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It took some time, but over the last few months we've seen custom RX Vega cards finally making their way out. On the Sapphire side, we've seen Nitro+ versions of the RX Vega 64 and 56. Now this week, Sapphire is expanding its lineup with the RX Vega 56 Pulse Edition, opting for a dual-fan custom cooler.
The Sapphire RX Vega 56 Pulse has been designed for gamers specifically. The Dual-X cooler makes use of a large heatsink that extends past the length of the PCB to increase heat dissipation. There is a copper base on the GPU core and a set of four 8mm heatpipes extending through the heatsink. VRM cooling is handled by an additional heatsink unit with a 6mm heatpipe. On top of the cooler, there are two dual-ball bearing fans that can run at speeds up to 1650 RPM to maintain airflow and with the Intelligent Fan Control III system in place, these fans won't spin up until your GPU needs it. The threshold for fans to start spinning is 55 degrees Celsius, so when your PC is idle, your GPU won't generate any noise.
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The Pule Edition doesn't clock quite as high as the Nitro+ but out of the box you can expect speeds of 1512MHz on the core. The 8GB of HBM2 memory is clocked at 800MHz by default but you can check if there is any wiggle room there through overclocking.
A switch on top of the card will let you switch between BIOS modes. There is a performance preset and an efficiency preset, with the latter, you'll get lower clock speeds to reduce power draw and temperatures. The former will give you the speeds mentioned above.
The Sapphire RX Vega 56 Pulse edition will begin shipping on the 12th of February. We haven't been given exact pricing just yet, but given the current state of the GPU market, MSRPs don't currently mean much anyway, so you'll be better off checking at retailers once stock starts to come in.
KitGuru Says: It's nice to see more custom-cooled Vega cards making their way onto the market, even if it is a bit late at this point. Are any of you looking to pick up a new graphics card soon? Are you planning on going with Vega, or are you eager to wait and see what's coming next?
