MSI R9 280X GAMING 3 GB

[EarthDog]

The score I think is based on the review of the MSI r9 280X Gaming 3GB board and not the stock AMD R9 280X. W1zzard correct me if I'm wrong. Lower score is due to higher noise levels and poor vrm cooling.

Good thinking... did he review the reference card and cooler (genuine question, I am not sure)? If not, I sure hope it wasn't based off that!

 

[SimpleTECH]

Where can one get those 13.11 beta drivers?

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-11WINBetaDriver.aspx

 

[Casecutter]

I ask still why wait till now not that any of that matters? Did AMD figure they had to wait for Hawaii was ready? In theory AMD could've done this back when Nvidia went with their 770. I suppose now… why care?

So these have a PowerTune Boost just like the had Ghz, or is this just straight clocked? While if on PowerTune it's not even revised like Bonaire using "eight states". What seems strange if identical, how do we explain the some 15% reduction in Peak consumption while way out of bounds on Furmark (max). This MSI gaming even with whatever heat issues it has it still is 15% less than the reference 7970 Ghz (Avg/Peak). If heat is wasted energy that could indicate there's some perhaps even slightly better percentage still for some other AIB's renditions?

Release drivers hardly picked-up sporadically if nothing - no jump, not near what I might have thought AMD could/would show with. I hoped they had at least a driver that brought all GCN based card a few percentage points, but this 13.11 Beta contributed little except Hitman, Metro, Star Craft.

I'm awaiting the Gigabyte version review, I find their hardware implementation enhances without the hoopla. As with their GTX770 they provide a nice OC Windforce and while release price is higher they will normally offer a great board at a price that settles out fairly quick.

Overall this did NOTHING to change the landscape, Nvidia will still stay complacent and 770/760 pricing won't change.

 

[Frick]

I wonder how much they'll be here.. I'm seriously thinking about upgrading.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Would like to see crossfire performance. I know it's basically a 7970 GHz, but 13.11 beta might be different.

 

[dom99]

In the uk the msi 280x is on pre-order for £250, same as the 7970 ghz edition, I don't understand why it scores lower than 7970 in some situations, thought it was the same chip

 

[Crap Daddy]

In the uk the msi 280x is on pre-order for £250, same as the 7970 ghz edition, I don't understand why it scores lower than 7970 in some situations, thought it was the same chip

Time my friend. As you get older you score less.

 

[W1zzard]

The score I think is based on the review of the MSI r9 280X Gaming 3GB board and not the stock AMD R9 280X. W1zzard correct me if I'm wrong. Lower score is due to higher noise levels and poor vrm cooling.

Good thinking... did he review the reference card and cooler (genuine question, I am not sure)? If not, I sure hope it wasn't based off that!

that's correct. the score is for the msi board. if there were less noise and no vrm overheating the score would be much higher.

amd did not send a reference board to me (or anyone i think)

And how comes the GPU-Z screen shot here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_280X_Gaming/29.html shows release date as being December 22, 2011??? they forgot to change that even though we all know its based on the 7970GHz

the issue is that amd didn't even bother changing the device id, which so far has uniquely identifed every card series that i can think of.

i will probably add a special code path for the release date of 280X in the next version

 

[The Von Matrices]

Bit-tech stated: "As for Never Settle, details are still sparse other than that it's set to continue one way or another."
I'm kind of curious as well, Never Settle is definitely a game changer (no pun intended). For me it means the difference between upgrading or not upgrading. Though the games I want in there are all November releases, so I guess we got time...

The game bundle will not be extended until the 7000 series inventory is depleted. It basically kills any reason to get the rebranded 280X while cheaper 7970s with bundled games are available.

The question I have is: is there any hope of flashing the 280X VBIOS onto a 7970? I'd like to take advantage of the three TMDS outputs (it would eliminate screen tearing from having one monitor on Displayport). The only restriction the AMD states is that all three monitors must be identical, which means it is compatible with my system should a VBIOS flash be possible.

 

[EarthDog]

[H] forums said they tried and failed and had some bricked cards. They did mention you could CFx a 280x and 7970 though with success.

 

[The Von Matrices]

Common guys, the price is great. 1 Year ago, the same performance cost double.
Cheers!

No, one year ago 7970s were selling for $399-$449 (I bought one then). That's far from "double." You have to go back two years to get even close to "double" with the 7970 selling for $549.

[H] forums said they tried and failed and had some bricked cards. They did mention you could CFx a 280x and 7970 though with success.

I can understand this not working if they tried swapping BIOS between different manufacturers due to the different auxiliary chips used, but it seems like within the same manufacturer the 7970 and 280X designs are identical even down to the memory chips, VRM controllers, and other auxiliary chips. I don't think there's been enough testing to determine this one way or the other. The people who have flashed it tried the one 280X VBIOS on TPU's database and had failures, which is not surprising since no one had any clue what PCB that BIOS corresponded to. Once retail cards' BIOS are uploaded then I think there will be a good chance of compatibility within the same manufacturer.

 

[EarthDog]

They mentioned which bios they used? Interesting.

