Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X OC and R9 290 Vapor-X OC review

Sapphire have released a slew of ground breaking graphics cards in the last 6 months. We were the first publication to review the Sapphire R9 280X Toxic OC Edition last October and we elucidated at the time how the Tri-X cooler had kicked all competition into the sidelines.

The new overclocked Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X OC and Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X take this a stage further by incorporating one of the best cooling systems we have ever reviewed. To get a handle on just how capable these coolers are – under load, they are a staggering 32c better than AMD's reference design. That really is an extraordinary result, no matter how you look at it.

Today we tested at a series of resolutions – 1080p, 1600p and Ultra HD 4K. The overclocked Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X performs well at both 1080p and 1600p, but runs out of bandwidth at Ultra HD 4K. It would be possible to increase the frame rates by reducing the image quality significantly, but gamers do not want this anymore. To get acceptable game performance at Ultra HD 4k with the eye candy cranked, you really need at least an AMD R9 290/X or Nvidia GTX780 Ti.

The Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X OC is a fantastic graphics card that will suit a very wide audience who game with a 1080p monitor. You can easily move all the image quality settings to maximum and maintain smooth frame rates over 30 at all times. Many games will run extremely well at 1600p, although you may need to reduce a few of the image quality settings with the latest Direct X 11 titles.

The Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC is the star of the show today. We feel the R9 290 makes more sense than the more expensive R9 290X. With the amount of overclocking headroom available on this Sapphire card, it is straightforward enough to outperform the fastest overclocked GTX780 Ti solutions, nevermind a reference R9 290X.

This card really is a beautiful piece of engineering. Sapphire have included a BIOS button, alongside a fan control switch, which disables the outer two fans in specific lower load conditions. The Vapor-X cooler on this card is the best air cooler we have seen to date, and the added backplate not only improves the appearance, but ensures that PCB temperatures are reduced. Sapphire have adopted thick 10mm heatpipes, a Vapor-X cooling chamber and triple 90mm aerofoil blade fans to ensure the ultimate cooling performance.

Taking matters a stage further, they have extended the edge of the card, exposed one of the copper layers and added a heatsink for additional cooling. The heat from the PCB, GPU and other components on the board can be transferred to the heatsink and cooled by airflow from above. This is clearly no marketing speak either, because it is the coolest running R9 290 solution we have tested.

We are still waiting for confirmed pricing of the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X OC, however Overclockers UK are stocking the Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC for £371.99 inc vat. It is the best R9 290 we have tested in our labs, without question.

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Pros:

• Vapor-X cooling is exceptional.
• fantastic build quality.
• over-engineered.
• look fantastic.

Cons:

• None.

Kitguru says: The Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC and R9 280X Vapor-X OC are two of the finest AMD video cards ever made. No corners have been cut.

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