News Sapphire launches Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/11/03/sapphire-launches-radeon-hd-5870-vapor-x/1

Today marks the day when you can place your order for the Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-x graphics card.

 

They should ditch one of the ports so the vent is the full width of the card, that way they could exhaust all the waste heat, not dump half of it back into the case from the other end of the card.

 

I like the styling, but wouldn't consider paying a price premium for this as the stock fan on my 5870 performs so well. I think vapor x was more impressive on the 4800 and 3800 series, but maybe the 5870 will overclock well without any adverse effects on the noise/temp

 

i wonder if there will be a atomic edition and what it will be clocked at. why isnt the fan orientated to push heat out of the case? seems kinda pointless to take the heat from the gpu only to have it collect in your case. granted you should have good case airflow in the first place to even bother with buying this but still

 

Well, I think that most people purchasing this card will either need dual DVI or HDMI and will want Displayport for future-proofing so I can't cay I agree with you there. Personally, I'd rather just get a good but quiet case fan and use that to exhaust it.

 

But HDMI = DVI with audio. So if they drop the top DVI port, users can still use DVI + HDMI to connect two screens.

 

378 o.o
I am soooo not buying it...
maybe in 6 mounts.

and by the way where is that beautiful cooler?

 

I'll never understand why bit-tech and others never tell prospective buyers of high-end cards the
length of the cards. people need to know if these cards will fit in their box, this card is hugh !!! I'm
jumping on the sapphire 5850 vapor-x when the price is right and I'd like to know the length of
that as well. my 3870 has served me well but I'm way over due for a change.

 

One could make the assumption that if the length is not mentioned it is the same length as the standard reference card.

IIRC previous vapor-x cards have been reference design (and thus size) but with a different (better cooler). However, given the HD5870 cooler is actually pretty damn good, it does beg the question of whether the additional £70 is worth it (or if either are worth it over the HD5850).

 

well visually it sure looks mean.

 

An extra £80 gosh!

 

I'd still rather have the second dual link DVI connector, considering only 2 monitors exist on the market that work with DP, and almost all HDMI capable desktop monitors are absolute garbage.

I still wonder why enthusiasts knock cooler designs that don't force air directly out the back of the case. I have a Nvidia 8800GT in a Lancool K7 case. I replaced the stock cooler with a passive heatsink over a year ago. GPU temperatures were cut in half while the rest of my temperatures stayed the same. In a poorly ventilated case, I'm sure all of the heat would just radiate from the cooler and raise all temperatures. Instead, I have enough airflow directed towards the card (I do not have any additional fans installed in the case, everything is stock from Lian Li), and thermal physics does the rest of the work. I'd imagine this card and cooler would be no different. If you install a warmer card in your system and case temperatures go up, I'd say you have a larger issue at hand...

 

This card is 10,75 inch long. Just a tad shorter than the reference card because it misses the fancy end.

 

no 2GB???!?!?!? yoink...

 

might as well go for the water block

 

Card looks cool and is really solid, fits in my lancool k-62 with plenty of room. Whatever about it costing £380, I've seen it listed for €620 which is bloody ridiculous!!

 

The funniest thing: There aren't enough reference HD5870s to go around with..