Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC Review: Our First Custom Cooled 290
by Ryan Smith on December 24, 2013 3:45 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Sapphire
- Radeon 200
Gaming Performance
Diving into our performance benchmarks, we’ll be running light on the commentary here due to the fact that there’s really not much to say about the gaming performance of the 290 Tri-X OC. Sapphire’s 6% core overclock and 4% memory overclock translates into a real world performance difference of 3% on average. This makes the 290 Tri-X OC a bit faster than a reference 290, but it doesn’t otherwise change the relative rankings of various cards. At most this slightly extends the lead over the GTX 780 to 9% and wipes out the 290X quiet mode’s marginal lead over the 290.
In the end the difference is slight enough that the bulk of the interest in this card should rightfully be on the card’s cooler, and ultimately whether that cooler justifies the $50 premium.
On a quick note looking at Rome, as one of the games the 290X throttles in the most, this is also the game where the Sapphire 290 Tri-X OC takes the largest lead over the 290X. The 6% performance lead here reflects on the fact
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Gyro231995 - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
I have a throbbing erection for this card.psyside1 - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
No vrm temps in the review, kinda no use to show amazing core temps if the vrm's are not measured.rf525256 - Thursday, December 26, 2013 - link
sterben.blanarahul - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
Those noise levels. My jaw dropped on the floor. Great job Sapphire. Really great job. No wonder AMD doesn't care about their coolers.blanarahul - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
I am so surprised that I read the OCing portion again. Wow. Disposing 125 W more than 780 Ti at the exact same noise and temperature. This cooler is.... really something else.jasonelmore - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
well just look at the cooler. Its very expensive. All those pure copper heatpipes and tons of surface area aluminium. I wouldn't be surprised if this cooler sells for $80 all by it's lonesome.testbug00 - Wednesday, December 25, 2013 - link
and to think how much the 780/Titan/780ti cooler costs.... Well, the cooler NVidia uses should crush this one based on price.rf525256 - Thursday, December 26, 2013 - link
stervenkrutou - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
A non-reference cooler beating a reference cooler. This is news?yannigr - Wednesday, December 25, 2013 - link
Every custom cooler will be news thanks to AMD's reference coolers, Hawaii's performance and the price it sells. 10-15 more 290/290X models with real availability in the market and Nvidia will HAVE to drop 780Ti's price close to $550. 780 should go down to $400.