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Item#: N82E16814127789

MSI R9 280 GAMING 3G 384-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

  • 1792 Stream Processors
  • 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5
  • PCI Express 3.0 x16
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R9 280 GAMING 3G

R9 280 GAMING 3G

Overview

Now You're Gaming with MSI

R9 280 GAMING 3G

A graphics card is the single most important element for more FPS. As gamers, we understand that not just any graphics card "will do." That's why we bring you the best of the best. We don't want to bug you with noise and heat, but we DO want to give you more performance. With MSI GAMING series graphics cards, you get just that.

R9 280 GAMING 3G
R9 280 GAMING 3G

Pre Overclocked
Performance

Most MSI Gaming graphics cards come pre-overclocked from the factory. This simply means you get more performance out of your card without spending any time on checking for maximum clocks and stability. Pre-overclocked graphics cards simply give more performance and you don't have to worry about damaging your card, it is completely covered by our warranty!

R9 280 GAMING 3G R9 280 GAMING 3G

Gaming App

Easy Tune, Easy Play

OC Mode

Tune up core clock and fan speed to gain a best performance.

Gaming Mode (Default)

Provide a stable gaming experience with higher core clock.

Silent Mode

The best operating environment with fabulous low noise.
R9 280 GAMING 3G R9 280 GAMING 3G

Advanced Twin Frozr IV

MSI's Twin Frozr has been the industry defining graphics card cooler. The first Twin Frozr kicked of the dual-fan trend and today MSI stays true to its dual-fan dual-slot design where others have to resort to less effective means.

The other part that the Twin Frozr cooler uses is a large Aluminium fin grid array that provides a huge amount of surface area for cooling. Heat from the GPU is transferred to the fin grid array by virtue of heat pipes with MSI's special SuperPipe technology. SuperPipes transfer heat twice as fast as regular heat pipes enabling an MSI GAMING graphics card to stay cooler than the competition.

Futhermore, MSI provides all new Airflow Control technology on the Twin Frozr. This new thermal technology leads airflow to the heat pipe by a special deflector on the heatsink, so it can increase the flow of air directly. In addition, this exclusive heatsink design increases the area of the heatsink to enhance dissipation even more.

Military Class Components

One of the deciding factors in performance is the quality of the components used. That is why MSI only uses MIL-STD-810G certified components for its Gaming cards because only these components have proven able to withstand the torturous circumstances of extreme gaming and overclocking.

Solid Caps

With their aluminum core design, solid caps have been a staple in high-end mainboard designs and provide lower Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) as well as an over-10-year lifespan.

R9 280 GAMING 3G

Hi-C Caps

A Hi-C Cap is a very small, but super-efficient capacitor. Besides ensuring enough spacing around a CPU socket to install large coolers, it also allows for 93% energy efficiency. Thanks to Hi-C Caps, MSI's mainboards are the most energy efficient in the market.

R9 280 GAMING 3G

Solid State Choke

It's a new generation, form-in-one choke, which doesn't generate vibration noise under heavy loads & provides 37.5% higher current output comparing with traditional ring chokes. This is very important when your GPU is overclocked or under high loads, since it requires even more electricity.

R9 280 GAMING 3G R9 280 GAMING 3G

Experience - Predator

Share for Fun

A built-in screen and video capturing tool named Predator which captures your screen as still images or videos with the push of a button and allows you to capture and record your coolest, goofiest, and most awesome gaming moments on your PC!

Afterburner

MSI Afterburner has quickly become the favorite overclocking software for media, overclockers and end-users. Because of its simple interface, it's easy to learn, but it packs a lot of powerful features like an integrated benchmark utility - called Kombustor - that can check your system performance in benchmarking mode, or run as a stability test.

Don't speak English? No problem: MSI Afterburner is translated in many languages including Russian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean! Not satisfied with the looks? Just change to one of the many different skins or create one yourself with ease!

