Conclusion

... Asus has a very good model on its hands with the DirectCU II TOP, and we wait to see if other partners can top this big beastie.

The Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3GB strikes an enviable balance between performance, cooling and noise. Employing an oversized heatsink that is excellent in every regard the card can barely be heard when rendering high-quality visuals at a 2,560x1,440-pixel resolution. It overclocks well, too, adding a reasonable amount of performance to what is an already-quick card.

New launches are often a great time for purchasers to grab a bargain on last-generation technology. The same is true this time around, for a few weeks at least, as Asus' very own Radeon HD 7970 TOP - a very similar card - is available for £50 less.

Yet the Radeon R9 280X will be AMD's upper-mainstream GPU for a while now. Asus has a very good model on its hands with the DirectCU II TOP, and we wait to see if other partners can top this big beastie. Recommended at £275.

The Good

Superbly built
Overclocks well
Cool and very quiet

The Bad

Radeon HD 7970 pricing is a thorn
Size could be an issue

HEXUS.awards

Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3GB

HEXUS.where2buy

The Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3GB graphics card is available to purchase from Scan.co.uk.

HEXUS.right2reply

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16GB G.Skill RipJaws (2x4GB) DDR3 @ 1,600MHz - huh?
also - no Battlefield? Shame… :(

Still feels like I would be buying yesterdays tech…so no thanks, I'd rather wait for a genuinely ‘new’ card.

So tempted to go crossfire with two of these instead of waiting for the 290x

I think I would rather have a GTX 770 for that money mainly becase of the far reduced power usage. This generation so far is not quite as good a deal as the HD7950 was compared to a GTX 670 where it was £100 difference for the same performance.

Kovoet
So tempted to go crossfire with two of these instead of waiting for the 290x

I'm waiting for the reviews (and price) on the 290x before I start comparing but I think I'm still going to go 290x as I fancy moving to a mATX case so Xfire might not be possible.