 

[SIGSEGV]

Yup...and i will be starve and homeless for the next 6 months

me too..
as long as our country depends on US Dollar currency as its market foundation, we must wait in the next couple months until the US economy condition stabilized to get R9-290Xs with full waterblock. that's really sucks.

One question tho... what's with those horrible Review Scores? Are you kidding me? nVidia's cards literally only once in 20 reviews get scores lower than 90/100, but now, NOT ONE of these AMD (almost) game-changing cards get even a 9?. I don't want to go into details, the review itself seems pretty good (like most TPU reviews), but the rating at the end... really?


This series of video cards do what is best above everything... start a chain reaction of price drops. And for that alone, I'd rate them straight up 10s.

i can feel you bro..

Would like to see crossfire performance. I know it's basically a 7970 GHz, but 13.11 beta might be different.

+1
Me too

Looks like you forgot something. Club3D To Focus Exclusively on AMD Products

wat?
can you tell me what's the difference between club3d, sapphire, evga, zotac and origin-pc, maingear-pc?

 

[Recus]

wat?
can you tell me what's the difference between club3d, sapphire, evga, zotac and origin-pc, maingear-pc?

Price. How much AMD paid to drop Nvidia?

 

[buggalugs]

Looks like you forgot something. Club3D To Focus Exclusively on AMD Products

Didn't forget, that is an AIB partner, that's very different to a computer builder. Both AMD and Nvidia have had their own AIB partners for as long as I can remember. EVGA for Nvidia, Sapphire for AMD etc. They don't affect competition because there are so many of them.

Nobody is going to say "dam I cant get a NVidia card because Club3D only make AMD" They will just get another brand like Asus or Gigabyte etc.

There are very few highend computer builders, companies that build entire systems, and they should offer a choice for customers. Anyway its not so much that they want to do it, its why they want to do it. If they were paid to do it and paid to lie about AMD cards, that's not good.

 

[Frick]

The game bundle will not be extended until the 7000 series inventory is depleted. It basically kills any reason to get the rebranded 280X while cheaper 7970s with bundled games are available.

Here the 280x is cheaper than the 7970 Ghz.

Some prices here:

R7 250 - €97 - As a HD 7770. Have no idea how this performs though.
R7 260X - €136 - Exactly as the HD 7790.
R9 270X - €183 - Between the HD 7850 and 7870.
R9 280X - €276 - Between the 7950 and the 7970.

 

[HumanSmoke]

There are very few highend computer builders, companies that build entire systems, and they should offer a choice for customers. Anyway its not so much that they want to do it, its why they want to do it. If they were paid to do it and paid to lie about AMD cards, that's not good.

Reading between the lines it looks like a case of hell hath no fury like a system builder scorned.
Origin PC head honcho:

Take their last chipset announcement for example. It was another hardware representative that informed us of the new Hawaii chipset. AMD never told us anything about it, nor shared a road map outlining its future integration. When we did get with our AMD representative, we were told that there was a new chipset launching, and we could watch the event live and get answers to our questions.

We also asked for samples to start our research and development process, something that is standard in the industry for bleeding edge integrators, and we were met with resistance there… When they did agree to send samples it was for [two] R9 270’s, rather than the R9 280′s or 290′s that we would be more likely to offer…

So basically, Origin were kept in the dark and given the cold shoulder, while one of their main competitors, Maingear, not only got the primo cards to demo (which pretty much says that Maingear were in the loop for some time), they got centre stage at the launch and some reflected glory from AMD's close association.

If anything it looks like AMD playing favourites with one system builder, and kicking another in the nuts.
Probably not sound business sense from Origin, but if AMD froze them out and is actively marketing on behalf of a competitor I can see why they'd take the stance they have.

 

[Yeoman]

I've seen uk pricing for the 280x etc via scan. £250 for a MSI gaming (they range from £270-300) for asus DCII/matrix. Kinda high tbh. When 7970ghz ed's operate in the £220-250 range. But understandable, makes no sense to price them the same initially I guess, makes more sense for the 'old branded' stock to be snapped up and clarify the market.

I think it's going to be a month or more before the 2**x settles into their stride price wise. :/

 

[Phobia9651]

The game bundle will not be extended until the 7000 series inventory is depleted. It basically kills any reason to get the rebranded 280X while cheaper 7970s with bundled games are available.

Okay that officially sucks, they do realize this puts a lot of potential buyers of?
Back to playing the waiting game...

 

[refillable]

They (R9) are killer cards of performance per price ratio. But only against nvidia cards and I think AMD will compete itself. Especially this card. As of now, $300 280X is $80 cheaper than the 770, but are only a tad slower. The $200 270X performs like a 7950. The big downsides are temperature and power which are both high in terms of a modern card. AMD needs to fix this straight away in the next generation cads, unless they want to be called Thermi like nvidia do with their 400 series cards years ago.

Know that these cards came from the last chips from last gens cards. 7970 sells for $300. Not sure if the performance boost against the power and heat should give the new card a recommendation though...

