Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X OC Review

Conclusion

Our benchmarks show that the Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC is a very quick edition of the R9 290, as it's able to take on both the R9 290X and GTX 780, meaning that the price premium it carries isn't so bad after all. Its ability to exceed the performance of even the GTX Titan Black when overclocked is also very impressive. Obviously, we can't say for sure that every one of these cards will overclock to the same levels, but the fact that it also managed a better overclock than the Asus card counts in its favour too.


The cooling solution is great as well, providing full direct heat transfer for the GPU, memory and power phases – the Asus card neglects to do this for its memory chips. It doesn't appear to be all that different from the Tri-X cooler we saw before, either physically or in performance, but that's not bad thing, as it runs cool and very quiet. It's a shame, therefore, how big it is, as its 2.5 slot design will likely put people off, especially small form factor fans, who will be more drawn to the dual-slot Asus.

In all honesty, both the Saphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC and the Asus R9 290 DirectCU II OC that we saw before are great graphics cards. You do pay a bit more for Sapphire's card here, but you also get a more rounded cooling solution that's quieter and cooler, especially when you bring overclocking into play, which we hope you would. The Sapphire card is also faster out of the box and, from what we've seen, has better overclocking potential. Ultimately, neither card is going to leave you disappointed, so it just depends on how much you're willing to spend.