Even better, you can run Afterburner straight from your smartphone! Download the MSI Afterburner App from Google Play or the Apple store and start overclocking.

R9 280 GAMING 3G
Specifications
Graphics Engine AMD Radeon™ R9 280
Bus Standard PCI Express x16 3.0
Memory Type GDDR5
Memory Size (MB) 3072
Memory Interface 384 bits
Core Clock Speed (MHz) 933MHz Core (Boost Clock: 1000MHz) (OC mode)
933MHz Core (Boost Clock: 972MHz) (Gaming mode)
933MHz Core (Boost Clock: 933MHz) (Silent mode)
Memory Clock Speed (MHz) 5000
DVI Output
1 (Dual-link DVI-I)
HDMI-Output 1 (version 1.4a)
Mini DisplayPort 2
HDCP Support Y
HDMI Support Y
Dual-link DVI Y
Display Output (Max. Resolution) 2560 x 1600
RAMDACs 400
DirectX Version Support 11.2
OpenGL Version Support
4.3
CrossFire Support Y
Card Dimension 10.6 x 5 x 1.5 inches (269 x 128 x 37mm)
Weight 1.8lbs (849g)

Learn more about the MSI R9 280 GAMING 3G

Quick Info

Warranty

  • Limited Warranty period (parts): 3 years
  • Limited Warranty period (labor): 3 years


Customer Reviews of the MSI R9 280 GAMING 3G

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  • Trevor S.
  • 10/17/2014 2:24:00 PM
  • Tech Level: High
  • Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
  • Verified Owner

3 out of 5 eggsA lot of work, but nice payoff

Pros: Nice Design, hefty but sturdy construction. B-E-UTIFUL graphics on all of my games. Those games that aren't so hardware intensive definitely smoothed out. Those that are (PS2, Star Citizen (Arena Commander), Diablo III are all running smoothly at high levels. Bought while on a $30 rebate (bringing total to around $179). Also the AMD 3 game giveaway valued at $150 from STEAM? I seen others say the games aren't totaling that, I concur, though prices do fluctuate there. However, what isn't mentioned in that same giveaway is two AMD product discounts (for RamDISK and actual physical memory), a 4th game from STEAM, and a remote desktop app called Splashtop.

Also, the MSI apps that come with this card are very nice. Easy user interface covering all you need.

Cons: NO INSTALL GUIDE other than a quick set-up paper with 32....32 languages! So if your install goes well, no problem. My install had issues where my computer didn't see the card. Luckily I have onboard graphics as well so I was able to hit the MSI website. STILL NO MANUAL! I saw a button for it, but when I hit it, it took me to another screen that referenced the above mentioned quick setup guide.
Here's something that might be helpful to those who buy this card, a) all power inputs must be connected, and b) the "HYBRID BIOS" option is defaulted on. For whatever reason my setup didn't like that. Turn that off, connect all power inputs.
Also, rebate from MSI is 8-10 weeks AFTER your approval date. So you have to fill out an online stuff (which was very painless), then send in your paperwork. So whenever they get to approving you if all went well, 8-10 weeks. There is a faster option which is 5-7 business days AFTER your approval, but they ding you for $3.

Other Thoughts: Please note I am not a newb in the hardware aspect. The problems I had could be simply erased by adding a simple guide in paper form or on the CD. What should've taken 15 minutes ended up being a few hours. For those without my experience I can see this as a potentially frustrating issue for the customer causing returns.
On the bright side, once it's in you will be rewarded with great graphics for our time and a great price.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • Richard H.
  • 10/15/2014 5:11:55 PM
  • Tech Level: Average
  • Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
  • Verified Owner

1 out of 5 eggs

Pros: There were no pros

Cons: The junk was DOA, installed a new PSU to test to see if that was the problem. Still sent no signal to monitor. Installation Guide included was a joke.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Based on the symptom you reported, we suggest you checking following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected correctly and firmly (JPWR1 and JPRW2).
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. Can you verify our MSI video card on another working system to check, or verfiy another video card on your system to verify?
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • Justin T.
  • 9/29/2014 8:44:41 PM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
  • Verified Owner

