Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC
Review by AnandTech December 24, 2013
Added to OP
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For $450 the card will consistently outperform the GTX 780 or outright tie the 290X in quiet mode, offering equal-to-better performance than those $500+ cards without the noise drawback that came with the reference 290, making it an even more practical replacement for those cards. Given that, Sapphire is essentially charging $50 for a better cooler, but as we?ve seen from our results they can easily justify it right now given the fact that there isn?t anything else on the market right now that can match both their performance and acoustics at the same time.
VisionTek at CES 2014: The R9 290 Liquid Cooled CryoVenom
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http://s28.postimg.org/hlce9wxjx/C2_575px.jpg
On the front of it, the CryoVenom is just another GPU with a water block attached (users will have to supply their own water loop), however VisionTek are trying to cut out a lot of the hard work for the user. The card will have the water block preinstalled (similar to the EVGA Hydro range), and will be factory tested for a suggested overclock. The GPU will come out of the box at stock settings, but VisionTek will custom test each one and provide in the box a certificate with their 95% percentile overclock, allowing users to go straight in to Catalyst and set the numbers.
VisionTek are going to sell the CryoVenom for $550 with a one year warranty, which they compare to a DIY version which breaks down into the following cost scenario:
R9 290 card $400.00, Water block $140.00, Back plate $36.00
Assembly, Pressure Testing, and Overclocking Verification: estimated three hours at a value of $75.00
Total cost: $651.00
Warranty: None
Hassle Factor: High
Read more at AnandTech
The $550 MSRP is good, but I expect Newegg to add at least $100 on top of it. To my surprise I found VisionTek is also selling Graphic Cards directly, but all the R9 290, 290X and 280X are sold out as of today. Looks like the miners did find the VisionTech store before I did :)
EDIT
Today from PCPerspective
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Going with a liquid cooler has allowed VisionTek to ratchet up the clockspeeds to an impressive 1,175 MHz for the GPU and 1,450 MHz for the memory. That is a respectable 24% and 16% increase over stock, respectively and is estimated to offer up to 38% better overall performance at those overclocked speeds. Perhaps even more impressive than the overclocks themselves is that VisionTek claims to be able to keep the card just under 52-degrees C under load which is a significant improvement over stock!