Sapphire 290 Vapor X [Review]

[3DVagabond]

I agree with the bold above imo

If that Tri X drops to under 399.00 (which it might imo) I would most likely go with it, but for $20.00 more I would go with the Vapor X at this point imo.

+1 :thumbsup: The Vapor-X is easily worth $20 more, IMO.

 

[blastingcap]

Well, I was about to buy a 290 MSI Gaming, but I read they are having a lot of leaky fan problems.

MSI 7790, three different Sapphire 7970/280X cards = the only fan probs I've ever had, out of dozens of cards. MSI and Sapphire use cheap fans even on their high-end models. ASUS (and now XFX in their newest DD designs on the R9 series) uses dust-resistant fans. Reference fans are also ok. Not sure about the other brands ilke HIS and GB, as I rarely buy them.

Just say no to the cheap-ass fans used by Sapphire and possibly MSI.

 

[Silverforce11]

Any company that claims their product is fine, and because it breaks down from 100% usage 24/7 since it wasn't designed for that automatically admit their product is CRAP.

Newsflash to MSI: You are supposed to design products to cope with the WORSE usage scenarios, NOT a few hours of light gaming a day. Ridiculous to even try and defend that, it just digs a deeper hole.

HIS and Powercolor fans are pretty good, they are the only cards I've used for the last 5 years or so, and my HIS 5850 is still quiet and cool under mining load.

 

[mingsoup]

I've been waiting around since last fall to finally finally get my 290. I knew I wanted one from reference design day one.

I've only ever wanted a tri-x. Then within days of ordering one appears the vapor-x. Hopefully its as sound as the tri-x.

I went with the Vapor-X off Amazon. Amazon trailed Newegg dropping the TriX and VaporX by a couple of days. 30$ more over the Tri-X for equal noise and 6C better gaming temps, I had my doubts. But decided to just go for the slightly better one. I haven't upgraded my cards since 2011, here's hoping for another 3 years on this one. Cross Fingers. My old cards really could have been used for quite awhile longer. I'm hoping the 2.5 card width will still allow me to crossfire one day. I have 2 PCIEx1 between my PCIEx16 and x8. However with my previous 6970's crossfire was a mixed blessing. Fantastic when it worked, awful when it didn't. I played Skyrim through the first time with 1/2 of my GPUs. It wasn't fixed for months and months. It really sucked. Still certain games plague me with their 100% inability to use my second GPU.

I ordered from Amazon. Amazon didn't take as much advantage of the mining craze as newegg did. Amazon also sends you a code for the AMD games upon order! Very cool, even if its not Watchdogs + Wolfenstein.

Now with my luck 20nm cards will be out this fall with performance gains not seen in last 5 years. Alpha Centauri 2 Mantle!

 

[mindbomb]

regarding the msi fan problem - I guess this is bound to happen with fluid dynamic bearings on 300W+ 2 slot graphics cards. I imagine they'll switch to double ball bearings in the future.

 

[3DVagabond]

I ordered from Amazon. Amazon didn't take as much advantage of the mining craze as newegg did.

+1 I'd avoid Newegg myself after all that.

 

[MtSeldon]

R 290X Vapor-X is also out.
It will be interesting to see this against 780Ti OC .

 

[24601]

regarding the msi fan problem - I guess this is bound to happen with fluid dynamic bearings on 300W+ 2 slot graphics cards. I imagine they'll switch to double ball bearings in the future.

Yes, there's a reason why fan manufacturers usually limit FDB to ~1700 RPM max.

MSI was really flying too close to the sun with their high RPM FDB fans.

 

[MtSeldon]

In another forums, ive seen users claim that the new Vapor X has high failure rate due to different manufacturing .

Is there any truth in that? Also the card itself still not on the market. I'm still waiting to buy one , but if these rumors are true, the older Tri-X would be a safer buy.

 

[3DVagabond]

In another forums, ive seen users claim that the new Vapor X has high failure rate due to different manufacturing .

Is there any truth in that? Also the card itself still not on the market. I'm still waiting to buy one , but if these rumors are true, the older Tri-X would be a safer buy.

Interesting. I wonder how they would know this if the card isn't released yet?

 

[MtSeldon]

I wonder that myself too. Card is released tough, but not easy to find.

 

[madsauce tech]

I bought mine off of Newegg last week, no issues so far. I had to buy a new case to fit it (12" versus my old card @ 10"). I only went with Newegg because they clearly pointed out that they include the AMD game bundle (3 games of my choice from AMD's reward site).

I'm going to replace some of the cheap fans in this Antec case but the noise level doesn't seem to change audibly as the card goes from blue (cool) to yellow (hot ~70C).

It runs ESO, BF4, Natural Selection 2, and Diablo III well @ 1440p.

My machine is an old one, and I upgraded from a Vapor-X 5870 OC that I've had since 2010 (1GB just doesn't cut it anymore).

