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With the NDA from AMD lifted (and a day late, due to some misinformation) - I present to you my review of the said card, and I will be comparing it to the existing HD 7970 Ghz Edition GPU.



This review was made possible by Asus Malaysia.

Here are some photos of the card - it looks just like any other Asus card with Direct CU II cooler BUT it's a lot bigger. Really a lot bigger. I thought my Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition with Vapor-X cooler was big enough but this is even bigger.



6pin + 8pin PCI-E. In case you didn't know, the Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB GDDR5 VAPOR-X that I'll be using to compare with the Asus R9 280X DCU2 uses 8pin + 8pin PCI-E configuration.



On another note - I love it that the Asus card has 2 LED for each PCI-E connector. It's red when not connected, green when all system's are go!



Full details at the <a href="http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/R9280XDC2T3GD5/">Offical Product Page</a>

Here's the GPU-Z detail of the R9 280X



And here's the Sapphire HD 7970 Vapor-X. Very similar, right?




Test Setup
Processor : Intel Core i5-4670K
RAM : Avexir Core Series 8GB DDR3-1600
Motherboard : ASRock Z87M OC Formula
Cooler : Cooler Master Seidon 120M
Monitor : 40″ LCD TV
Power Supply : Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1300W
Casing : Cooler Master N200 Casing
Operating System : Windows 8 Pro 64bit
Driver : AMD Catalyst 13.4

Yup, 13.4 - for some strange reason the AMD Catalyst drivers just refuse to work with my machine, stuck at the detection process. No 13.9 and 13.11 Beta drivers for now. I assure you the benchmarks wouldn't be far off, no worries.

Now before I begin, I'd like to highlight that the R9 280X is essentially a HD 7970. Upon power up, my system that was formerly using the HD 7970 didn't even request for a new driver. The GPU-Z screenshots above also speak the same story.

As if that's not conclusive enough - I managed to CrossfireX the R9 280X with the HD 7970.

Metro 2033

Card	1080p (avg)
ASUS Radeon R9 280X	75
Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	71.5
R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	102.5

Unigine Heaven 4.0

Card	1080p (avg)
ASUS Radeon R9 280X	59.1
Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	55.4
R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	110.9

Resident Evil 6

*Full HD at 1920×1080 – pardon me for the wrong screen resolution in the shot above.

Card	1080p (score)
ASUS Radeon R9 280X	11205
Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	10741
R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	16753

Just Cause 2

Scene	Card	1080p (avg)
Dark Tower	ASUS Radeon R9 280X	122.50
Dark Tower	Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	115.27
Dark Tower	R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	201.54
Desert Sunrise	ASUS Radeon R9 280X	152.73
Desert Sunrise	Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	146.16
Desert Sunrise	R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	200.97
Concrete Jungle	ASUS Radeon R9 280X	87.72
Concrete Jungle	Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	84.92
Concrete Jungle	R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	100.62

3DMark

Card	Score
ASUS Radeon R9 280X	7182
Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	6845
R9 280X + HD 7970 (Crossfire)	11527

Temperature
Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.

Below is the full load details.

Card	Idle(°C)	Load (°C)
ASUS Radeon R9 280X	36	86
Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition	34	77

Is the Vapor-X better? Not really. The Vapor-X was running at near full speed with the noise blaring away to maintain at 77 but the DirectCU II was not even close to that noise level when it was at 86c. I’m pretty impressed by it in fact.

The Verdict
Will the R9 280X be a good card? I believe so. It’s not entirely a HD 7970 because the R9 280X also comes with Mantle support, AMD’s new API for games. You can read more about it at Anandtech.



At the time of this article, sources say that the R9 280X will be priced cheaper than the HD 7970, which I think makes it all the more ridiculous for the used value of my card. I’ll not rejoice until I see how our local (Malaysia) vendors price the card.

In the mean time, the ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II R9 280X is certainly something worth looking at.

what's the problem? I have been using a few units of it, they work great on my side.

yes you are correct. at the time of the writing, i thought Mantle is for the R9 onwards. time to edit.