What about the Sapphire, any better? Are there differences with respect to cooling?
Stay away from Sapphire 280x Vapor-X. My VRM1 temps get in the low 100 deg C - theres many other people with the same issue. I believe their Tri-x is okay.
Sapphire 280x Vapor X is running fine for me. 370 KH/s per Card around 68 deg
Core temp isnt the issue, VRM temp is. Whole discussion here. With my Vapor-X installed inside a case the card would throttle because VRM temps reached 110 deg C.
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12369.150