Specs: 3.8GHZ Lynnfield i5, 8GB, Seasonic 650w 80+ PSU

 

[notty22]

New front page story.
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB Hits Retail: UK Only, £600

 

[MtSeldon]

AFAIK , for 1440p even 4gb doesn't make a difference than 3gb . Whats the 8gb for?

 

[SKORPI0]

New front page story.
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB Hits Retail: UK Only, £600

That's almost US$ 1018, not counting VAT. :\

 

[Sunburn74]

The funny thing is its not really better than the 290x tri X OC (which Ijust bought bTW for 300 bucks).

 

[blastingcap]

AFAIK , for 1440p even 4gb doesn't make a difference than 3gb . Whats the 8gb for?

For people who use triple 4K monitors, using multiple 290/290X video cards, each with 8GB VRAM. Eyefinity the way it was meant to be.

 

[3DVagabond]

New front page story.
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB Hits Retail: UK Only, £600

That's about the same price as the 780 ti. I hope it's OCUK that's trying it on at that price and not Sapphire. I also hope that nobody buys it until it comes down to a more realistic price.

 

[24601]

The funny thing is its not really better than the 290x tri X OC (which Ijust bought bTW for 300 bucks).

Likely a sign Sapphire is going to soon switch their Tri-X to de-rated custom boards.

They already switched their Tri-X to de-rated (worse binned) GPUs explaining their significantly lowered stock clocks than the release Tri-X.

 

[3DVagabond]

Likely a sign Sapphire is going to soon switch their Tri-X to de-rated custom boards.

They already switched their Tri-X to de-rated (worse binned) GPUs explaining their significantly lowered stock clocks than the release Tri-X.

I can't find clocks any higher in reviews than the 1040MHz the current cards on Newegg are? Can you explain where you are getting that they are using de-rated or worse binned chips?

 

[24601]

I can't find clocks any higher in reviews than the 1040MHz the current cards on Newegg are? Can you explain where you are getting that they are using de-rated or worse binned chips?

They switched to a 1010MHz version during the past few months.

They must have pulled it when their stocks of the 1040MHz version were greater than demand with the crypto crash.

It will likely switch fully to the 1010MHz version once their stocks of 1040MHz versions run out for good though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202089

http://www.avadirect.com/product_details_parts.asp?PRID=29410

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2150&lid=1

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b2707/sapphire-tri-x-r9-290x-oc.html

I shouldn't need to tell anyone that a card that sets the throttle point at 70C has worse binned chips @ 1010MHz when compared to references' 1000MHz chips that have a throttle point at 95C

 

[3DVagabond]

They switched to a 1010MHz version during the past few months.

They must have pulled it when their stocks of the 1040MHz version were greater than demand with the crypto crash.

It will likely switch fully to the 1010MHz version once their stocks of 1040MHz versions run out for good though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202089

http://www.avadirect.com/product_details_parts.asp?PRID=29410

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2150&lid=1



http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b2707/sapphire-tri-x-r9-290x-oc.html

Or possibly it was 2 models? A Tri-X and a Tri-X OC.

The reason for all of the changes on TPU was the original specs were rumored/guesses before release.

 

[24601]

Or possibly it was 2 models? A Tri-X and a Tri-X OC.

The reason for all of the changes on TPU was the original specs were rumored/guesses before release.

(That link was for you to read the list on the bottom.)

That's how Sapphire does their de-rating.

It's similar to how MSI does it as well with their Lightning series.

Sapphire did the same thing with their 280x Toxic and their 7970 series'

etc. etc. etc.

This is common knowledge for all AMD/ATi AIBs.

I shouldn't have to repeat this every single time we have this discussion with the AMD peanut gallery.

XFX already de-rated their VRMs on their R9 290 DD (R9-290A-EDFD).

Learned that the hard way when I had to RMA the reference 290 that melted from the XFX PSU.

The first replacement they sent me was the R9-290A-EDFD and the VRM blew the first few days.

I took the second replacement apart and the VRMs are changed from reference, maybe the inductors as well (I'd have to look that one up).

Also this is my last response to your deliberately crafted rhetorical questions designed to spread FUD against me in such a way so that when I reply to you I get banned for either responding to your lies by calling them lies or I get banned for being "Off Topic."

 

[3DVagabond]

(That link was for you to read the list on the bottom.)

That's how Sapphire does their de-rating.

It's similar to how MSI does it as well with their Lightning series.

Sapphire did the same thing with their 280x Toxic and their 7970 series'

etc. etc. etc.

This is common knowledge for all AMD/ATi AIBs.

I shouldn't have to repeat this every single time we have this discussion with the AMD peanut gallery.

Start your own blog and don't allow comments if you can't handle a civil discussion.

 

[stahlhart]

Thread closed.
-- stahlhart