GIGABYTE R9 280X WindForce 3X OC Review

👤by Richard Weatherstone Comments 📅08-12-13
Closer Look


Removing the heatsink was a simple matter of removing the four spring loaded cross-head screws. Once removed, we found the cooler to be quite heavy thanks to the huge aluminium finned array. This heatsink was soldered to 3 oversized copper heatpipes that were sintered in the centre and soldered to a copper baseplate for near perfect core contact and thus heat transfer to the finned array.


The soldering on the base plate was a little messy in truth but we see no reason why the thin sliver of low buff copper should not have made good contact to the heatpipes.


The PCB layout is similar to the reference design with the VRM area located close to the power ports and memory chips surrounding the GPU core. You will notice that the VRM area features its own heatsink which can be removed via two screws and should provide ample cooling with the assistance of the main Windforce cooling design.


The version 1 of the Windforce OC utilises a 6 phase power for the core. However, this pales in comparison to the ASUS DCU II we reviewed recently which utilises a 10 phase power design. We have however shown that a larger phase power design does not always equate to higher overclocks. We will be watching the overclocking ability closely in this respect later in the review.


We were disappointed to find GIGABYTE had opted to use Elpida memory chips which thus far have proven to fall short of the blistering speed provided by Hynix chips. Again, we will see just how far these can be pushed but we fear it won't be quite as far as it would have been with the Hynix. For info, the chips carry the product code of W2032BBBG with a rating of 6A-F meaning it is certified for 6GBPS.


Finally, we reach the core of the R9 280X, codenamed Tahiti. The Tahiti core, while old hat in terms of GPU technology is still one of the strongest slivers of silicon this side of a dual GPU and will handle any game, at any resolution with relative ease.

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