XFX R9 280 Double Dissipation Graphics Card Review

XFX is a company that specializes in making top-performing graphics cards, power supplies, and computer accessories for gamers and enthusiasts alike. In the world of desktop graphics, they are known to offer best in class warranty, and customer service.

So naturally when they asked us to take a look at one of the older cards in their lineup, the XFX AMD Radeon R9 280 DD, we saw it as an opportunity to bring our viewers a review of a card that we’ve personally recommended many times in the past.

PACKAGING, PRICING AND SPECIFICATIONS

Taking a look at the front of the package, we’ll find a very nice green/black colors-scheme with an XFX logo, followed by their “Play Hard” company motto. We’ll also see the card’s model name, which is R9 280, along with the Double Dissipation branding, which refers to its dual-fan cooling system (more on that later).

The XFX R9 280 DD features a GPU Clock of 933MHz, along with a Memory Clock of 1250MHz, which when combined with its 3GB of GDDR5 memory, and 384-bit GPU bus makes for a total memory speed of 5.0 Gbps with up to 240 GB/s  of memory bandwidth. It also features PCI Express 3.0 support, and 1792 steam processors, along with 3.34 TFLOPS  of single precision compute power.

API support level includes DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.3, and AMD’s own Mantle, of course as this card is fully compliant with DX11 it will also offer some support for the upcoming DirectX12, which promises great improvements in overhead, and overall graphics performance.

The XFX R9 280 DD has a current listed pricing of $189.99 on Amazon, which puts it in line with other non-reference Radeon R9 280 GPUs currently on the market.

When we first open the box, we’ll find a cardboard insert which houses the accessories, those include a quick install guide, a driver installation disc (use the AMD’s website), a flexible 2-way CrossFire bridge, and a couple of molex to 6-pin, and dual 6-pin to 8-pin, PCI-E power connectors, which we wouldn’t recommend using. If your power supply does not offer the necessary connectors to power your graphics card, you should likely get another power supply.

After removing the accessories, we’ll find the card itself, packaged neatly and wrapped in the standard anti-static bag. It is worth noting that upon removing the card from the bag, you’ll want to avoid placing the card on top of it, as the outer coating of these bags can sometimes be dangerous to components such as graphics cards and motherboards.