Review: Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 4GB

Conclusion

It has been a bumpy 'ol ride for AMD's Radeon R9 290X. Launched almost eight months ago under the premise of being the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card, the hot-running behemoth was soon bullied into second place by the rival GeForce GTX 780 Ti and was, for a good number of months, plagued by stock shortages and inflated prices.

It wasn't that long ago that an R9 290X was hard to come by, and if you did manage to find one, you would typically have been coughing up somewhere in the region of £500, with no bundled games to speak of.

The good news for AMD, its partners and its customers, is that the situation has improved on just about all fronts. Availability is now widespread, a good choice of factory-overclocked and custom-cooled models are on offer, and competitive pricing has made the high-end Radeon a very tasty option at the top end of the market.

Championing everything that's good about the R9 290X, Sapphire's Vapor-X applies a hefty, well-constructed cooler, factory overclocks on both core and memory, as well as an Intelligent Fan Control mechanism that works well in cutting down idle noise. The result is a card that's faster, cooler, quieter and... frankly, better than reference in just about every meaningful way.

The only caveat is that Sapphire's enhancements have resulted in a sizeable price premium over reference boards. At £440 for the standard Vapor-X, £500 for an OC variant or £600 for a range-topping 8GB model, this is an accomplished line-up aimed squarely at enthusiasts demanding the very best.

The Good

Excellent single-card performance
Intelligent Fan Control works well
Factory overclocked on core and memory
Much cooler than reference
Solid build quality
Eligible for three free games

The Bad

£80 premium over reference cards

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Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 4GB

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The Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 4GB graphics card is available to purchase from Ebuyer.

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