Sapphire's Radeon HD 4870 Toxic Edition
Sapphire's parent company, PCPartner, is AMD’s largest AIB partner and reportedly manufactures every ATI-branded card that’s not made in Canada. The company offers three models based on the Radeon HD 4870, two with 512 MB of GDDR5 memory and one with a 1 GB frame buffer. We evaluated the Toxic Edition, which comes with 512 MB of memory and a decidedly non-stock cooler.
Sapphire’s Vapor-X cooler is a much larger apparatus than the one used in AMD’s reference design. As is the case with AMD's reference design, a copper heat sink covers the GPU and a second plate covers the memory and a few other components. However, Sapphire uses three taller copper heat pipes and places cooling fins on each side of the GPU, which AMD does not do. The tallest pipe extends one inch above the black plastic cooling shroud. An 8 cm fan, mounted on a plastic crossbar and centered over the GPU, draws air from inside the case and exhausts it through both ends of the shroud (meaning some warm air is blown outside the case, while some is also vented inside the case).
Sapphire’s cooler isn’t as quiet as AMD’s reference design, but it does a decidedly better job of chilling the GPU. We recorded an idle temperature of 49 degrees Celsius and an under-load temp (running the Far Cry 2 benchmark) of 58 degrees Celsius—which is 20 degrees cooler than the reference design's temperature at idle. Sapphire also provided the card’s voltage regulators with its own dedicated heat sink. As with AMD’s reference design, Sapphire mounts the board’s two six-pin power connectors to the rear edge of the circuit board—which, as we’ve pointed out, can be a problem with smaller enclosures. In some situations, we’ve found it necessary to attach the power cables before mounting the card in its slot because it’s too difficult to maneuver them around the hard drive cage.
Sapphire’s card comes with two dual-link DVI ports and a multi-format analog video output on the mounting bracket, just like AMD’s reference design does. However, Sapphire is more aggressive with clock rates—it runs the core at 780 MHz and the 512 MB of Qimonda GDDR5 memory at 1 GHz.
Sapphire bundles several programs with its hardware, including the OEM version of Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 7 for DVD playback (but not for Blu-Ray media) on your PC. Cyberlink sells the retail version of this program for $29.95, but PowerDVD 8 is also available (for $99.95) and it does support Blu-ray. Cyberlink’s OEM version of DVD Suite 5 is also in the box. This software provides limited photo and video-editing features, plus CD- and DVD-burning capabilities. Unlike the retail version, which is no longer for sale, the bundled version does not include back-up or disc-copying features. And if you’re interested in benchmark utilities, Sapphire includes the Advanced Edition of 3DMark Vantage.
Sapphire HD 4870 Toxic Edition: street price: $294.99 (Sapphire Technology)
nice one, this is good to know as the 4870 runs so hot..and obviously better cooling will lengthen the life of, well probably any card.
cheers,
bill
p.s. stuff & nonsense: http://www.eupeople.net/forum
Nice write-up.
I have a Sonic Dual 4870, and I am blown away by it. The fans are not too noisy on mine at all, the overclock is a nice bonus, and the temps are ridiculously low, which can only be a good thing. Plus it only cost me £150 + vat... Bargain.
Interestingly enough, you can change the fan speed.
The default overclocks in themselves are of mild interest. I would like to see these cards overclocked to see if the extra cooling helps at all.
nice one,,,,
Thank you..
i have a Gigabyte Radeon 4870.. i changed the fan speed in the bios to keep it at 50 degrees celcious at idle.
did not notice any increase in noise.
I purchased some time ago a Visiontek HD3870. It died for excessive heat, given the known heat problem of this card this i not a surprice. What instead surpri ed me a lot is the denial of repair form Visiontek. To my opionion what matters at the end is support, price and bundle offer. Support is at first place, so please share you support experiences to give people visibility of what a vendor can effecctively offer. I persinally prefer to spend few more bucks but be sure to have the card repaired if something goes wrong, without silly excuses. my personal suggestion is: do not puchase Visiontek!!
Mastro59 is a moron, he either installed an aftermarket heatsink, bought a used card of ebay, or doesn't have a receipt.
My personal suggestion : mastro59 should grow up.
Anonymous is a bit harsh on mastro there, i think mastros post had a good point and he didn't really bash anyone without a reason here.
Anonymous 26/12 is a moron because Mastro59 clearly states that he purchased his 3870 with the expectation that the after care service would be an honourable affair. In some such cases the manufacturer would replace the card or the gpu to enhance its reputation as a quality manufacturer and Mastro would just cover the transportation costs but some manufacturers dont give a hoot once theyve sold the card.
If a company produce a bad card and they are blowing up left right and centre, rather than do a mass recall or take on the cost of mass repair, they will simply follow a policy of denial of liability until it blows over and that Visiontek 3870 is whats commonly called a duffer in the trade.
This article is dated 28th December, but has a rev. 1 version of the Palit card. I bought mine on the 9th and am sure rev. 2 was out for at least a bit before then.
One of the gripes about the card was the smaller fan was a little noisy and always on at full speed.
I think the fan is different on rev2, but it certainly is now speed controlled like the larger fan.
The big change is at the back, instead of 2xDVI + 1xDP, it now has: 1xDVI, 1xDP, 1xVGA, 1xHDMI and comes with 1xHDMI->DVI adaptor.
The VGA port sits alone on the second slot, the rest of the space is now used for exhaust. TBH, not a lot of air seems to come out, but it's something.
These changes polish up the card further and make it even better.