5 out of 5 eggsNice Card

Pros: Nice Design
Big Heat Sink
3GB of VRAM
Good Price to Performance Ratio
High quality packing job

Cons: None Really

Other Thoughts: Good card that I would recommend to almost anybody

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

  • jan p.
  • 8/30/2014 9:13:35 AM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
  • Verified Owner

4 out of 5 eggsRebate denied

Pros: see previous review

Cons: Rebate denied because my postmark was 3 days late. That is my fault. I called and there is no wiggle room for being tardy but if you forgot to include a different requirement such as barcode you get another chance. I had 15 days to submit. Actually I had it sent in time but the Post Office sent it back due to it being to thick to go through the automated sorter. I had to add postage. so guys take a heads up on MSI rebates and the amount of postage you put on fat envelopes

Other Thoughts: See previous review

1 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • jan p.
  • 8/18/2014 7:50:43 AM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
  • Verified Owner

4 out of 5 eggsHappy with this choice so far

Pros: On Sale
Free Shipping
Free Games
Rebate
Subjectively Quiet
Afterburner software well thought out if you are into that sort of thing. I'm not.

Cons: MSI forum is NOT what it used to be. I will no longer recommend MSI based on the forum and I am
an 11 year member.

Seems flimsy, droops after the slot. That could be solved with a backplate?
Dumb, poorly explained and documented vBIOS switch.
If I put my ear next to the card I can hear it while running the OS. If I raise and support the droop with my finger the noise lessens.

Other Thoughts: I have been running a 6870 for 4 years and though still a great card it was time to upgrade.

I follow the advice at a well known hardware site that recommends only upgrading if the card offers 3 steps of performance improvement over what you are running now. The R9 280 is 4 steps over the 6870.

It doesn't matter which R9 brand you choose IMO.
If you spend time and research the R9 280's, all reviewers have the same complaints about their brand choice: artifacts, coil whine, I need a new BIOS, DOA, fan is to loud,
I had to move my hard drives, etc. I discount those comments for the most part unless they are overwhelming in number. The "Pro" reviews APPEAR to offer deeper insight. The "Pros" almost NEVER write about problems with the cards and if they do it is seemingly never "our" problems. They too have their favorite brands and relationships with the vendors.
Despite their statements to the contrary it effects their conclusions. I use those reviews with several grains of salt.

The criteria I use to determine which brand to buy:

1) Prior success or failure with any of that vendors product line.
2) Price, which includes: free shipping, rebate, discount item and perks.
3) Support: Toll-free ? 24 hour ? Quality forum ?
4) The company I buy from. I won't buy from a company named "Cancellation Video Cards" to save $15

This time I went MSI. I have had success with MSI during the last 11 years. It has been several years since I bought any of their products though I still use a mobo in one of the household computers.

I got the card and 3 PC games for $229. Four years ago I paid more for my 6870. When the rebate arrives I will be out of pocket $199. Less if I sell the 6870.

The performance of the card is everything I had hoped for. I am not big on frame rate. To me the difference between 60 or 65 fps is insignificant. As long as temps aren't ridiculous I don't care if it's 30C or 33C at rest or 65C or 70C while under load.

What I do care about above all else is noise. While the card is doing anything other then gaming I would rather not hear it. Fan noise while gaming maybe unavoidable with any OEM's cooling scheme. I can hear the fans on the MSI card
only while gaming.

AMD's CCC lets the user adjust fan speed manually. I leave it on auto, always. For this review and comparison with the 6870 I experimented. The fan runs at 18% by default. I can't hear it. It becomes audible in a quiet room at about 30 to 35 %. The fan ramps up while gaming but the sound increase doesn't bother me.

Coil whine is apparent in few of my games and then only in some menus. I do not hear any coil whine during game play.
I had the same coil whine results with the 6870. It's the card yes, but the game also.

