14 DAY TRIAL // Sapphire is not the only one that launched a new AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics card. Micro-Star International has done the same, and it even took advantage of this opportunity to score a “world's first” point.
Sapphire's release of the R9 280X Vapor-X was an oddity really, this week, because Advanced Micro Devices launched the R9 280 (non-X) the other day.
So one would think that the Sunnyvale, California-based company's OEMs would focus on releasing their respective iterations of that new card, not one that came out months ago.
To an extent, AMD's partners launched R9 280 cards, sure enough. However, some chose to slip R9 280X models forward too.
After all, it makes sense to ride the coattails of another launch whenever possible. In the end, the R9 280X is also an AMD card, a better one.
So here we are, beholding the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 6G, which happens to be the first of its kind with double memory.
Which is to say, instead of 3 GB of GDDR5 it has 6 GB, though the clock speed has been left the same, of 1,500 MHz (6,000 MHz effective GDDR5).
As for the rest, the specifications are somewhat different on the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 6G. The physical characteristics are the same of course, with 2,048 Stream Processors, 128 texture mapping units (TMUs), 32 ROPs (raster operating units), and a memory interface of 384 bits.
But the clocks are different, for the GPU, of 1,000 MHz base and 1,050 MHz boost, as opposed to 850 MHz and 1,000 MHz, respectively.
All the changes come together in a package that is visibly different from the one AMD made, with a black custom-designed PCB that has memory chips on both sides. There was hardly room for them all on the front after all. That said, the twin Frozr IV cooler handles the heat.
We'd say that it's unfortunate how MSI refused to release the price or estimated arrival date for the Radeom R9 280X Gaming 6G, but maybe it's a good thing that we'll be spared the shock for a while longer.
Bad enough that the normal R9 280X sells for $500 / €500 instead of $300 / €300, but the double-memory one is bound to add $100 / €100 or so to the tag. Well, maybe not quite that much, but there's a custom PCB and cooling to take into account as well.