Question 1

Will this card work with a legacy BIOS motherboard (non-UEFI)?

Accepted Answer

Yes. I use it with a gigabyte 990fxa-ud3 rev 1.1. It is not a true UEFI board. The video card has a button on it to switch between legacy and UEFI. It comes in the legacy position as default.

Question 2

I've seen a lot of reviews/reports of this card artifacting at stock speed. Is that true? What are the chances of my card having it?

Accepted Answer

Mine had artifacting from day one. I had originally tried to install the drivers from the disk that came with it, the installation did not complete. After several tries to uninstall the drivers and reinstall the 14.4 set, I was still having artifacting. Then I tried this display driver uninstaller ----> (google "guru3d DDU", Newegg won't allow external links posted here apparently)
Now I can play all of my games flawlessly, zero artifacting for weeks now, after running that program and installing the 14.4 drivers. This card runs quiet and cool and was a great buy after fixing those driver issues....

Question 3

Is this a reference card? Would i be able to watercool it?

Accepted Answer

To answer your question in short, Yes you can, but it'd be a waste of money if you're selecting this particular card since it's higher price is for it's stock cooling capabilities. This card has a unique cooling system called "Vapor-X" which means it has a liquid inside the heat pipes which then turns to vapor and is pulled away for faster thermal dissipation.  Although it is reference size, the oversized tri-x fan and heat sink configuration make it look much larger.  I would personally recommend using a cheaper card since this one is priced for its stock cooling and OC of 1100-1188.  You'll find you can get these numbers and higher on any other R9 280x (as long as its reference size, which most are) and are going to water cool it. At stock settings on full load (OCCT) I'm pulling no more than 60c on mine.

Question 4

Does anyone know of a motherboard, either AMD or Intel that will run two of these in dual x16 Crossfire? I currently have 2 of them running on a Asus Maximus V Formula EATX LGA1155 Motherboard, i understand i'd most likely have to change the CPU but that's not an issue.

Accepted Answer

The benefits of dual x16 compared to x8 in SLI or CF are practically nil.

Besides, finding a motherboard capable of doing so is hard in itself considering both cards need to share the same PCI bridge in order to work together, bringing the potential bandwidth down with them. Although, some motherboards like the Gigabyte G1 Sniper 3 has a chip that emulates both cards to run through all 16 lanes, it only allocates them to the card with the highest priority at any given time, not 32 lanes 100% like you would imagine.

Good luck.

Question 5

Will This card fit in a Fractal Design Define R4 or not?

Accepted Answer

yes the card will fit you case has room for this card its Length 12.13" (308mm)  and you can hold graphics cards up to 430mm in length so yes it will fit

Question 6

Anyone with this? If so, what are your rates and settings?

Accepted Answer

well i had purchased one a while back and there stands to be a small issue as it seems that under windows its not running at peak performance. however it was making 1300 on the heaven benchmark score. Now just to give you a idea under linux it was pulling a 1600 bench mark score. So far i am pleased and the price is right. FYI if you get this make sure you have a Full ATX or bigger case as this thing is long. And those scores are off extreme setting :
Antialiasing X 8
Resolution 1600X900
Shader High
Tesolation Extreme

This card should do all you need it to, though if not, you can purchase another one and setup crossfire. You shouldnt need more than that.

Question 7

Does this card come with a backplate like the original Vapor-x 280x?

Accepted Answer

There is no backplate.

Question 8

Can anyone clarify what the differences are between this card model and the Sapphire Vapor-X 100363VX-3L please?

Accepted Answer

The difference is the Core Clock and Boost Clock. The 2SR is simply an overclocked version; with a base clock of 1000mhz and a boost of 1100mhz. The 3L is stock and has a base clock of 950mhz and a boost of 1000mhz.

Question 9

Can you dual run this card and also with a geforce 970?
CPU:amd 8370

Accepted Answer

no you cannot run both amd and nvidia cards at the same time.  each company uses different drivers for their cards so there would be incompatible issues with drivers.

Question 10

Does anyone know if this would fit in a Rosewill Challenger-U3 ATX Mid Tower Case?

Accepted Answer

To be 100% Honest I am not sure, I am currently using the Rosewill Thor v2 case and it is a tight fit with maybe, MAYBE an inch of room. The Thor v2 is a full size tower so I'm not sure if it will fit a mid.

Brand	SAPPHIRE
Series	VAPOR-X
Model	100363VX-2SR

Chipset Manufacturer	AMD
GPU	Radeon R9 280X

HDMI	1 x HDMI
DisplayPort	1 x DisplayPort
DVI	1 x DVI-I 1 x DVI-D

SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X Radeon R9 280X 3GB PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card 100363VX-2SR

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Item#: N82E16814202095