Review: Sapphire Radeon R9 295X2 XF vs The WaterForce

Conclusion

AMD is proud of the fact that it has the world's fastest consumer graphics card in its Radeon line-up of 2014. The dual-GPU R9 295X2's muscle makes a mockery of 1080p performance and, as we saw recently, provides a solid base from which to run the latest titles at a lofty 4K resolution.

Recent price hemorrhaging enables partners to provide oxymoronic value in the ultra-high-end segment by retailing the R9 295X2 for under £500, which is comparable to the pricing for a well-overclocked GeForce GTX 980. Adding a second X2 into a powerful system, thus using four R9 290X-class of GPU, provides a reasonable uptick in performance across our range of games, though scaling isn't as predictable as Nvidia's.

Positive performance-related upsides are ameliorated by huge power consumption and increased noise that is rather too conspicuous when compared to a custom setup like the Gigabyte WaterForce. Sapphire uses two of AMD's reference cards to produce some impressive numbers at a 4K resolution. We'd still opt for three GeForce GTX 980s instead of four GPUs housed inside two R9 295X2s, based on our testing, but AMD does win out when value is as important as sheer performance.

As fast as two R9 295X2s can be in well-tuned games, the next iteration of GPU, codenamed Caribbean Islands, cannot come soon enough - Nvidia needs to be seriously challenged in all parts of the consumer graphics card market in 2015.

Sapphire Radeon R9 295X2 in CrossFire

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TBC.

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