the architecture helps predict how the R9 380 will perform in GPU benchmarks compared to previous generations.
AMD's Radeon R9 380 Power & Thermal
TDP and power requirements
Power specifications for the AMD Radeon R9 380 determine PSU requirements and thermal management needs. TDP (Thermal Design Power) indicates the heat output under typical loads, guiding cooler selection. Power connector requirements ensure adequate power delivery for stable operation during demanding GPU benchmarks. The suggested PSU wattage accounts for the entire system, not just the graphics card. Efficient power delivery enables the Radeon R9 380 to maintain boost clocks without throttling.
Radeon R9 380 by AMD Physical & Connectivity
Dimensions and outputs
Physical dimensions of the AMD Radeon R9 380 are critical for case compatibility. Card length, height, and slot width determine whether it fits in your chassis. The PCIe interface version affects bandwidth for communication with the CPU. Display outputs define monitor connectivity options, with modern cards supporting multiple high-resolution displays simultaneously. Verify these specifications against your case and motherboard before purchasing to ensure a proper fit.
AMD API Support
Graphics and compute APIs
API support determines which games and applications can fully utilize the AMD Radeon R9 380. DirectX 12 Ultimate enables advanced features like ray tracing and variable rate shading. Vulkan provides cross-platform graphics capabilities with low-level hardware access. OpenGL remains important for professional applications and older games. CUDA (NVIDIA) and OpenCL enable GPU compute for video editing, 3D rendering, and scientific applications. Higher API versions unlock newer graphical features in GPU benchmarks and games.
Radeon R9 380 Product Information
Release and pricing details
The AMD Radeon R9 380 is manufactured by AMD as part of their graphics card lineup. Release date and launch pricing provide context for comparing GPU benchmark results with competing products from the same era. Understanding the product lifecycle helps evaluate whether the Radeon R9 380 by AMD represents good value at current market prices. Predecessor and successor information aids in tracking generational improvements and planning future upgrades.
Radeon R9 380 Benchmark Scores
passmark_directx_10Source
DirectX 10 tests AMD Radeon R9 380 with the graphics API introduced with Windows Vista. This shows performance in games from the 2007-2009 era that targeted this feature level. DX10 introduced geometry shaders and other features still used today.
Top 5 Performers
Top 5 PerformersNearby Performers
Nearby Performerspassmark_directx_11Source
DirectX 11 tests AMD Radeon R9 380 with the widely-used graphics API powering most current games. This shows mainstream gaming performance across the majority of today's titles. DX11 remains the most common rendering path even in newer games. Tessellation and compute shaders introduced in DX11 are heavily used in modern game engines.
Top 5 Performers
Nearby Performers
passmark_directx_12Source
DirectX 12 tests AMD Radeon R9 380 with the modern low-overhead graphics API. This shows performance in next-gen games that leverage DX12 features like ray tracing and mesh shaders.
Top 5 Performers
Nearby Performers
passmark_directx_9Source
DirectX 9 tests AMD Radeon R9 380 performance with the legacy graphics API still used by older games. This shows compatibility and performance with classic titles from the 2000s era.
Top 5 Performers
Nearby Performers
passmark_g2dSource
PassMark G2D tests 2D graphics performance for desktop rendering, UI elements, and productivity applications. This shows how AMD Radeon R9 380 handles everyday visual tasks.
Top 5 Performers
Nearby Performers
passmark_g3dSource
PassMark G3D measures overall 3D graphics performance of AMD Radeon R9 380 across DirectX 9 through 12 tests. This provides a comprehensive gaming capability score. The combined result predicts performance across various game engines and API versions.
Top 5 Performers
Nearby Performers
passmark_gpu_computeSource
GPU compute tests parallel processing capability of AMD Radeon R9 380 using OpenCL. This shows performance in video encoding, scientific computing, and AI workloads.
Top 5 Performers
Nearby Performers
About AMD Radeon R9 380
The AMD Radeon R9 380 is a legacy 28 nm graphics card aimed at 1080p gaming with medium to high settings in DirectX 11 titles, but its performance ceiling is firmly limited by its 2 GB VRAM and its age relative to modern software. Benchmark data places it in the 6th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 1293, making it a marginal performer by contemporary standards. It is a card for retro builds or low-demand esports scenarios, not for modern AAA releases at high resolutions.
