Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X 4 GB Review

Name: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X 4 GB
Brand: Sapphire

W1zzard

on Jul 24th, 2014,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: Sapphire

(28 Comments) »

Introduction

AMD's Radeon R9 290 has been on the market since the end of last year, and it has positioned itself successfully as a cost-efficient option if you are looking for high-end gaming performance without breaking the bank.

Compared to its big brother, the R9 290X, the R9 290 features 2,560 of the 2,816 stream processors physically present on the "Hawaii" silicon, which is only a 9% reduction. The TMU count is down to 160 from 176, and the reference-design GPU's core clock speed is 948 MHz instead of 1000 MHz.

Sapphire's R9 290 Vapor-X comes as the company's latest installment of a custom-designed take on the R9 290. The Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X uses a large triple-slot, triple-fan cooler that has been combined with Sapphire's Vapor-Chamber technology to keep the card cool. A little switch lets you disable two of the three fans in idle, which reduces noise levels without increasing temperatures much.

Clock speeds have been increased to 1030 MHz on the GPU. Memory is overclocked to 1400 MHz.

Retailing at $440, the cards is a good deal more expensive than other R9 290 cards that can be had for as low as $370 thanks to recent price drops.

Radeon R9 290 Market Segment Analysis
	Radeon HD 7970	GeForce GTX 770	HD 7970 GHz Ed.	Radeon R9 280X	GeForce GTX 680	GeForce GTX 780	Radeon R9 290	Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X	Radeon R9 290X	GeForce GTX 780 Ti
Shader Units	2048	1536	2048	2048	1536	2304	2560	2560	2816	2880
ROPs	32	32	32	32	32	48	64	64	64	48
Graphics Processor	Tahiti	GK104	Tahiti	Tahiti	GK104	GK110	Hawaii	Hawaii	Hawaii	GK110
Transistors	4310M	3500M	4310M	4310M	3500M	7100M	6200M	6200M	6200M	7100M
Memory Size	3072 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	3072 MB
Memory Bus Width	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	512 bit	512 bit	512 bit	384 bit
Core Clock	925 MHz	1046 MHz+	1050 MHz	1000 MHz	1006 MHz+	863 MHz+	947 MHz	1030 MHz	1000 MHz	876 MHz+
Memory Clock	1375 MHz	1753 MHz	1500 MHz	1500 MHz	1502 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1400 MHz	1250 MHz	1750 MHz
Price	$350	$315	$470	$290	$340	$470	$370	$440	$510	$650

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card
Driver CD + documentation
Mousepad
HDMI cable
2x PCIe 6-pin to 8-pin adapter

The Card

Sapphire deviated from their typical color theme and is branding the Vapor-X in a strong neon blue, which looks good. The cooler also utilizes a lot of surface detail, which gives it a more rugged look. You will find a backplate on the back of the card, which helps with cooling and protects the card. Dimensions of the card are 30.0 cm x 12.5 cm.

Installation requires three slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include two DVI ports, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort. You may use all outputs at the same time, so triple-monitor-surround gaming is possible with one card.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.