XFX Radeon R9 280X Black Edition Video Card Review

By Hank Tolman

Manufacturer: PINE Technology Holdings Limited, dba XFX

Full Disclosure: XFX provided the product sample used in this article.

AMD released their new lineup of GCN-based video cards back in October and the industry manufacturers have since been adding their own special tweaks and improvements to the initial designs. XFX has recently released their latest version of the Radeon R9 280X card in the form of the XFX Black Edition Double Dissipation Radeon R9 280X. The XFX R9 280X TDBD sports upgraded features like a factory overclock to 1080MHz, high quality DURATEC components, a dual-fan design, and the second generation of XFX proprietary Ghost Thermal technology.

Although the Radeon R9 280X comes packaged with a new name, the actual GPU is unchanged from the Radeon HD 7970’s Tahiti, the GHz Edition anyway. That’s not to say the two cards are identical, however. AMD made some changes to the new video cards that definitely set them apart. The most interesting to me, as something I’ve been waiting for, is the ability to run three HDMI/DVI displays from a single card. DisplayPort just hasn’t made it over to the monitors yet and you still need an active converter cable to use a third monitor. That’ll cost you an extra $30 or so. AMD also added TrueAudio to the R9 290X and R7 260X (although it was technically part of the R7 260X’s predecessor, the 7790, as well).

The rest of the story is pretty cut and dried. The R9 280X, released two years after it’s predecessor, the HD 7970, costs $250 less than the 7970 did on release and it runs faster. Two years is plenty of time for the fabrication process to work out the kinks. The yields will be at all-time highs and Graphics Core Next is doing great. It looks like AMD is moving the price down, keeping manufacturing up, and adding a few enhancements while they work on something new.

XFX R9 280X TDBD Specifications