Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC 8GB Review

Nvidia are in an rather troubling situation right now. Their mid/high end GTX970 has been one of the biggest selling graphics cards of all time however recent hardware related concerns have caused a massive backlash, with AMD keen to capitalise on this as owners attempt to get refunds or spend a little extra for an upgrade to another card.

For many, AMD's R9 290X makes a lot of sense, especially when factoring in recent price drops. A Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X 4GB for instance is available now for £289.99 inc vat. This puts it directly head to head with some of the overclocked GTX970 cards available today. Obviously the AMD hardware demands more power and emits greater heat – but if we look past this to a pure performance analysis, the R9 290X remains competitive.

With the 8GB cards Sapphire are keen to target the audience who demand plenty of VRAM – those for instance who are buying a new Ultra HD 4K screen. Their Vapor-X OC 8GB card has recently seen a price drop from £419.99 to £389.99, and the Tri-X OC 8GB reviewed today is a little less expsensive, at £347.99 inc vat.

The Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC performs well at 1080p and 1600p, although the Nvidia GTX980 has a clear performance lead at both resolutions. When we increase the resolution to 4K the performance gap narrows considerably, and the 8GB AMD card can compete against custom overclocked GTX980 solutions.

The biggest concern right now remains constant. The R9 290X demands 80 watts more power under load than Nvidia's GTX980. While a wide audience won't care too much about a marginal electricity bill increase, the ramifications of this added power demand mean that Sapphire have to create a very substantial cooling configuration. The three fans spin quite fast when the demand is sustained although it is testament to the great cooler design that the Hawaii core peaks at only 65c when gaming.

The Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC 8GB is available from Overclockers UK for £347.99 inc vat – this is around £40 less than the Vapor-X OC 8GB version, which recently dropped in price to £389.99 inc vat.

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Pros:

• Heavy and built to high standards
• additional core headroom available.
• good looking card.
• 8GB of memory offers greater futureproofing.

Cons:

• no backplate.
• power hungry.
• cooling system has to work hard under load.

Kitguru says: Sapphire are pushing this somewhat aging technology to the limits. The R9 290X Tri-X OC 8GB is a fantastic graphics card, but we eagerly await new architecture from AMD.

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