Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC Runs Even Cooler
Sapphire's R9 290 Vapor-X OC has been announced.
While Sapphire's Tri-X R9 290 and R9 290X graphics cards certainly impressed us with their excellent cooler, that hasn't stopped Sapphire from trying even harder. Sapphire has now officially announced the R9 290 Vapor-X OC.
This graphics card features a cooler that appears to be similar to the Tri-X cooler we found on previous cards, but is actually a little different. The card in question here features the same basic Tri-X design, but the company has also slapped a vapor chamber into the GPU – hence the Vapor-X branding. This vapor chamber ensures that the heat from the GPU gets dissipated into the heat pipes even more effectively than before. The cooler also has LEDs now, which will glow blue when the card is running calmly with low temperatures, and will gradually gradient to red for when the card is running at more toasty temperatures.
Regarding clocks, the card is clocked in to run at speeds of up to 1030 MHz. Memory is clocked at an effective frequency of 5.6 GHz, but remains at the same standard 4 GB frame buffer size.
There has been no exact word on pricing yet, though vapor chambers aren't the cheapest things to make, so it's safe to assume that there will be a noticeable premium to pay for this card. Availability is expected soon, as the card is already shipping out to e-tailers and retailers.

Idk. The 780 Ti only beats the 290X by ~7%. If the 290X used memory as fast as the 770, and got a 100-200 MHz bump in core clock like the 7970 got: It would get about a 20-30% performance boost. That would beat a Titan Black. Give it a $800 price point and 2GB more VRAM than the Titan and BOOM!
To the absolute cretin that downvoted this: why? Why do you think I'm wrong? Do you have any evidence to suggest my statement is false? Or are you just mindlessly downvoting any view that contradicts your own?
Go on, post some actual evidence that anyone who isn't donig graphics design and rendering on ultra-high-res monitors needs 8GB of ram. Spoiler alert: you can't.
Request: Can you guys do a comparison of the partner r9 290 cards?. I am in the market for one, the prices are a lot more reasonable and am lost as to which one to pick.
Go on, post some actual evidence that anyone who isn't donig graphics design and rendering on ultra-high-res monitors needs 8GB of ram. Spoiler alert: you can't.
Getting wound up for an anonymous downvote and throwing insults around probably isn't the best way to present your case.
And actually, I can think of a reason for an 8GB VRAM card: Crossfire. Get a pair of those for triple 1440 screens. It's a niche case, but the people who get the highest line cards are also comparatively niche.