MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 6 GB Review

Name: MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 6 GB
Brand: MSI

W1zzard

on May 23rd, 2014,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: MSI

(35 Comments) »

Introduction

AMD's Radeon R9 280X has been on the market since October last year, but it wasn't really a new product even back then. The card is basically a rebranded HD 7970 GHz Edition with a slightly lower GPU clock, which essentially makes the it a 2 1/2 year old product. Nevertheless, the card still satisfies when it comes to driving 1080p displays at maximum details in all the latest games.

Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, the Radeon R9 280X features 2,048 stream processors based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, 128 texture memory units (TMUs), 32 raster operations units (ROPs), and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 3 GB. AMD's reference clock speeds for the chip are 1000 MHz on the core and 1500 MHz (6.00 GT/s effective) on memory, which results in 288 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Today, we are reviewing the MSI R9 280X Gaming 6 GB, which doubles the memory from 3 GB to 6 GB, promising improved performance at higher resolutions. The card is also overclocked out of the box and comes with MSI's signature TwinFrozr cooling solution. Right now, the MSI R9 280X Gaming 6 GB is available for $400 online, a quite significant price premium over standard 3 GB variants.

Radeon R9 280X Market Segment Analysis
	Radeon R9 270X	GeForce GTX 660 Ti	GeForce GTX 760	Radeon HD 7950	GeForce GTX 670	Radeon HD 7970	GeForce GTX 770	HD 7970 GHz Ed.	Radeon R9 280X	MSI R9 280X Gaming	GeForce GTX 680	GeForce GTX 780	Radeon R9 290
Shader Units	1280	1344	1152	1792	1344	2048	1536	2048	2048	2048	1536	2304	2560
ROPs	32	24	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	48	64
Graphics Processor	Pitcairn	GK104	GK104	Tahiti	GK104	Tahiti	GK104	Tahiti	Tahiti	Tahiti	GK104	GK110	Hawaii
Transistors	2800M	3500M	3500M	4310M	3500M	4310M	3500M	4310M	4310M	4310M	3500M	7100M	6200M
Memory Size	2048 MB	2048 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	6144 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	4096 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	192 bit	256 bit	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	384 bit	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	512 bit
Core Clock	1050 MHz	915 MHz+	980 MHz+	800 MHz	915 MHz+	925 MHz	1046 MHz+	1050 MHz	1000 MHz	1050 MHz	1006 MHz+	863 MHz+	947 MHz
Memory Clock	1400 MHz	1502 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1502 MHz	1375 MHz	1753 MHz	1500 MHz	1500 MHz	1500 MHz	1502 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz
Price	$200	$260	$245	$230	$270	$350	$300	$470	$280	$400	$400	$480	$380

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card
Driver CD + documentation
CrossFire Bridge
PCIe 6-pin to 8-pin adapter
PCIe Molex to 6-pin adapter
DisplayPort adapter

The Card

At first glance, the card looks very similar to the MSI R9 280X Gaming 3 GB, but only the cooler assembly is unchanged. Everything else, like its PCB design and cooling for secondary components, has been updated. Dimensions of the card are 30 cm x 13 cm.

Installation requires two slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include one DVI port, one HDMI port, and two mini-DisplayPorts. You may use all outputs at the same time, so triple-monitor surround gaming is possible with one card.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.