VisionTek’s R9 280X brings solid value to AMD’s new lineup

The VisionTek R9 280X

The VisionTek R9 280X is not a reference version.   VisionTek’s main differentiation from other AMD partners is the company that stands behind it with a lifetime warranty, excellent customer service, and technical support should you need it.There is nothing fancy to see from the outside of the box. The card arrives in a small VisionTek box that advertises the card without its specifications. It emphasizes 3GB of GDDR5 memory, intelligent overclocking, and it also mentions VisionTek’s lifetime warranty and US “Tek” support.

On the back of the box, Ultra-HD, Performance scaling, low idle state and ready for Compute are emphasized. VisionTek offers a lifetime warranty to the original purchaser provided that they register their new R9 280X within 30 days of purchase, otherwise it is one year.

The side panels of the VisionTek box feature the system requirements, the connectors, and VisionTek’s Scorpion logo is explained:

The VisionTek 280X video card comes well-protected by padding and also protected from static electricity.Inside the box, besides the new Radeon, we find a driver CD, manual, DVI to HDMI adapter, DVI to VGA connector, and a Molex to 6-Pin PCI-E power connector as well as a 8-pin Molex adapter.The VisionTek R9 280X has a good looking design and it uses two cooling fans that do a great job of keeping the GPU cool.   Please not that the cooling is not designed for exhausting hot air out of the PC, and this open design is not often chosen for CrossFire setups unless there is excellent case cooling and a space between the cards. There is one dual-link DVI, one HDMI 1.4, and two DisplayPort 1.1a connectors available to easily connect to 4 displays and even to use them simultaneously. The R9 280X is setup for pairing with another 280X (or even with HD 7950/7950) with a CrossFire bridge which is not included. Just like with Nvidia cards, you can mix cards from different vendors with different clock speeds.  In addition, unlike with Nvidia cards, there is much more flexibility to mix cards with different amounts of cores and different framebuffers.

As we turn the card over, we can see the CrossFire connectors as well as the 6-pin+8-pin connectors for the PCIe cables.

Let’s check out the VisionTek R9 280X specifications from their website:

Specifications

• Graphics Engine: RADEON R9 280X
• Video Memory: 3GB GDDR5
• Memory Interface: 384-bit
• DirectX® Support: 11.2
• Bus Standard: PCI Express 3.0
• Core Speed: 850MHz (1000Mhz boost)
• Memory Speed: 1500MHz x4 (6Gbps)
• VGA Output: Using DVI to VGA adapter
• DVI Output: DL DVI-I
• HDMI Output: HDMI (video/audio)
• DisplayPort Output: 2x mini DisplayPort
• UEFI Ready: Support
• Warranty: Limited Lifetime

Here are the system requirements:

• PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
•  750W (or greater) power supply with one 150W 8-pin PCI Express power connector and one 75W 6-pin PCI express power connector recommended. 800W power supply (or greater) with two 150W 8-pin PCI Express power connectors and two 75W 6-pin PCI express power connectors recommended.
•  Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products
•  Minimum 4GB of system memory. 8GB (or more) of system memory recommended for AMD CrossFire™ technology.
•  Installation software requires CD-ROM drive, a keyboard, a mouse, and a display.
•  DVD playback requires DVD drive and a DVD.
•  Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive and a Blu-ray disc.
•  For an AMD CrossFire™ system, a second AMD Radeon™ R9 280X GPU, an AMD CrossFire™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect cable is required.
•  Use of 3 or more displays with AMD Eyefinity technology requires a DisplayPort-capable panel or an AMD Eyefinity validated dongle. See http://www.amd.com/EyefinityDongles for a list of validated DisplayPort dongles.
•  64-bit operating system highly recommended

And here are the features:

GCN Architecture
A new design for AMD’s unified graphics processing and compute cores that allows them to achieve higher utilization for improved performance and efficiency.

AMD Eyefinty Technology
Run multiple displays from a single graphics board and expand your gaming field of view across all displays.

AMD App Acceleration
AMD App Accelerator creates a “co-processing” environment in which the compute processing potential in your AMD Radeon™ Graphics processor works together with the system central processor, to accelerate enabled applications.

AMD HD3D Technology
Supports the latest stereoscopic 3D content and display technologies. Play 3D games, watch Blu-ray 3D videos, and edit 3D photos on your 3D Monitors, TV, or projector.

AMD CrossFire™ Technology
Multi-GPU support offers superior scalability. Increase your gaming performance up to 2x with AMD CrossFire™ technology, 2.75x for TriFire configurations, or 3.75x with QuadFire configs.

Microsoft DirextX® 11.2
Get intense gaming performance and unrivalled image quality with stunning 3D visual effects, realistic lighting and lifelike imagery.
 
AMD HD Media Accelerator
Assumes rendering responsibility for HD encode (VCE)/decode (MPEG-4 ASP, H.264. MVC, MPEG2, etc.) and conclusively enable superior video playback quality with advanced hardware post-processing algorithms.
 
AMD PowerPlay™ Technology
AMD PowerPlay™ Technology dynamically adjusts clockspeeds in response to GPU load, saving power for just when you need it.

AMD PowerTune Technology
Maximizes performance under load conditions by dynamically increasing the GPU engine clock to take advantage of unused TDP headroom. Also allows users to configure their own TDP limit, within a provided range, for even higher performance or more power efficiency.

Advanced GDDR5 Memory Technology
GDDR5 memory provides the highest available memory bandwidth of any memory technology today, enabling higher GPU performance.
 
Intelligent Overclocking Control
AMD latest Boost State technology automatically allows Radeon Graphic to run higher than the base core speed if it’s operating below power, current, and temperature specification limits.

Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™
Support of content protected, high bandwidth, 7.1 channels of surround sound over HDMDI and DisplayPort.

3D Mark Fire Strike: Greater Than 6800
3DMark Fire Strike is the world’s most popular dedicated gaming benchmarking tool used by millions of gamers, top hardware review sites, and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.

We can’t wait to test out our new card, but before we begin the testing, head over to our testing configuration.