My Gear:
Asus P8Z77-V
Core i5-2500K
16 gigs GSkill RAM
Corsair Force GS

Based on my criteria and experiences with this card I see no reason not to recommend it.

17 out of 18 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • Nicholas M.
  • 8/12/2014 8:26:45 AM
  • Tech Level: Average
  • Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
  • Verified Owner

4 out of 5 eggsGreat Card

Pros: -Able to max or near-max the graphics settings for every game I own.
-Quiet. I have seen reviews saying the card is noisy, but have had no such experience yet.
-Great power to cost

Cons: -Getting Artifacts while waiting in between turns in Total War Shogun 2 (does not occur during my turns or during battles).

Other Thoughts: I don't know how common it is to get artifacts on this card, but I have seen a few other reviews that mention it. I think this may be caused by my cheap motherboard though.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

  • John F.
  • 8/5/2014 6:44:11 PM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
  • Verified Owner

5 out of 5 eggsGreat Card at a Grate Price

Pros: Great Card, I've had no issues and I've had it for a month. I max out almost every game 60fps at 1080p. I haven't heard any annoying sounds from it. The card also looks beautiful.

Cons: I haven't ran into any yet.

Other Thoughts: There's no backplate on the card though.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • Dennis K.
  • 7/31/2014 3:34:28 PM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
  • Verified Owner

5 out of 5 eggsBest Bang for Your Buck

Pros: The card works great. Every game I've played runs at 60+ fps with ultra settings including Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider, Dishonored, and Skyrim with 50+ mods. I use MSI afterburner to overclock. it's simple and easy to use. I OC'd the power to +20% core clock to 1080 and memory clock to 1350 and had no problems. Temp never went over 60c. The Twin Frozer heatsink seems to work very well.

Cons: The only issue I had was with the bios switch. The default setting is Hybrid which is supposed to support legacy bios and UEFI(according to the instructions) which I had no clue what that was until I looked it up. Apparently my system isn't compatible with the Hybrid setting which I didn't figure out until after the card was installed and my pc wouldn't boot. It worked fine after I switched to legacy mode so no big deal. It would be nice if there was more info about what systems are compatible.

Other Thoughts: I used the AMD gold reward to get 3 games valued at $70 bucks according to current Steam prices not the $150 advertised. I can't complain because they were free and the card was a good deal even without the games.

On my receipt Newegg took $150 off the price of the card and made it look like I paid for the games. I assume this is so people can't get a full refund on the gpu. I don't care because I would have gotten a replacement if there were any issues.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • William M.
  • 7/21/2014 9:05:30 PM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: less than 1 day
  • Verified Owner

2 out of 5 eggsdissatisfaction

Pros: It came 1 day early, came with 150$ of free games, still haven't got the product key for them. It works (somewhat)

Cons: I sold my card to buy this one which was supposed to be an upgrade, my card was 192-bit, 2 gb, with 900 processors. This card is 348-bit, 3gb, with 1500 processors. Yet for for some reason i can barely play minecraft with 60 fps on default settings, why? I tried metro last light, between 12 and 25 fps. I tried wolfenstein. The new order which stayed around 23 fps. And i tried a couple of other steam early access games which i could handle all of them fine with my old card, but i could barely run some with this card. I even overclocked it to the max with msi afterburner. Im not sure if its defective or just plan slow, i want my money back.

Other Thoughts: Want my money back!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.

If you have not go through troubleshooting yet, then feel free to contact our tech support team for assistance at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific Time.


Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

2 out of 12 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

  • gift r.
  • 7/21/2014 7:57:10 PM
  • Tech Level: Somewhat High
  • Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
  • Verified Owner

3 out of 5 eggsCoil Whine very annoying

Pros: -Cool
-Quiet*
-Great Performance

Cons: -*COIL WHINE-whenever i play a game, there is noticeable Coil Whine, and it can get very annoying.

Other Thoughts: This card would be amazing were it not for the coil whine.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

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