A Closer Look
XFX’s R9 280 Double Dissipation cooler is just stunning – I really like the new XFX redesign for the RX 2XX series.
The PCB is black which fits in great with the overall design.
The end reveals five 6mm heat pipes for cooling.
The card is very well formed to a dual slot thickness and measures in at 29.5 cm or 11.6 inches.
Unlike the reference R9 280s/ HD 7950s this has an 8 pin and a 6 pin rather than dual 6 pins.
These graphics cards will support 4 Way CFX but I think 3 Way is the official limit.
XFX use IP-5X dust proof 90mm fans which are PWM controlled.
The end of the card features a nice glossy XFX logo, sadly it has no LED illumination like the XFX R9 290 and R9 290X models have.
Although not a blower style design, the card is relatively well sealed off.
The custom XFX end plate allows heat to be expelled out the back. There is an incredibly versatile display output with enough ports for 6 displays with MST Hubs.
It’s a really nice looking cooler. I see it has Xfire connectors, I thought AMD cards ‘Xfired’ through the PCIe slots nowadays. Boy it just goes to show how out of the loop I am as far as AMD goes. I think the last AMD GFX card I tested was a HD 5770.
Just to think I Recently built an AMD machine with a single R9 290X and never even noticed if it had Xfire connectors or not.
That would the Hybrid CrossFire feature. This was limited to the new GPUs AFAIK which means the R9 290X and R9 290 and R9 295X2 if that comes out. I think all the old rebranded GPUs still need a physical connector.
Edit: I believe it is called DMA not Hybrid CFX, no idea why I said that. Get confused easily
Thanks for clearing that up. Apart from building the odd AMD machine, I really don’t have much to do with them.
I want to replace my R9 270 with this thing because of fascist game developer companies pushing horribly optimized games off as demanding graphical accomplishments (like a creed unity) When they do not look any better than games from 2010! So I want a card with at’least 3GB to run 1080p. And I thought since this model if the 280 is priced very well and has a decent power upgrade from my 270, That it would be great. But for some reason this thing is almost a foot long! WTH? It is not a R9 290! It does not need a cooler this dam long! I am going to have to remove my HDD cage and shorten it just to make it fit!
I purchased one of these for $159 after rebate on newegg(I’ve seen them get down to 149) and must be honest – WOW, this card has got to be the price to performance champion! I just sold my watercooled/overclocked gigabyte r9 290x oc edition to put some money toward the new 390 and wanted something cheap to hold me over for the spring/summer. This card has performed beyond my expectations. 1150mhz core/1400 memory without any voltage added, and it easily hits the 1200mhz board max with stability. It cools well even in my terribly confined case, but most importantly it games at 1080 like a champ.