The Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Review
by Ryan Smith on October 10, 2013 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- Radeon
- Sapphire
- Tahiti
- Radeon 200
Final Words
Bringing our review of Sapphire’s R9 280X Toxic to a close, our experience with the card and our results prove that Sapphire has fundamentally achieved what they have set out to do: they’ve put together the fastest R9 280X card. It’s 13% faster than a stock 280X and it’s still 5% faster than the factory overclocked Asus card we looked at earlier this week. Out of the box the Toxic even maintains a hair’s lead over the Asus card when the Asus card is overclocked, which means we’re looking at a card that’s arguably competitive at stock with end user overclocked cards.
With that said while this isn’t necessarily a head-to-head article between the 280X Toxic and the Asus 280X DirectCU II TOP, it’s a logical comparison we have to make given the fact that both are factory overclocked 280X cards shooting for strong out of the box performance. For gaming workloads the 280X Toxic cleanly and clearly beats the Asus card here by a meaningful performance amount. However Asus is absolutely a spoiler here due to their aggressive pricing and their very quiet cooler. Their 280X DCUII TOP can’t match the Toxic, but it’s $40 cheaper and over 5dB quieter. Consequently if all you want is the fastest 280X on the market then Sapphire’s 280X Toxic is clearly the card to get, otherwise the Asus card is worth a consideration for its better price/performance ratio and cooling performance. As is almost always the case for factory overclocked cards there is a price to pay for the very fastest card, both in literal cost and in power and acoustics.
Meanwhile we’ll also quickly point out that the 280X Toxic ends up being faster than a stock GTX 770 by several percent for $50 less. But that’s a tricky comparison at best since we’re now comparing different cooler types (blower versus open air), a significant difference in power consumption, and it doesn’t take into account any of the customized GTX 770 cards. But it’s at least food for thought.
On a final note, since we’re looking at AMD’s second-tier cards – 290X is still due to arrive – given Sapphire’s $349 MSRP any purchasers may want to hold off for a bit until we have pricing and performance information for AMD’s new top-tier lineup. If they were to deliver a strong $400 card then the 280X Toxic likely wouldn’t make as much sense. But that’s something we won’t know for sure until the 290X is launched. It is however something to at least consider given the significant mark-up on the 280X Toxic over a standard 280X.
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EmperorRosko - Friday, October 11, 2013 - link
I really think you need to step back and read your comment. You make no sense whatsoever other than sounding like you are a complete and utter green team excitable mess because a card like this nearly beats a stupidly overpriced card like the 780.The reason they have put a stock GTX780 in the test (which even the vanilla card costs 499 UK POUNDS!!!!) is just to show that a card that costs as low as 260 quid is biting at its heels, of course a customised 780 is going to take another 10% lead but this test is just to show that if you are in the market for a 770/780, this card is something you should seriously considering before dropping cash nVidia's way!
No to mention that when Mantle drops for BF4, this card will more than likely blow a 770/780 out the water anyway and for that game a 290x wont be necessary to hold a massive frame rate.
just4U - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
When reviewing cards they usually throw them up against stock variants for comparison.mwildtech - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
Sucks this card has no overclock-ability, but at it's price point it makes a stock GTX 780 look like a horrible buy. I know the GTX 780 overclocks like a beast, so It can take a 30% lead pretty easily with an avg OC, but still it's $649 dollars.VaporX - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
mwildtech, Overclocking is a hit and miss in every product, especially one that is out of the box clocked at higher values than the competition can often overclock to. That being said two other reviews where able to get some very solid overclocks.MrSpadge - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
Agreed - if the card can't even stand 10 MHz more, it will loose stability at stock clocks as soon as the chip degrades a little - which happens exponentially faster with more voltage..just4U - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
that's one of my problems with overclocked cards.. I really don't trust them at all and simply prefer a stock card I can screw around with.. give it a great cooler and I am happy..jerrylzy - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
I think it can. mine 7970 can stand 1200/1700commissar0617 - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
my sapphire 7970/oc has overclock ability. after I change the TIM, i will probably be able to get it to 1.1ghzMombasa69 - Monday, October 14, 2013 - link
It comes with an OC utility....Mombasa69 - Monday, October 14, 2013 - link
Check out bjorn3d(dot)comMentions the OC Utility.