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Price. How much AMD paid to drop Nvidia?

Theres also the fact that

Powercolor
Club3d
VTX

are essentially the same company aka all of them are owned by TuL corp.

So the fact they dropped Nvidia kinda makes sense as they have been primarily AMD partners since 1997.

Other brands
Sapphire + Zotac owned by same parent company each one serves a particular vendor.

Palit owns
Gainward Galaxy and XpertVision.

Most of these companies own each other or have a stake in that company. No one got paid off in terms of AIB partners if you watch how things play out. Nvidia tends to be far more strict on what AIBs can do essentially telling them at every turn you can't do this this this this this or this or even this. AMD originally was easier to work with however in recent years they have gotten tougher on AIBs.

As for Origin-PC they were probably paid off with a fairly sizable chunk of money from Nvidia. most likely by kickbacks and discounted GPUs. Through which there bottom line is improved. Considering most ignorant ppl know Nvidia better than AMD this wont really hurt Origin-PC in the least either. Its just business people getting the largest amount of profit for dollar spent.

 

[Casecutter]

AMD playing favourites with one system builder

There's two sides to every coin, Origin is asserting sour grapes…

While it couldn’t be that Origin has played favorites with one graphics card supplier? I don't think a business (AMD) would "cut off its' nose to spite its face" for just that, this might be more unscrupulous.

Like perhaps Origin was found previously by AMD as a leak point back to Nvidia. Origin may have floated their own boat. Sounds more probable AMD figured it better not to trust them this round... Origin will still be offering the R9 290X, just from day 2.

Other brands
Sapphire / Zotac owned by same parent company each one serves a particular vendor

I thought they both contract manufacture from PC-Partners.

 

[1d10t]

me too..
as long as our country depends on US Dollar currency as its market foundation, we must wait in the next couple months until the US economy condition stabilized to get R9-290Xs with full waterblock. that's really sucks.

I already had twin XSPC Rasa ready for this two beast
And yes,even with their government been shutdown didn't affect any of our currency back to sane level :shadedshu

Price. How much AMD paid to drop Nvidia?

Remember XFX fiasco back in the 2010?
System integrator or system builder is not the same as AIB partner.

Didn't forget, that is an AIB partner, that's very different to a computer builder. Both AMD and Nvidia have had their own AIB partners for as long as I can remember. EVGA for Nvidia, Sapphire for AMD etc. They don't affect competition because there are so many of them.

Nobody is going to say "dam I cant get a NVidia card because Club3D only make AMD" They will just get another brand like Asus or Gigabyte etc.

There are very few highend computer builders, companies that build entire systems, and they should offer a choice for customers. Anyway its not so much that they want to do it, its why they want to do it. If they were paid to do it and paid to lie about AMD cards, that's not good.

+1
Many of system integrator are basically marketer.They do a semi contract and short agreement in term of profit oriented.
I didn't say this was a bad practices,but to conclude and badmouthing one vendor without any solid evidence would considered unprofessional behavior and alienated from their own potential market.

Reading between the lines it looks like a case of hell hath no fury like a system builder scorned.
Origin PC head honcho:

So basically, Origin were kept in the dark and given the cold shoulder, while one of their main competitors, Maingear, not only got the primo cards to demo (which pretty much says that Maingear were in the loop for some time), they got centre stage at the launch and some reflected glory from AMD's close association.

If anything it looks like AMD playing favourites with one system builder, and kicking another in the nuts.
Probably not sound business sense from Origin, but if AMD froze them out and is actively marketing on behalf of a competitor I can see why they'd take the stance they have.

Someone been boasting much and Origin butthurt more?

 

[HumanSmoke]

I thought they both contract manufacture from PC-Partners.

PC Partner is the parent company of Sapphire. Zotac is a PC Partner brand - as is Inno3D and Manli

There's two sides to every coin, Origin is asserting sour grapes…
While it couldn’t be that Origin has played favorites with one graphics card supplier? I don't think a business (AMD) would "cut off its' nose to spite its face" for just that, this might be more unscrupulous.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia didn't see it as an opportunity. If the Origin CEO is happy to howl his angst to the world as the public face of the company, how much more vehemence would he have revealed in private to a receptive Nvidia rep. This simply doesn't parse as a one side at fault kind of deal ?

Let me guess, you still see it as purely black and white. Evil Empire vs Saintly Underdog. Chalk up one for the comic book demographic.

Like perhaps Origin was found previously by AMD as a leak point back to Nvidia. Origin may have floated their own boat. Sounds more probable AMD figured it better not to trust them this round... Origin will still be offering the R9 290X, just from day 2.

Quite possible...but if Origin had passed on trade secrets to Nvidia, I would think that the Origin CEO would have been in a more conciliatory mood- after all, he's the one demonstrating the butthurt. To me it seems like AMD prioritized their marketing where they saw getting the bast bang for the buck- it is also very possible that AMD didn't/don't have the card volume to fulfil all OEM's orders. Maingear being the larger customer gets preferential treatment.

 

[dj-electric]

Noticed a typo, charts say that 280X has 2GB