MSI Gaming R9 280X OC Edition Review
Category : AMD
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 03.02.14
In the past few days we've published no less than three MSI Gaming Series graphics card reviews. Today we're having a closer look at MSI's R9 280X Gaming OC Edition graphics card and what it has to offer in details. A quick look reveals, there is a Twin Frozr IV cooler mounted on a reference PCB, which sounds like a combination that offers a very solid price/performance ratio.
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Presentation
These days we are re having quite a good run reviewing a few MSI Gaming Series graphics cards. Today, we have a chance to check out the R9 280X which features a Twin Frozr IV custom cooler but with a reference PCB. With its black and red color scheme this card looks just about perfect on any MSI Gaming Series motherboard and luckily the manufacturer also decided to slightly overclock the GPU.
Since this is a Twin Frozr Gaming version of the MSI Radeon R9 280X series, the graphics card features a slight factory overclock of 50 MHz for the core. While a standard reference Radeon R9 280X GPU is set to work at 850 MHz for the base GPU clock and 1'000 MHz for the Boost GPU clock, the MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition works at 1000 MHz for the base clock and 1'050 MHz for the Boost GPU clock.
Unfortunately, no factory overclocking was done on the 3GB of GDDR5 memory which remains at the recommended 1'500 MHz (6'000 MHz effective).
During our testing the MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition held 1'050 MHz most of the load time. We have only experienced downclocking under FurMark where the GPU clock was going up and down from 1'020 MHz to 1'000 MHz. We did not notice any throttling while gaming.
Specifications
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | R9 280X TurboDuo OC | R9 280X DC II Top | Radeon R9 280X | |
| Chip | Tahiti XT2/L | Tahiti XT2/L | Tahiti XT2/L | Tahiti XT2/L |
| Process | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Transistors | 4.31 billion | 4.31 billion | 4.31 billion | 4.31 billion |
| GPU clock | 1'000 MHz | 880 MHz | 1'070 MHz | 850 MHz |
| GPU Boost clock | 1'050 MHz | 1'030 MHz | N/A | 1'000 MHz |
| Memory GDDR5 | 3'072 MB | 3'072 MB | 3'072 MB | 3'072 MB |
| Memory clock | 1'500 (6'000) MHz | 1'500 (6'000) MHz | 1'600 (6'400) MHz | 1'500 (6'000) MHz |
| Memory interface | 384 Bit | 384 Bit | 384 Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 288.0 GB/s | 288.0 GB/s | 307.2 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
| Shader Cores | 2'048 | 2'048 | 2'048 | 2'048 |
| TMUs | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| PCB Type | Custom Design | Reference Design | Custom Design | Reference Design |
| Lenght (PCB - Total) | 26.8 | 26.8 cm | 28.7 cm | xx.x - xx.x cm |
| Height (PCB - Total) | 11.8 cm | 13.0 cm | 14.8 cm | xx.x - xx.x cm |
| Slots | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Cooler | Twin Frozr IV | TurboDuo | DirectCU II | AMD Reference |
The card
As noted earlier, the MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition graphics card features MSI's quite famous Twin Frozr IV cooler with a total of five heatpipes, three 6mm and two 8mm ones. It has two 100mm fans which cool the large heatsink connected to the nickel-plated copper base plate via aforementioned heatpipes. As a part of the MSI Gaming series, the Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition uses red on black color scheme and the overall build quality of the cooler is quite good.
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For its Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition, MSI makes use of an AMD Radeon HD 7970 reference design PCB. The PCB is almost identical to the reference card and only changes which we noticed are that the power design components are a bit different and there is the full number of phases, 6+1+1+1 (GPU-Memory-PLL-PCIe) phases versus 5+1+1+1 for the reference 7970 card. Other than that MSI also put an aluminium plate over the memory chips and the VRM area.
Checking the voltage regulation chip we find a digital multi-phase controller CHiL CHL8228G from International Rectifier that is taking care of both GPU and memory.
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The memory chips used are made by Elpida and carry the model number W2032BBBG-6A-F. They are specified to run at 1'500 MHz (6'000 MHz effective).
Photo Gallery
Delivery
Bundled with the graphics card are a software CD, an installation manual, a soft CrossFire bridge, a DVI to VGA adaptor, a mini DP to DP adapter, a power 6-pin to 8-pin adapter as well as an another power adaptor from 2xMolex to 8-pin. The bundle is quite decent compared to what we are used to get lately.
