Reviews - Sapphire Radeon R9 280X TOXIC

[HEXUS]

Will the best R9 280X please step forward?

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[YazX]

why are you comparing non reference 280x card with Nvidia Reference Cards?!!?!? if you want to do unbiased review, then get top of the line non-reference Nvidia cards like ASUS DirectCU II or Gigabyte OC and post some numbers, GTX 770 stock clock speed 1046 Mhz and 7 Gbps memory, with Gigabyte OC it reaches 1230 MHz and 8 Gbps memory and that would beat the crap out of this card. and the price difference is like 50-70$.

[Jimbo75]

why are you comparing non reference 280x card with Nvidia Reference Cards?!!?!? if you want to do unbiased review, then get top of the line non-reference Nvidia cards like ASUS DirectCU II or Gigabyte OC and post some numbers, GTX 770 stock clock speed 1046 Mhz and 7 Gbps memory, with Gigabyte OC it reaches 1230 MHz and 8 Gbps memory and that would beat the crap out of this card. and the price difference is like 50-70$.

Maybe you can start by explaining why reviewing a $70 more expensive card against the 280X is "unbiased"?

Fact is, Hexus's benchmark suite is a bit friendly on Nvidia cards right now. In most places the 280X and 770 trade blows at stock, coming within a couple of percent of each other. Even on Anandtech the overclocked 280X's sail well past the 770 by 13% - http://anandtech.com/show/7406/the-s...toxic-review/3

Putting your theory to the test however, techpowerup has reviewed the following cards -

Asus Direct CU II 280X (slower than this Toxic) - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...II_TOP/26.html
Asus Direct CU II 770 OC - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A..._II_OC/27.html
Gigabyte 770 OC - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/G...rce_OC/27.html

The 780 is 13% faster than the 280X
The 780 is 14% faster than the Asus 770
The 780 is 10% faster than the Gigabyte 770

So there you go, a whopping 3% faster on the Gigabyte over 18 games, and that's vs the slower Asus 280X. Quite a "crap beating" I'm sure. I hope you didn't have anything better to spend your $70 on.

[pvee]

This Gpu card looks cheap with it's cooling system. one of my main issues with amd gpu cards is their cooling designs. they make it look not worth the price.

[herulach]

For that money, thats a huge amount of performance. Yes the cooler looks a bit tacky (I'd have prefered more muted colors) but no doubt Twin Frozr/Direct CU etc designs will address that. 780ti seems like an odd choice in the context of those results. They look like a 770ti might have been better competition. Yes 780/titan will remain the fastest single GPU card, but when you can Crossfire two of these for the same price that seems rather moot.

[Jimbo75]

Yes 780/titan will remain the fastest single GPU card.

Oh no they won't.

[MustardCutter]

This Gpu card looks cheap with it's cooling system. one of my main issues with amd gpu cards is their cooling designs. they make it look not worth the price.

Eh? The cooler is designed by sapphire not AMD. You get pretty similar non-reference cooling designs from the AMD and Nvidia board partners. You could almost certainly make the same complaint about non-reference Nvidia cards...

Yes the cooler looks a bit tacky (I'd have prefered more muted colors) but no doubt Twin Frozr/Direct CU etc designs will address that.

The cards you mentioned are already listed in stores and will look identical to the 7970 coolers.

780ti seems like an odd choice in the context of those results. They look like a 770ti might have been better competition. Yes 780/titan will remain the fastest single GPU card, but when you can Crossfire two of these for the same price that seems rather moot.

780ti is Nvidia's response to the unreleased 290x, not the overclocked non-reference 280x reviewed here. How can you come to such conclusions with no 290x results?

[herulach]

780ti is Nvidia's response to the unreleased 290x, not the overclocked non-reference 280x reviewed here. How can you come to such conclusions with no 290x results?

sorry thats me misreading the title. I have to say I did think it was a bit underwhelming!

[abychristy]

I said it once and I am saying it again, Sapphire Great Job for making the cheapest 780

[CompanionCube]

It looks like a toy

[NUK3]

Will this card get bottle necked if i pair it up with an i5 3570k?

[VijaySathyan]

Will this card get bottle necked if i pair it up with an i5 3570k?

Nope.

[davemaster000]

This card is only beatable by 780, but is much cheaper which I think is very paid GPU. Maybe I will get it over my 650Ti Boost.

[jackjack]

hmm with that damn good looking bad boy and performance, Sapphire R9 280X TOXIC could be the best R9 280X series ever.

[hiyayhi]

What about ASUS's DCU2 top or matrix edition of this card?

[abychristy]

What about ASUS's DCU2 top or matrix edition of this card?

That one is more like the Asus 7970 Ghz DCU2 just a little change in the clocks and not cool !