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Review: Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB

by Tarinder Sandhu on 6 November 2014, 06:00

Tags: Sapphire, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qack4n

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Testing Methodology

Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB Specification


GPU Comparisons

Graphics Card GPU Cores Base Clock
(MHz)
Boost Clock
(MHz)
Memory Size
(MB)
Memory Clock
(MHz)
Memory Bus
(bits)
Graphics Driver
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB 2,816 N/A 1,030 8,192 5,500 512 14.9
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 4GB 2,816 N/A 1,030 4,096 5,300 512 14.9
AMD Radeon R9 290X 2,816 N/A 1,000 4,096 5,000 512 14.7 RC3
AMD Radeon R9 290 2,560 N/A 947 4,096 5,000 512 14.7 RC3
Galax GeForce GTX 980 Super Overclock 2,048 1,228 1,329 4,096 7,012 256 344.07
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming 2,048 1,228 1,329 4,096 7,012 256 344.07
MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G 2,048 1,216 1,317 4,096 7,012 256 344.07
Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super JetStream 2,048 1,203 1,304 4,096 7,200 256 344.07
Asus GeForce GTX 980 Strix 2,048 1,178 1,279 4,096 7,012 256 344.07
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 2,048 1,127 1,216 4,096 7,012 256 344.07
EVGA GeForce GTX 970 FTW 1,664 1,216 1,367 4,096 7,012 256 344.07
Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 2,688 837 876 6,144 6,008 384 344.07
Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti 2,880 875 928 3,072 7,012 384 344.07
Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 2,304 863 900 3,072 6,008 384 344.07
Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 1,536 1,046 1,085 2,048 7,012 256 344.07
Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 1,536 1,006 1,058 2,048 6,008 256 344.07

HEXUS Graphics Test Bench

Hardware Components HEXUS Review Product Page
Processor Intel Core i7-4770K (quad-core, overclocked up to 4.40GHz) June 2013 Intel.com
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D15 April 2014 Noctua.at
Motherboard Asus Z97-A May 2014 Asus.com
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (2x8GB) DDR3 @ 1,866MHz - Corsair.com
Power Supply Corsair AX760i - Corsair.com
Storage Device Crucial M500 240GB SSD July 2013 Crucial.com
Chassis Corsair Graphite Series 600T October 2010 Corsair.com
Monitor Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) - Philips.co.uk
Operating system Windows 8.1 (64-bit) October 2012 Microsoft.com

HEXUS Ultra-High-End Benchmark Suite

Synthetic Benchmarks
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme
3DMark Vantage Extreme Feature Tests - Texture Fill and Colour Fill
Gaming Benchmarks
Title Settings at 1,920x1,080 (Full-HD) Settings at 3,840x2,160 (4K)
BioShock Infinite AA Enabled, Ultra Preset inc. Depth of Field AA Enabled, Ultra Preset inc. Depth of Field
Crysis 3 4xMSAA, Very High Textures, Very High System Spec 0xMSAA, Very High Textures, Very High System Spec
Grid Autosport 8xMSAA, Maximum Quality Settings (Soft Ambient Occlusion On, Advanced Lighting On, Global Illumination On) 2xMSAA, Maximum Quality Settings (Soft Ambient Occlusion On, Advanced Lighting On, Global Illumination On)
Tomb Raider FXAA, Ultra Quality Preset, TressFX Disabled FXAA, Ultra Quality Preset, TressFX Disabled
Total War: Rome II AA Enabled, Extreme Preset AA Disabled, Ultra Preset
General Benchmarks
Power Consumption To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record system-wide mains power draw both when idle and while playing Grid Autosport.
Temperature To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and while playing Grid Autosport.
Noise A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and while playing Grid Autosport.
Overclocking Maintaining out-the-box voltage, we increase the card's power target and aim for an optimal balance of core and memory overclock. With the heightened frequencies in place, the 3DMark and Total War: Rome II tests are re-run.

Notes

To minimise the impact of any CPU bottlenecks, our test platform is configured with a quad-core Intel Core i7-4770K overclocked at up to 4.4GHz. 16GB of Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3 is set to run at 1,866MHz using the built-in XMP profile.

For our ultra-high-end benchmark suite, we have an array of games tested at both full-HD (1,920x1,080) and 4K (3,840x2,160) resolutions. In order to maintain playable framerates in the latter mode, the level of anti-aliasing may be reduced and any such changes are highlighted using bold in the above table. Readers should note that, despite running with lowered settings, games often look considerably better at 4K as a result of the huge increase in on-screen pixels.

Where applicable, any vendor-specific enhancements such as PhysX and TressFX are disabled to help even the playing field. In-game benchmark results are recorded as minimum and average frames per second.

The 8GB conundrum

Our regular suite is unlikely to show a difference between the standard Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 4GB card and the 8GB iteration which runs at the same core clock but a little faster on the memory. One recent game that does use a large framebuffer is Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, whose optional HD pack enables ultra-quality textures that push framebuffer usage up to 5GB. We've also benchmarked this at very high and ultra quality levels at both 1080p and 4K resolutions.