Who Should Consider It
The R9 380 is best suited for users targeting 1080p resolution with older DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 games. Its PassMark DirectX 9 score of 93 is its strongest API result, indicating that legacy titles from the early 2010s will run smoothly. For DirectX 11 workloads, the score drops to 41, suggesting that games from that era will require medium settings to maintain playable frame rates. The DirectX 12 score of 32 is notably weaker, meaning newer titles that rely heavily on DX12 features will struggle significantly.
Users with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors should avoid this card unless they are exclusively playing esports titles from its release era. The R9 380's 32 ROPs and 108.6 GTexel/s texture rate provide enough fill rate for 1080p, but its 3.476 TFLOPS FP32 compute is insufficient for modern rendering workloads. At 1440p or above, the 176.0 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes a severe bottleneck, and the 2 GB VRAM will cause texture thrashing in any game that requires more than 2 GB of frame buffer. The card is end-of-life, so driver optimizations for newer titles are unlikely to materialize.
Power and Cooling
The R9 380 carries a TDP of 190 W, which requires a 450 W power supply unit as suggested by vendor specifications. The card draws power through two 6-pin connectors, so any PSU must have both available. The dual-slot cooler is standard for this power class, and the card's physical dimensions are 221 mm in length (8.7 inches) and 111 mm in height (4.4 inches), making it compatible with most mid-tower cases. The 28 nm process node from TSMC means thermal density is manageable, but the 5,000 million transistor die does generate substantial heat under sustained load.
The 190 W TDP is modest by modern standards, but the card's aging architecture means it delivers far less performance per watt than contemporary GPUs. Users building a system around this card should ensure adequate case airflow, as the dual-slot design will exhaust heat into the chassis. The lack of a boost clock in the specifications suggests the card runs at a fixed frequency, which simplifies power delivery but also limits performance headroom. For a 1080p gaming system, a quality 450 W PSU from a reputable brand will suffice, but any overclocking efforts would require additional power headroom.
Benchmark Performance
The R9 380's average benchmark score of 1293 places it in a peculiar position among its nearest rivals, with deltas that are all within 1.1% of each other. The data shows a four-way tie that is statistically insignificant. Against the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile, the R9 380 is 0.6% faster, a margin that falls within run-to-run variance. The GeForce 930MX scores 1302, putting the R9 380 0.7% behind, which is again negligible. The GeForce GT 610 trails by 0.9%, and the AMD FirePro M5950 is 1.1% behind the R9 380.
This clustering around the 1280-1302 score range indicates that the R9 380's performance is comparable to entry-level mobile and low-end desktop GPUs from various generations. The PassMark G3D score of 6043 is the card's strongest overall metric, but it is diluted by the much lower compute score of 2149 and the 2D score of 660. The DirectX 10 score of 30 is surprisingly low, suggesting the card's driver stack is optimized for newer APIs but not for this older benchmark. In practical terms, the R9 380 will outperform the GT 610 in real gaming scenarios due to its superior texture rate and memory bandwidth, but the benchmark deltas do not reflect this — the GT 610's score is dragged up by its 2D capabilities.
The gap between the R9 380's DirectX 9 score (93) and DirectX 11 score (41) is telling. The 28 nm GCN 3.0 architecture was designed for DX11, yet its performance there is only 44% of its DX9 capability. This suggests the card's shading units (1792) are underutilized in DX11 workloads due to driver inefficiencies or architectural bottlenecks. Users should expect the card to feel much faster in older games than in any title from 2015 onward.
FAQ
Q: Can this card run modern games at 1080p?
A: No. Its DirectX 12 score of 32 is very low, and the 2 GB VRAM will exceed capacity in most modern titles, causing severe stuttering. It is only viable for DirectX 9 and light DirectX 11 games.
Q: What power supply is required?
A: A 450 W PSU is the suggested specification. The card requires two 6-pin power connectors and has a TDP of 190 W.
Q: Does the card support ray tracing?
A: No. The FACT PACK lists no RT cores or tensor cores. It is based on GCN 3.0, which predates hardware ray tracing by several years.
Q: What is the memory configuration?
A: It uses 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, providing 176.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is insufficient for high-resolution textures beyond 1080p.
Q: How does it compare to the GeForce GT 610?
