Sapphire Radeon R9 270 Dual-X 2GB OC Overclocked Video Card Review

Introduction

Since the start of the year, we started seeing more and more companies offer new variations of AMD R Series cards. Being busy with motherboards at the start of the year and just generally not feeling great having had the same flu that seemed to be traveling around the world, I got off to a bit of a slow start.

Feeling so much better and ready to go, though, I've finally got the chance to check out some of the great looking cards that have arrived recently. The other day, I got a chance to check out the MSI R9 290X 4GB Twin Frozr Gaming OC.

While impressed with what MSI had done via the Twin Frozr IV Advanced cooler, the card found itself with the same issue so many other R9 290X 4GB cards we've tested have. Overclocking continues to be limited, and talking to partners, it seems that it's due to the simple fact that AMD has already pushed the clocks so high.

While we do indeed have our hands-on the Tri-X version of both the R9 290X 4GB and R9 290 4GB, we won't be looking at something so high-end today. Instead, we'll be checking out something that sits more in the middle of the pack. The R9 270 2GB was one of the later R series cards to be released and is the entry-level R9 offering sitting above the R7 260X and below the R9 270X.

The particular version of the card we're going to be looking at today from Sapphire is the Dual-X version, which is a series we've seen before. It's impressed us in the past, and we're hoping that it continues to do so today. While we're dealing with an OC model of the card today, we'll be taking that overclock even further with the help of MSI Afterburner.

Before we do that, there's a few other things we need to do. Let's check out the package of the Sapphire R9 270 Dual-X 2GB OC and see just what exactly we're dealing with here today.

Package

Taking a look at the box, you can see the overall design isn't too different to anything we've seen before. The purple color scheme looks awesome, and the image looks great. You can see the model and series in the top right corner, and some of the main features are covered in the bottom left, including 2GB of GDDR5, Dual-X Cooler, and the fact the card is pre-overclocked, to name just a few of the main features.

Turning the box over, you can see we've got a bit of a blurb on the model, and we've also got some extended information on the features that are on offer. You can see we get a bit more detail about the Dual-X cooler that Sapphire is using along with a mention about the TriXX overclocking software that Sapphire offers. You can also see some of the AMD specific technologies mentioned, including Eyefinity and CrossFire, to name just a few.

As we move inside, you can see we've got that slightly larger-than-normal bundle that we see from Sapphire so often. Starting from the left, you can see the normal Sapphire leaflet along with a quick install guide and our driver CD.

Along with that, you can see the HDMI cable that is something that Sapphire consistently include on their mid-range and up models. Finally, we finish off with our Molex-to-6-Pin PCIe Power Connector, CrossFire bridge, and DVI-to-VGA connector.