Test Setup
| Mainboard |
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| CPUs |
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| Memory |
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| Graphic Cards |
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| Drivers |
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| Games and OS |
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| HDD |
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| PSU |
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Weighted average
| Graphics Cards | Score |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 113.63 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti | 110.86 % |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 109.83 % |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 108.55 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan | 104.15 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 | 100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6990 | 90.57 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 | 86.85 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | 85.71 % |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 83.94 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 280X | 83.76 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 | 83.71 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 | 77.65 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 | 75.92 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 | 69.35 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 65.58 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 270X | 85.38 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 | 61.83 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7870 | 61.27 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 270 | 61.20 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | 58.01 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6970 | 50.60 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost | 50.05 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 | 49.03 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6950 | 45.10 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 5870 | 44.06 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7790 | 40.11 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 | 39.04 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti | 37.72 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 5850 | 36.80 % |
| More is better |
Temperatures / Noise levels
Fan Speed
| Auto | Auto | 50% | 70% | 100% |
| ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Matrix Platinum | 1'100 | 2'180 | 2'780 | 3'000 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 1'020 | 1'860 | 2'620 | 3'000 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum | 1'050 | 2'090 | 2'900 | 3'200 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 1'129 | 1'493 | 2'078 | 3'023 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 1'040 | 1'910 | 2'650 | 3'770 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 780 | 2'180 | 3'100 | 4'380 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 780 | 2'180 | 3'100 | 4'380 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 1'040 | 1'450 | 2'000 | 2'900 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 1'035 | 2'045 | 2'470 | 3'040 |
| PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC | 995 | 2'000 | 2'740 | 3'520 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 1'250 | 2'060 | n/A | 4'240 |
| More is better | ||||
Noise Level
| Auto | Auto | 50% | 70% | 100% |
| ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Matrix Platinum | 34.1 | 40.7 | 49.4 | 51.9 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 33.4 | 36.3 | 50.5 | 54.0 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum | 33.5 | 37.1 | 43.3 | 49.5 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 33.2 | 37.1 | 43.0 | 51.4 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 32.0 | 36.6 | 42.7 | 51.2 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 32.0 | 37.1 | 44.4 | 52.3 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 32.0 | 37.1 | 44.4 | 52.3 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 32.0 | 34.3 | 40.2 | 50.0 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 32.0 | 36.6 | 44.0 | 49.0 |
| PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC | 32.3 | 34.0 | 43.3 | 49.5 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 33.2 | 39.8 | n/A | 56.2 |
| More is better | ||||
For the noise level results, we measured the noise level using a decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) located at 1 meter away from the graphics card.
Idle Temperature
| Temperature | Auto | 50% | 70% | 100% |
| ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Matrix Platinum | 28 | 28 | 28 | 27 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 30 | 30 | 29 | 29 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum | 30 | 30 | 29 | 29 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 30 | 29 | 28 | 28 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 29 | 27 | 26 | 26 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 28 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 27 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 |
| PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC | 32 | 32 | 31 | 30 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 32 | 30 | 29 | 29 |
| More is better | ||||
Idle, temperature is taken after 15 minutes @ lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature under Furmark
| Temperature | Auto | 50% | 70% | 100% |
| ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Matrix Platinum | 76 | 70 | 69 | 69 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 90 | 71 | 64 | 63 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum | 77 | 73 | 71 | 70 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 83 | 71 | 63 | 56 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 90 | 81 | 72 | 62 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 90 | 80 | 73 | 58 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 90 | 83 | 75 | 63 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 73 | 71 | 63 | 56 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 80 | 77 | 72 | 69 |
| PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC | n/A | n/A | 74 | 68 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 90 | 83 | 76 | 68 |
| More is better | ||||
For FurMark, temperature is taken after 15 minutes of GPU Burn test at lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
We stopped the test when the GPU temperature hit 90°C.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature and fan speed under BattleField 3
| Auto | Temperature |
| ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Matrix Platinum | 66 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 69 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X Matrix Platinum | 68 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 69 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 71 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 67 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 70 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 66 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 60 |
| PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC | 73 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 79 |
| More is better |
For BattleField 3, temperature and fan speed values taken are the highest achieved after 1 hour gaming @ auto fan speed.
Performance/Watt
| Graphics Cards | Performance Index | Power C. (Watts)* | Performance/Watt*10 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti (ASUS DC2T) | 53.55 | 178 | 3.01 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN (Ref) | 85.05 | 306 | 2.78 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 770 (ASUS DC2OC) | 70.92 | 257 | 2.76 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 670 (ASUS DC2T) | 62.00 | 227 | 2.73 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti (GBT GHz) | 90.53 | 333 | 2.72 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 (ASUS DC2OC) | 81.66 | 302 | 2.70 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 (ASUS DC2T) | 47.37 | 177 | 2.68 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 680 (Ref) | 68.36 | 258 | 2.65 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 760 (ASUS DC2OC) | 56.63 | 218 | 2.60 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270 (ASUS DC2OC) | 50.00 | 195 | 2.56 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 64.87 | 263 | 2.47 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost (Ref) | 40.87 | 169 | 2.42 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270X (ASUS DC2T) | 53.85 | 230 | 2.34 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7870 (ASUS DC2T V2) | 50.53 | 219 | 2.31 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 (ASUS DC2T) | 42.39 | 190 | 2.23 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7790 (ASUS DC2OC - Ref PCB) | 33.44 | 151 | 2.21 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 73.03 | 334 | 2.19 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (ASUS Matrix P.) | 70.75 | 325 | 2.18 |
| AMD Radeon R9 280X (ASUS DC2T) | 68.85 | 321 | 2.14 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti (ASUS DC2T) | 30.80 | 151 | 2.04 |
| PowerColor Radeon R9 280X TurboDuo OC | 69.43 | 347 | 2.00 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 580 (Ref) | 50.49 | 254 | 1.99 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 (XFX DD - Ref PCB) | 64.27 | 329 | 1.95 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6950 (Ref) | 36.83 | 208 | 1.77 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6970 (Ref) | 41.19 | 252 | 1.63 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 (Ref) | 31.88 | 200 | 1.59 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5850 (Ref) | 30.05 | 193 | 1.56 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5870 (Ref) | 35.98 | 232 | 1.55 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6990 (Ref) | 73.44 | 500 | 1.47 |
| *Entire system | More is better | Less is better | More is better |
The "Performance Index" value is calculated as the sum of all benchmarks results divided by the amount of games (3DMark and Unigine are not included into the calculation).
