XFX R9 280X 3GB Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

XFX’s R9 280X Double Dissipation Black Edition OC graphics card should be coming in at around £275 in the United Kingdom. In the USA should be retailing for around $340 if the UK pricing is anything to go by (so that’s a 14.5% premium over RRP pricing of $300). Of course what’s worth noting is that the current versions of the XFX R9 280X DD OC graphics card are shipping with two different versions both of which have different clock speeds. The normal edition has 850MHz core, 1000MHz boost and 6000MHz memory (and is slightly cheaper at around $300) while XFX told us that the Black Edition card (which we reviewed) will ship with FINAL clock speeds of 1.1GHz on the core and 6600MHz on the memory. My advice to any prospective buyers would to be to ensure you know which version you are buying because it can be easy to confuse the two. That said I have been even more confused by the fact the Black Edition OC version may now be shipping with 1080MHz core and 6200MHz memory which is lower than the 1100MHz core and 6600MHz memory on our sample, again we advise prospective buyers to be aware of these discrepancies.

Final Thoughts

The XFX R9 280X is a very nice card. Firstly, the out-of-the-box overclock is highly aggressive giving some excellent performance numbers that we certainly didn’t expect to see for its modest price. Compared to other R9 280X cards we’ve tested the power consumption is relatively tame and the temperatures are also impressive too, sitting at around 70-75~ degrees at maximum Furmark load. While the noise results weren’t that flattering in numerical terms I was still impressed by XFX’s R9 280X because the tonality of the noise is very subtle, not sharp and piercing like a stock blower fan cooler. This is thanks to XFX’s impressive new Double Dissipation cooler where the fans are silent other than the noise of the air movement, so the noise is a lot more natural than a blower style fan where the mechanical noise is very piercing. The aesthetics are excellent too, XFX have really changed the design for the better in my opinion and the build quality seems a lot sharper than previous HD 7970 Double Dissipation graphics cards. It really is a subtle looking piece that would look great in most cases, just watch out for the 11.5 inch length that could cause problems in smaller cases.

In terms of the negatives well firstly, I am not happy XFX are selling this same card with different clock speeds to the sample we reviewed. I’d advise consumers to make sure they are fully aware of what model they are buying and what clock speeds it has, if in doubt ask your retailer. Providing you can get the speeds our graphics card came with, you’re really getting a great deal. Secondly, despite the XFX R9 280X DD BE OC having a major advantage of an unlocked voltage – we saw poor overclocking results, even when maxing out that voltage at 1.3 volts. Maybe we just had a weak piece of silicon but other reviews of the same card have noted that it only uses a 6 phase VRM which could potentially limit overclocking compared to rival cards that use 8 phase or higher VRMs. Even with VRM limitations most R9 280X GPUs should do at least 1150MHz+ at stock voltages, and ours simply didn’t.

Pros

• Excellent price to performance metrics
• Strong out-of-the-box overclock
• Very stylish design
• Effective cooling solution
• Lifetime warranty in North America

Cons

• The cooler can be loud at intense loads even if the tonality is subtle
• Overclocking on our sample was very mediocre
• Inconsistency of clock speeds between our review sample and current retail versions
• Only 1-2 year warranty in the UK depending on the retailer

“XFX’s R9 280X Double Dissipation OC graphics card is a beautiful looking piece of hardware that fully exploits the power of the AMD’s R9 280X GPU by aggressively overclocking it straight out of the box. Furthermore XFX’s newly designed cooling solution adds finesse to the design of the product and also keeps it quiet under most operational loads thanks to the two large 10cm fans. At its price the XFX R9 280X Double Dissipation is a solid choice for any gamer looking for a powerful, relatively quiet, good looking and affordable AMD graphics card. However, we encourage consumers to consider the caveats of our review before making any purchasing decisions.”

Thank you to XFX for providing this review sample.