Gigabyte GV-R928WF3OC-3GD Radeon R9 280 OC 3GB $269 + Shipping @ Centrecom
Shipping is around $7.20.
• WINDFORCE 3X Cooling system with Triangle Cool technology
• Powered by AMD Radeon™ R9 280 GPU
• Integrated with 3GB GDDR5 memory, 384-bit memory interface
• Features DVI-I / HDMI / mini DisplayPort*2
• BASE:950MHz / BOOST:1072 MHz
• System power supply requirement: 600W
Shinobu a shit
Wow, that was uncalled for.
About 10% slower than last generation's 7970 Ghz Edition. It'll do fine for stuff @ 1920x1080 at nearly-maximum settings; just without much AA and AF (The R9 280X by comparison is somewhere around 2% slower than the 7970GE at stock clock speeds).
With a mild OC (100Mhz on the core and 150Mhz on the memory), you should be able to get the performance of a 7970GE on the cheap (the cheapest the 7970 ever sold for before stocks disappeared was $289; the Ghz Edition for about $330).
The big plus the Tahiti PRO/XTL chips (R9 280/280X) have over their Tahiti XT/XT2 chip (HD 7970/7970 GE) predecessors is less power consumption, less heat and better binning; meaning better OC'ing potential.
Apart from that, both generations of cards are identical. Same fab/die size, same transistor count (4313 for the 7970, 7970 GE, R9 280, R9 280X), same die size, and same core config (number of ROPs, shader units, texture units).
The performance differences anyone sees between Tahiti XT/Tahiti XT2/Tahiti XTL are largely due to clock speeds and differences in vendor-specific components, and with the right luck and ASIC score, you can find a vanilla 7970 that will equal or surpass a 7970 GE and a R9 280 that'll surpass a R9 280X.
Seems to be a response to MSY selling the Sapphire Dual-X version for the same price:
http://www.msy.com.au/graphics-card/13165-sapphire-sa-r9280-…
https://www.facebook.com/msytech/photos/a.274735932573713.61…