Buy Used and Save:
Buy a Used "Sapphire Radeon VAPOR-X R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 DVI-I/DV...” from Amazon Warehouse Deals and save 9% off the $289.99 list price. Product is eligible for Amazon's 30-day returns policy and Prime or FREE Shipping.
See all Used offers from Amazon Warehouse Deals.
I purchased this card mainly because while Sapphire clearly makes the best R9 280x in their TOXIC edition, its color (orange/yellow) is completely unappealing. So when this card came out with the same fan cooler, combined with their Vapor Chamber tech, only 50 Mhz slower clock speed than the TOXIC, a significantly lower price tag, AND in a nice blue color, the choice was a no-brainer. This was an upgrade from a 7850, and I have seen a huge improvement. There hasn't been a game I can't get at least 60 fps at 1080p.
Pros: Signifcanlty higher clock speeds than reference 280x with factory overclock. This, however, doesn't leave much more headroom to increase the clock, but I did get the engine clock up to 1175 Mhz and the memory to 1650 Mhz (6600 Mhz Effective) compared to the 1100 Mhz out of the box boost clock and 1500 Mhz memory clock.
Cooling: This card runs super cool especially considering how hot this (and other high end AMD GPU cores) tend to run. At idle it sits around 30-33 C, with Furmark's burn-in test running at 100% load it tops out at only about 65-68 C. Also, the overclock added 1 or 2 degrees only. The vapor chamber plus Tri-X cooler is a brilliant cooling solution that I hope to see Sapphire implement on future cards.
Noise: The Tri-X cooler has 3 100mm fans that stay relatively quiet under normal circumstances including gaming. If they're forced to go above about 50% (like under a burn-in test) the noise becomes more apparent but its still not nearly as loud as the reference design. At idle the fans are set to run at 20% by default and under gaming loads they never got above 45% for me.
Aestetics: The card looks awesome, especially if you have a blue-theme for your build.Read more ›
5 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
I just built a new gaming rig and decided to stick with Sapphire for the video card. I'm not really an overclocker, so a factory OC is just fine with me. This card runs everything amazingly well. It pushes 3 1440x900 monitors in eyefinity and maintains relatively high FPS (40 and up) on most games with highest settings with the exception of AA being disabled. When pushing a single monitor I can set everything to high including AA and it performs similarly if not better.
The card idles around 42 degrees and maybe gets into the mid 50's under load.
Here's my build:
Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth Z87 CPU: i7 4770k RAM: 8GB gskill sniper GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 280x Vapor-X TRI-X PS: Corsair RM Series 850W SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 250GB HDD: WD Caviar Blue 1TB CPU fan - Noctua NH-D14
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Great card, runs incredibly quietly (actually makes far less noise than my old sapphire 7850 did despite drawing around 30% more power) Just make sure you have enough power to run this- I would reccomend 800 watts minimum, my 750watt wasn't enough and needed to be replaced to stop the system from stuttering
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
It is a HUGE card! It does it's job bought it off newegg for the free 3 games that came with it though... plan on crossfiring early next year hoping they last me awhile!
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
This card is great. It handles everything that I throw at it, and is able to play tons of games maxed out. BF4 in ultra settings runs at about 90 fps constant with the occasional drop to 84 fps on Operation Locker when all 64 people throw a grenade at the same time. Runs Watch Dogs in ultra everything with 4x MSAA at a near constant 34 fps. Its pretty good because they say that the game requires a NVIDIA Titan and a i7-4770k to run it in ultra and have it to be playable. The temps on it run really nice. Under load, it'll hit about 72 degrees Celsius and it'll idle around 30 degrees Celsius. Even when under load, I can't hear the fans. If they do pick up, it's drowned over the sound of my h80i fans, so they're not loud at all. I would recommend this card to anyone that wants a great upgrade to their video card and doesn't want to break the bank.
1 Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":281.53,"ASIN":"B00IPZW686","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":33.03,"ASIN":"B005O65JXI","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":54.99,"ASIN":"B0088PUEPK","isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"B00IPZW686::PO2TP0LBKggzwwXH8vRkY5QNzuVtnV560JRmX0CrmMLOGmWh%2BNVnxin6BSI%2F%2BgaNLLg5AY2JBEYUn8Jqb7l1VzrmVB2JxmOPs5sPSmL8pVECgOA0GaXgPg%3D%3D,B005O65JXI::RHaVv595%2B9t8YIbjfm6oqgm2opfgGi8CWlb9bj90vvmiUVEvYw5Ohj8ohml1qu3l4YP1eUavq6Nq6ELJMDoHTwv8Fgn4hS%2Ftv9pSxs8y%2BwDKSqYbe3R37Q%3D%3D,B0088PUEPK::FBcq%2Bs6fkz2kyUyu6Vp6BvP2suWUqf34z%2FqEDm3WmrWby%2BEaOslkW0l6tD5jIMECEwcIMEXB5oKSL%2F44I5h5gcGM2iOdKJUXneNLrkUCTdwWWaq%2F3EKfMw%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","yz":"same","xy":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items"]}}