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AMD Radeon R9 370X

AMD Radeon R9 370X in 2025: Is This Graphics Card Worth Considering?

Exploring the capabilities, performance, and relevance of the "veteran" in the budget segment.

Introduction

In 2025, the graphics card market is experiencing a boom in technology: ray tracing, AI scaling, and graphics cards with TDPs nearing 500W have become the norm. But what about those looking for the most affordable solution for basic tasks? The AMD Radeon R9 370X, a card from 2015, is still available for sale at prices ranging from $80 to $120. Let's find out who could benefit from it in the era of RDNA 4 and the RTX 50 series.

Architecture and Key Features

Foundation: Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1.0

The R9 370X is built on the GCN 1.0 architecture, which debuted back in 2012. This means:

- 28nm process technology — a large transistor size by modern standards (for comparison: RDNA 4 uses 4nm);

- 1280 stream processors — a modest figure even for its time;

- Lack of support for modern features — no hardware acceleration for ray tracing, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), or similar technologies.

Unique Features

The card only supports basic AMD technologies:

- Mantle API (outdated but the basis for Vulkan);

- Eyefinity for multi-monitor configurations;

- TrueAudio — GPU-based audio processing (rarely used).

Memory: Modest but Adequate for Its Tasks

- Memory Type: GDDR5 (4GB);

- Bus Width: 256-bit;

- Bandwidth: 179.2 GB/s.

For 2025, this is insufficient even for comfortable operation at 1080p in modern games. However, it will suffice for older projects (pre-2020) or office tasks. Important: the card does not support Resizable BAR — a technology that speeds up CPU access to video memory in modern systems.

Gaming Performance: A Nostalgic Look at 1080p

The R9 370X can only handle less demanding games and older hits:

- CS2 (1080p, low settings): 60-70 FPS;

- GTA V (1080p, medium): 45-55 FPS;

- The Witcher 3 (1080p, low): 30-40 FPS;

- Fortnite (1080p, Performance Mode): 50-60 FPS.

1440p and 4K: not recommended. Even in Dota 2 at 1440p, FPS drops to 40-50. Ray tracing is absent at the hardware level.

Advice: For games from 2023-2025, the card will not suffice. For example, in "Starfield" (minimum settings), FPS barely reaches 20-25.

Professional Tasks: Only Basic Scenarios

- Video Editing: rendering in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro is possible via OpenCL, but with delays. 4K projects are not feasible.

- 3D Modeling: Blender and Maya work, but complex scenes will lag.

- Scientific Calculations: OpenCL support is available, but due to weak computational power (2.2 TFLOPS), the card lags behind even integrated Ryzen 8000 GPUs.

Conclusion: The R9 370X is suitable for those who need to run Photoshop or edit a video in 1080p without special effects.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

- TDP: 150W;

- Recommended PSU: 450-500W (with headroom).

Cooling:

- Reference models use 1-2 fans;

- Temperature under load: 75-85°C (good case ventilation is required).

Building Tips:

- A case with 2-3 fans (intake at the front, exhaust at the back);

- Avoid compact cases — a GPU that's 24 cm long may not fit in a Mini-ITX.

Comparison with Competitors

AMD:

- Radeon RX 6400 ($130): an entry-level modern model with FSR 3.0 support, TDP 53W. Performance in games is 20-30% higher.

- Radeon HD 7870: a contemporary of the R9 370X, but 15% weaker.

NVIDIA:

- GTX 1650 ($150): 4GB GDDR6, supports DLSS 1.0, TDP 75W. Twice as powerful in modern games.

Conclusion: The R9 370X falls short even against budget newcomers from 2025 but is cheaper by 30-40%.

Practical Tips

1. Power Supply: 500W with an 80+ Bronze certification. Examples: Corsair CX550, Be Quiet! System Power 10.

2. Compatibility:

- PCIe 3.0 x16 (works in PCIe 4.0/5.0, but without speed gain);

- Not compatible with Windows 12 (drivers were updated until 2023).

3. Drivers: use Adrenalin 23.2.1 — the latest stable version for GCN 1.0.

Important: The card does not support DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1 — maximum 4K@60Hz via DisplayPort 1.4.

Pros and Cons

✅ Pros:

- Price up to $120;

- Sufficient for office work and older games;

- Easy installation and setup.

❌ Cons:

- No support for modern APIs and technologies;

- High power consumption for its performance;

- Limited driver support.

Final Conclusion: Who is the R9 370X Suitable For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Budget Builds: if you need a GPU for Office work, browsing, or older games.

2. Upgrading Old PCs: as a replacement for outdated GeForce GTX 600/700.

3. Backup Solution: temporarily while searching for a more powerful card.

Alternative: if the budget allows for an extra $50-70, it's better to go for the Radeon RX 6500 XT or Intel Arc A380 — both support FSR/XeSS and current standards.

The R9 370X in 2025 is an example of "surviving" hardware that finds its niche despite progress. However, its time is running out: in 2-3 years, even indie games may no longer run on it.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

August 2015

Model Name

Radeon R9 370X

Generation

Pirate Islands

Base Clock

980MHz

Boost Clock

1030MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

2,800 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 1.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

2GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

1400MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

179.2 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

32.96 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

82.40 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

164.8 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

2.69 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1280

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

180W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2

OpenCL Version

1.2

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_1)

Power Connectors

2x 6-pin

Shader Model

5.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.69 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon R9 M395X

2.902 +7.9%

Radeon HD 6870 1600SP Edition

2.774 +3.1%

Radeon R9 370X

2.69

GeForce GTX 660 Ti

2.581 -4.1%

GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile

2.538 -5.7%