A Y-shaped eccentrically braced high-strength steel frame is a novel structure. For such structure to exhibit good plastic deformation ability under severe earthquake, the links are made of ordinary steel (f_y ≤ 345 MPa), whereas high-strength steel (f_y ≥ 460 MPa) is used in the frame beam and column to reduce the cross section while ensuring the elasticity of the non-energy consuming component. The new structure has good ductility and energy-dissipating capacity. The response modification factor R is crucial to the performance-based seismic design. For an appropriate and economical seismic design, the R value should be reasonably selected. In the 2016 edition of China's code for Seismic Design of Buildings (GB50011-2010), it is obviously not reasonable to hide the R concept and adopt a constant value for all structural systems. It is important to study R and C_d of a Y-shaped eccentrically braced high-strength steel frame, it can not only improve the structural performance design, but also provide reference for the future, and promotes the application of the structure in seismic areas, which presents excellent seismic performance. Therefore, in this study, structures with different stories (4, 8, 12, and 16 stories) and link lengths (700, 900, and 1100 mm) were designed via the performance-based seismic design method. A static elastic–plastic analysis (Pushover analysis) and an incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) were conducted and the data thus obtained was fitted to reach the IDA performance curve of the structure. The R and C_d value of each prototype were calculated using the capability spectrum method, the number of structural story N and the link length e is considered. The results of the pushover analysis and IDA were compared; the values of each performance coefficient obtained can serve as a reference for the performance design of the new structural systems in the future.