As far as factory overclocks go, the 1080MHz core and 5.64GHz RAM on the new Sapphire Vapor-X 290X is impressive and takes the prize for the highest factory overclock on this card [H]ard|OCP has seen yet.  That didn't stop them from pushing it to 1180MHz and 5.9GHz after a little work which is even more impressive.  At both the factory and manual overclocks the card handily beat the reference model and the manually overclocked benchmarks could meet or beat the overclocked MSI GTX 780 Ti GAMING 3G OC card.  The speed is not the only good feature, Intelligent Fan Control keeps two of the three fans from spinning when the GPU is under 60C which vastly reduces the noise produced by this card.  It is currently selling for $646, lower than the $710 that the GeForce is currently selling for as well.

"We take a look at the SAPPHIRE Vapor-X R9 290X TRI-X OC video card which has the highest factory overclock we've ever encountered on any AMD R9 290X video card. This video card is feature rich and very fast. We'll overclock it to the highest GPU clocks we've seen yet on R9 290X and compare it to the competition."

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