MSI R9 280X Graphics Card Review

My computer is seven years old as of April 2015, and so I figured it was high time I upgraded some of it. It came with two 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800GT’s in SLI and 3GB of RAM, and last year I finally upgraded it to 6GB of RAM to try and keep up with increasing system requirements. About the same time, I noticed why games hadn’t looked so good in a while - one of my 8800GTs had stopped working. Or, rather, Windows had stopped it from working “due to an error”, knocking me down from 1GB to 512MB - definitely requiring an upgrade.

So I chose the one with best specs in my price range - because what else would you do? -, the MSI R9 280X. The pictures on the site looked great and I figured it would be a nice change for a fan (two fans!) to cool the card, instead of actively heating the room just from trying to play a game. And 3GB is quite a step up from 512MB.

The box was very nice to look at, even the inner box, with a symbol that is reminiscent of a high-end sports car like a Porsche. Inside you get the usual quick-start guide and leaflets, CD with drivers, Crossfire cable to connect two in SLI, DVI-VGA adaptor, USB Compact adaptor and two power adaptors.

I do like the symbol...

The card itself is a beast of a thing - it’s got two fans and a pipe making it twice as thick as my 8800GT. It fit in my tower, though for a brief moment I had trouble fitting it in due to cable placement and worried it was too big, or the motherboard needed moving. It does cover a socket, however, if I want to install an older hard drive I might struggle unless I remove the card first - which has its own problems given how little room I’ll have to get at the clip.

Installation was easy enough, and no I won’t mention the fact I stood on the power cable and thought the card was causing me problems… It clipped in, I screwed it in and plugged the monitor in. I left the blue plastic covers on the contacts and connections I’m not using, as I figure it will save me cleaning them at a later date.

Once I had the bundled software installed - except for Chrome (already installed) and the Google Toolbar (because why?), I signed into Raptr and Steam and let it find my games. The AMD Gaming Evolved application can optimise game settings and keeps track of all of the games - it’s pretty neat, but not the point of this review.

The box contents

I loaded up Marvel Heroes because I knew it spun up the 8800GT on low settings, just standing in a main hub. It was entirely playable, but long sessions resulted in a lot of heat. Standing in a hub with the 280X was completely silent - so I bumped the settings from Custom (read - low and lower than low) to Maximum. Still no sound from the case.

I played a while and finally decided that it looked great - but it’s an MMO so not designed to be the greatest, most realistic graphics ever created. I’d have to try out Carmageddon: Reincarnation, the game in my library with the highest minimum specifications, and one that barely ran with everything turned down or off in the settings.

I was a little bummed by the fact it wasn’t running smoothly, but at the time of writing Carmageddon: Reincarnation is still in beta, due to launch in May. So it could be related - or I need a faster processor. However, with some settings turned down it ran very nicely and I even got to try out the Plays.tv integration with the Gaming Evolved app! I saved the “last 15 seconds” (it actually varies, but is at least 15 seconds) of play a few times and uploaded two of them. The first time saving, the game slowed noticeably - but after that each time was seamless.

The 8800GT sat on top of the 280X

Just to be sure, I loaded up Elite: Dangerous to give that a try. With the graphics cranked up to Ultra, I went into Open Play, figuring that encountering other users will tax it that little bit more. I was impressed with the results - it was almost a similar jump in quality as going from the emulated BBC version of Elite, to how Elite: Dangerous used to look!

Another program that is bundled, enables you to switch between display settings - Game, Movie and Eye Rest, as well as Customize [sic]. It alters the colours, contrast and such, to make certain things appear better. It also lets you change from the default Gaming Mode to OC Mode, which puts the card into overclock and gives better performance. I didn’t notice any difference going back into Carmageddon: Reincarnation though it did load up a little faster. The program also lets you put the card into Silent Mode, which stops the fan noise but apparently doesn’t alter performance, and there is a Cool Down Mode which spins the fans at 100% to cool the card in 45 seconds. I didn’t use these modes as even in OC Mode I still couldn’t hear the fans after half an hour gaming session.

A professional-looking image of the beast

Personally, I never understand benchmarks: I rely on the graphs others provide at the end to show what’s best. As such, I didn’t run any kind of benchmark on this card. However, Windows scores it at 7.9, which is higher than my processor at 7.1 and the 8800GT at 6.8.

Overall I’m very happy with my purchase. It does everything I wanted and more. It more than matches most recommended system requirements and I no longer had to keep a window open if I want a lengthy gaming session! I highly recommend this card, if you’re a gamer and your budget is under £200.