Sapphire R9-280 Dual-X Review
A Closer Look
The Sapphire R9-280 Dual-X is a large card. The box brings this feature home and whilst certainly not the largest box I can say I have seen it is up there.
The front, following Sapphire standards features the primary points of interest that you will want to know immediately. Including that this model is an Overclocked edition right off the bat, and it has Dual-X cooling system.
The rear once again goes into a bit of detail regarding the front of box features and apart from the base of the box, which lists the specifications, the box beside its nice purple otherwise standard.
Opening it all up, you get to see the box in all its glory, Sapphire retain the use cardboard packaging that can be recycled, unfortunately we are going to skip this bit for this review to show you everything that is included.
All stacked up, you get two Molex to PCI-e converters, a HDMI Extension, and the usual manual and booklets. Interestingly you also get a card to enable you to sign up to the Sapphire Select Club.
An even closer look – the card itself.
On the Sapphire R9-280 Dual-X you get two DVI ports (1x DVI-I and 1x DVI-D), a full size HDMI Port, and a full size Display Port connector. Simply you are pretty much covered in all monitor eventualities.
As the name suggests, DUAL-X means you get double the amount of fans you would normally find on a graphics card. Bolted to a similarly large cooler with four heatpipes that make contact with the GPU itself.
The card requires two 6-pin connectors which are located on the top edge of the card. On this same top edge is a switch that enables UEFI mode on the card, which allows for faster boot and resume times. As well as some security benefits.
The rear of the card shows just how crammed the R9-280 Dual-X is, even still it is not a massively large card. With it extending just beyond my M-ITX Gigabyte Sniper M3.
