VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card Review
The Card
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Here we have the VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card. As you can see it is a non-reference design. Twin fans help keep the R9 280X cool and quiet during gaming sessions. The color scheme reminds me of the 60’s and 70’s hot rods with a single color for the body with either one or two strips running up the top. Size wise, the VisionTek Radeon R9 280X video card is not huge by any means. It should fit most cases with ease.
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On the back of the card you will notice the lack of a cooler back plate. Most manufactures have decided not to use one. Not to worry however, during out testing the cooling ability of VisionTek’s chosen cooler worked well.
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Moving on with cooling, the VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card features twin fans that cool a heat-pipe style cooler. The curved blade design allows the fan to push more air at a lower RPM and thus helps reduce the overall noise of the card. During our testing, I noticed the lack of sound and had to bring up the monitoring software to verify the fans were spinning.
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The VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card features 1 DVI, 1 HDMI and 2 Mini display port connections. For those with multi-monitor setups, AMD’s Eyefinity makes it easy to span the displayed image across multiple monitors while gaming. The VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card is a dual slot card so it will take up two slots in your case. Heat from the GPU core is exhausted right above the ports.
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The back of the VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card has two additional vents to help with cooling. From this angle the hot rod look is prevalent.
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Power is provided to the VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card via a 6-pin & 8-pin connectors. VisionTek recommends a minimum of a 750 watt power supply with one 8-pin power connector capable of 150 watts and one 6-pin power connector with a capacity of 75 watts. The VisionTek Radeon R9 280X Video Card is capable of CrossFireX as well. I have been told by the folks over a VisionTek that the R9 280X will work in CrossFire with some of the 7900 series cards.
