Sapphire ships world’s first factory-overclocked Radeon R9 295X2

Sapphire Technology, the largest supplier of AMD Radeon graphics cards in the world, on Thursday said that it had begun shipments of its dual-chip AMD Radeon R9 295X2 graphics solutions. Especially for those who demand something more than just the world’s fastest graphics card (read our review of the Radeon R9 295X2 to find out more), Sapphire offers the R9 295X2 OC limited edition adapter that is shipped in a special case.

The Sapphire R9 295X2 OC graphics card comes with slightly higher GPU clock-rate of 1030MHz (up from 1018MHz) as well as 8GB GDDR5 memory with effective frequency boosted to 5200MHz (up from 5.0GHz by default). The clock-rate increases are not really significant, so expect only marginal performance improvements out of such factory overclock.

What is important is that by offering a pre-overclocked version of the R9 295 X2 Sapphire demonstrates its customers that the Radeon R9 295 X2 graphics cards can be pushed further to get even greater performance. Keeping in mind a very efficient closed-loop, maintenance-free liquid cooling system of the dual-chip AMD flagship graphics solution, further overclocking of the Sapphire R9 295X2 OC should not be a problem.

To make the limited edition graphics card even more exclusive, Sapphire delivers the R9 295X2 OC is shipped in a special aluminium carry case.

In addition to the limited edition factory-overclocked dual-chip graphics card, Sapphire is also shipping a regular version of the Radeon R9 295X2 with default 1018MHz/5GHz clock-rates of GPU/memory and without a special packaging.

Both Sapphire Radeon R9 295 X2 models qualify for the Gold Tier of the recently updated AMD Never Settle Forever promotion, which entitles users to get free AAA/AA games if the card is purchased from a participating retailer.

Expect prices of Sapphire’s new graphics cards to be similar to AMD’s recommended price for the Radeon R9 295X2: around $1500/£1099/€1285.

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KitGuru Says: Factory-overclocked graphics cards are widely available, so expect other makers to follow Sapphire with similar offerings over time. What is not widely known among the consumers is that manufacturers overclock their products only within ranges guaranteed by developers of GPUs/graphics cards (AMD and Nvidia) so not to void warranties. We do not know what the ranges for the R9 295X2 overclocking are, but in case they are limited to 12MHz for the GPU and effective 200MHz for the memory, do not expect breakthroughs from pre-overclocked graphics cards. In case the possible ranges are higher than that, then over-time there will be Radeon R9 295X2 solutions with tangibly boosted performance, especially if there is demand for such graphics boards.

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