Sapphire TOXIC Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card Unboxing!

In the race for who has the best R9 280X we see Sapphire make their offering in the non-reference arena in the form of their Toxic series AMD R9 280X, which we were able to get into the lab for testing late last week. The card is unique in a few keys ways first of which is a color change in the scheme of the card as gone are the standard AMD colors of red and black are gone to be replaced by orange and black in a strange new twist. There are 3 fans (2 Sizes of fan) on the face of the card to help keep the card running cool very much like the cooling we saw on the MSI GTX 780 Lightning card with two outer fans being larger than the center fan.

By now I am sure that you know that the new R9 280X is just a rebranded HD 7970 GHz Edition card, but that does seem to have much effect on sales as AMD has picked up quite the market share with this release. The Toxic Edition is one of Sapphire’s most popular editions as it comes overclocked and with an aftermarket cooler always popular with the enthusiast fan base. Something new however is the fact that this card will now be able to be recognized and controlled by way of the UEFI BIOS on motherboards that are compatible and that will be an interesting thing to see in a video card.

The box contains all the essential needed to get up and going other than your PC so installing the card is all you need to do on your end, and then after just install the drivers. The card, 8-pin power cable adapter, driver CD, connection cables, CrossFire connector and warranty information. The card is based on a 2-slot design and requires dual 8-pin connectivity for proper power and has a 250W TDP. On the back there is a very nice plate covering the PCB and this is something I really like quite a bit as it makes sure you do not cut your hand on sharp points and protects the card from oils secreted by our skin when touching it. All in all the new card looks really nice and I hope it gets great scores in the heat and noise areas. Thanks for reading Tech Of Tomorrow.