A: The R9 380 scores 0.9% higher in average benchmarks, but this hides the fact that the R9 380 has far higher texture and pixel rates (108.6 GTexel/s vs. the GT 610's much lower figures).
Q: Is this card still supported by modern APIs?
A: Yes, it supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. However, its compute performance of 2149 in PassMark GPU compute limits its usefulness in API-heavy modern workloads.
Ray Tracing and Feature Set
The R9 380 has no ray tracing hardware whatsoever. The FACT PACK lists zero RT cores and zero tensor cores, meaning any ray-traced effects must be handled by the 1792 shading units in a software fallback, which would be catastrophically slow. The card's FP32 throughput of 3.476 TFLOPS is barely enough for rasterization, let alone the iterative ray intersection calculations required for real-time ray tracing. The FP16 performance is identical at 3.476 TFLOPS (1:1), indicating no dedicated half-precision acceleration, which further limits any AI or compute-based features.
On the API front, the card supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_0, which covers the baseline features of the API but lacks advanced features like mesh shaders or variable rate shading. Vulkan support extends to version 1.2.170, which allows modern Vulkan titles to run, but performance will be poor due to the architecture's age. OpenGL 4.6 support is present, which is useful for emulators and older games. The display outputs are limited to two DVI ports, one HDMI 1.4a, and one DisplayPort 1.2 — there is no HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4, so high refresh rates at 1440p or 4K are not achievable, and HDR output is not supported.
The 32 ROPs are the card's saving grace for raw pixel fill, delivering 31.04 GPixel/s, but this only helps at lower resolutions. The 112 TMUs provide 108.6 GTexel/s, which is adequate for 1080p texture work. The lack of any tensor cores means no DLSS or similar AI upscaling is available; users must rely on native resolution rendering, which further exposes the card's performance limits.
Memory Subsystem
The R9 380 is equipped with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory operating at 1375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective), connected via a 256-bit bus. This configuration yields 176.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which was competitive for a mid-range card in 2015 but is severely inadequate today. The 2 GB capacity is the primary bottleneck — modern games routinely require 4-6 GB at 1080p with high textures, and the card will be forced to stream assets from system memory, causing stutters and hitches.
The 176.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for the card's 3.476 TFLOPS compute throughput at 1080p in older titles, but any game that uses high-resolution textures will saturate the bus. The 256-bit bus width is respectable, but the modest memory clock limits effective throughput. For 1440p gaming, the bandwidth is insufficient to feed the 32 ROPs adequately, resulting in fill-rate-bound performance. The lack of memory capacity also prevents the card from using larger render targets or multiple render targets for deferred shading, which is common in modern engines.
Users considering this card for 1080p should be aware that texture quality settings will need to be set to low or medium to avoid exceeding the 2 GB frame buffer. The memory subsystem is the single largest limiting factor for the card's longevity, more so than the compute units. There is no memory error correction or ECC support, and the GDDR5 is not overclocked out of the box, so there is no hidden headroom.
How It Compares
NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile: The R9 380 is 0.6% faster in average benchmark scores, a negligible margin. The Quadro is a mobile workstation card, so direct gaming comparisons are unfair — the R9 380 has no professional driver certifications, while the Quadro's 1285 score reflects its compute-biased workload.
NVIDIA GeForce 930MX: The R9 380 trails the 930MX by 0.7%, which is a statistical tie. The 930MX is a low-power laptop GPU, so the R9 380's desktop power envelope (190 W vs. the mobile card's much lower draw) yields no practical advantage in this benchmark metric.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 610: The R9 380 is 0.9% ahead of the GT 610. This is misleading because the GT 610 is a passive-cooled entry-level card from 2012. The R9 380's texture rate (108.6 GTexel/s) and pixel rate (31.04 GPixel/s) dwarf the GT 610's capabilities, but the PassMark average score compresses all workloads into one number.
AMD FirePro M5950: The R9 380 leads by 1.1%, the largest delta among its rivals. The FirePro is a mobile workstation GPU, so this comparison also mixes desktop and mobile segments. The R9 380's 1792 shading units vastly outnumber the FirePro's, yet the benchmark scores are within 1.1%, highlighting the age of the R9 380's architecture.
The NVIDIA Equivalent of Radeon R9 380
Looking for a similar graphics card from NVIDIA? The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 offers comparable performance and features in the NVIDIA lineup.
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