Reviews - Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB

[HEXUS]

8GB on a consumer card? Worth it?

Read more.

[kalniel]

You'd think that Sapphire's overclocked Vapor-X, with 8GB of GDDR5 memory in tow, would consumer more power than a reference Radeon R9 290. That doesn't appear to be the case in our benchmarks, suggesting that AMD's press cards are overvolted.

Well easy enough to see - what are the volts?

[Plasmastorm]

Just ordered an MSI 970gtx frozr V which, going by what I have read more than likely hits 980 performance when OC'd.
Did contemplate a 290X but even with this new offering I'm feeling I made the right call.
Bit of a shame as my current card is a 660ti, previous a 5850 and an 8800gtx before that.
I usually like to swap from Ati/AMD to Nvidia each time I get a new card but it's getting harder each generation.

[YazX]

Just ordered an MSI 970gtx frozr V which, going by what I have read more than likely hits 980 performance when OC'd.
Did contemplate a 290X but even with this new offering I'm feeling I made the right call.
Bit of a shame as my current card is a 660ti, previous a 5850 and an 8800gtx before that.
I usually like to swap from Ati/AMD to Nvidia each time I get a new card but it's getting harder each generation.

yah, but also GTX 980 hits 980 Ti (not released yet or whatever card that will be next) when OCed, so the argument of reach 980 when 970 is OCed is not valid.

[kalniel]

yah, but also GTX 980 hits 980 Ti (not released yet or whatever card that will be next) when OCed

How do you know?

[Jowsey]

Just ordered an MSI 970gtx frozr V which, going by what I have read more than likely hits 980 performance when OC'd.
Did contemplate a 290X but even with this new offering I'm feeling I made the right call.
Bit of a shame as my current card is a 660ti, previous a 5850 and an 8800gtx before that.
I usually like to swap from Ati/AMD to Nvidia each time I get a new card but it's getting harder each generation.

yah, but also GTX 980 hits 980 Ti (not released yet or whatever card that will be next) when OCed, so the argument of reach 980 when 970 is OCed is not valid.

That's just a guess. Have you just made a completely random guess at the end of a very comprehensive test?

-sigh-

[darkKnight54]

If only they would have included multiple Displayports like the 295x2!! :/

[Bagpuss]

I suppose it will stop Skyrim modders whining about lack of VRAM.

[darkKnight54]

I suppose it will stop Skyrim modders whining about lack of VRAM.

And dont forget FSX, P3D and X-Plane!

[Willzzz]

I suppose it will stop Skyrim modders whining about lack of VRAM.

Or they could just use the mod to compress textures.

[eatonm62]

8Gb VRAM not needed just yet.

[Tunnah]

Would like to see 8GB in the 9xx range of nVidia, as they're the cards capable of 4K performance (talking dual cards of course), these can barely handle the normal rendering, nevermind the AA settings that take advantage of the higher frame buffer.

But then again, who really needs AA at 4K resolution ?

[Nelly.]

Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB VS GTX 980

Crossfire vs SLI, let's see those results next.

[YazX]

How do you know?

That's just a guess. Have you just made a completely random guess at the end of a very comprehensive test?

-sigh-

No its not a guess and drop the attitude dude, go look at previous series, you can achieve nearly the level of the next card by overclocking, 670 can reach 680 when overclocked, but 680 can be overclocked as well which will keep the gap, 780 can reach 780 Ti performance when OCed, but 780 Ti can be OCed as well and will keep the same performance gap when both are on stock clocks.

and here the case is no different, 970 can be OCed to reach the level of 980, but also 980 can be OCed, whether there going to be 980 Ti or not, the gap between OCed 980 and OCed 970 is the same between both when on stock. so saying i can OC 970 to reach 980 performance is not valid argument since 980 can be Oced as well.

SIGH!

[johnniedoo]

Would the extra 4Gb help any with multiple monitors? Or 3monitors with one stretched desktop (5760x1080)? I have one 42" in the middle and 2-24" one on either side. Not sure if the extra money would have any impact there. I now have the Sapphire HD7950 3Gb OC. I had come from Asus 5870 with only 1Gb and notice the Ram use going up on the afterburner graphs and clear generational improvements between the 2 cards so can not draw any conclusions on framebuffer ram.
Great article though.Thanks for the annotated testing, easy for me to grasp in case the graphs didnt get it.
I am looking at either 970 or 290-290x for my Gigabyte 990FXA UD3 which can take either card and prices are ok for me. So, the added ~$100 is an obstacle regardless. It was just a few yrs ago where 1GB GDDR5 was overkill, so 8Gb use may come up just as fast, just surmising
john

[ekamdeep]

will only come close to using that much vram when you using 4k setup or running eyefinity