Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

Sapphire’s R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC costs $359.99 at Newegg or $340 at Amazon and in the UK it seems to have an MSRP of £249.99 but we were not able to find it at any reputable retailers. That pricing sees the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC sit in the middle of the Sapphire R9 280X Dual-X and the Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition which cost $339.99 and $379.99 respectively. The Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC comes with a 2 year warranty.

Overview 

Sapphire’s R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X is a very good implementation of the R9 280X GPU. Sapphire’s amazing Tri-X cooling solution manages to keep the R9 280X at cooler or similar temperatures to many other R9 280Xs from other vendors but the key difference is Sapphire’s implementation does it a heck of a lot quieter. For that they deserve kudos because it means you can actually have a silent R9 280X based gaming rig with this graphics card, very few other vendors offer such a luxury. In terms of performance the card comes with a generous factory overclock making it among the faster R9 280Xs out there, second only to Sapphire’s own R9 280X Toxic which has an extra 50MHz on the core. That performance is held well in overclocking where the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC performs towards the top of the stack in terms of final overclocks on both the memory and core. If we combine all those things with the fantastic aesthetics, the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC graphics card is a really awesome graphics card for anyone to own.

On the down side the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X does hold a bit of a price premium, but you do get what you pay for. The card may also be impractical given its whopping length of 12.25 inches – most mid tower cases will need to have the middle hard drive cages removed or rotated to fit this beast in. I also think for the price Sapphire could have offered a backplate, or they could at least make an optional backplate available for users to buy separately should they find themselves wanting one later on down the line. My final criticism is that I think Sapphire should be offering a longer warranty on such a premium product, 2 years seems a bit stingy. However, I can also understand Sapphire keeping the warranty relatively short allows them to keep the cost down.

Pros

• Sizeable factory overclock
• Good overclocking potential (for an R9 280X anyway)
• Runs very quiet
• Excellent temperatures
• Beastly aesthetics! 

Cons

• Size may be impractical for some cases – measure your graphics card clearance before buying
• The 2 year warranty seems a little stingy
• A backplate, or optional backplate accessory, would be desirable

“Sapphire’s R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC graphics card is a great product. It is probably the best implementation of the R9 280X I have seen to date – and I have tested a lot of R9 280Xs! The combination of quiet operation, excellent temperatures, solid performance and impressive styling make the Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC graphics card a top contender for your high-end Gaming PC. Just make sure you have space for it!”

Thank you to Sapphire for providing this review sample.