Performance/Price
| Graphics Cards | Performance Index | Price (€)* | Performance/€*10 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7790 | 33.44 | 91 | 3.67 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7870 | 50.53 | 143 | 3.53 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270 | 50.00 | 144 | 3.47 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 | 42.39 | 124 | 3.42 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270X | 53.85 | 159 | 3.39 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost | 40.87 | 121 | 3.38 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 | 47.37 | 144 | 3.29 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti | 30.80 | 100 | 3.08 |
| AMD Radeon R9 280X | 68.85 | 241 | 2.86 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 760 | 56.63 | 199 | 2.85 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 53.55 | 193 | 2.77 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 | 64.27 | 232 | 2.77 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 670 | 62.00 | 228 | 2.72 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | 70.75 | 260 | 2.72 |
| ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top | 73.03 | 271 | 2.69 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 770 | 70.92 | 266 | 2.67 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 580 | 50.49 | 190 | 2.66 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 | 31.88 | 126 | 2.53 |
| PowerColor Radeon R9 280X TurboDuo OC | 69.43 | 277 | 2.51 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition | 64.87 | 263 | 2.47 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 680 | 68.36 | 291 | 2.35 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 | 81.66 | 415 | 1.97 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6950 | 36.83 | 205 | 1.80 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti | 90.53 | 582 | 1.56 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6970 | 41.19 | 310 | 1.33 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5850 | 30.05 | 260 | 1.16 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5870 | 35.98 | 335 | 1.07 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6990 | 73.44 | 708 | 1.04 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN | 85.05 | 832 | 1.02 |
| * 06/01/2014 | More is better | Less is better | More is better |
For the price we took the lowest price available on geizhals.eu.
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| With the Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition, MSI is
offering a R9 280X graphics card based on a Radeon HD 7970 reference PCB
design paired up
with their own new cooling solution. Overall, the Twin Frozr Gaming R9
280X OC Edition did good
in our testing, performance was in line with what we expected it to be, cooling performance
is
very good mostly thanks to the Twin Frozr IV cooler which makes the card very silent
as well as offers very good design. As always we would have liked to see the manufacturer overclock the memory and it would have been nice to get a higher factory overclocking on the GPU as well. |
- Performance
- Cooling performance - Design - Noise levels - Bundle |
- Memory Clock | |
| Cooling / Noise Level | + | - | |
| MSI's Twin Frozr IV cooler did a very good job on the Radeon R9 280X. The cooling performance was on a good level and so were the noise levels too. In idle conditions the card is inaudible and under load, the noise level can be described as very silent. | - Cooling performance
- Noise levels |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Overall the 3D performance is good, but as said
previously, we would like MSI to push the factory clock a bit further
in order to improve performance of its card and make it stand out from the
masses. Because of the slight overclock of 50 MHz, we are looking at roughtly 2% performance gain. Idle power consumption of the MSI card is rather high, since we measured 65 Watts on the wall, which is a whopping 19 Watts more than what we have seen with other Radeon R9 280X cards lately. Also, the load power consumption is high with 358 Watt. This is between 23 and 37 Watt more than other models. |
- Performance | - Power consumption | |
| Recommendation / Price | + | - | |
| If we look at prices on Geizhals.at we find that the MSI Twin Frozr R9 280X OC Edition goes for 263 Euro. These days, the cheapest R9 280X graphics cards are available for roughly 253 Euro, which means that the Twin Frozr IV cooler as well as the factory overclocking make MSI charge you an additional 10 Euro, which, in our opionion, a fair offer, especially since the Twin Frozr IV is a really capable cooler. Apart from that, we would have loved to see a bit lower power consumption, but still, if you are looking for a solid gaming graphics card, then you will do nothing wrong with the MSI Twin Frozr R9 280X OC Edition. |
- Gaming - Modding |
||
| We gave the Twin Frozr R9 280X OC Edition from MSI 4 out of 5 stars. | |||
