Sapphire Nitro R9 Fury OC+ 4GB Review

The Sapphire Nitro R9 Fury OC 4GB ships in a dark box featuring futuristic robotic artwork.

The rear of the box highlights some of the features of the hardware.

Inside the box is a software disc, sticker, literature on the product and an HDMI cable.

The Nitro cards are very distinctive by design – they are predominately black with silver accenting. It is a fine looking card incorporating three 90mm fans (with aerofoil blades and dual ball bearing hubs) which take up the full length of the PCB underneath. The last Nitro card we reviewed in December 2015 (R9 390 Nitro) had ‘Sapphire' branding on the backplate but this time the company have placed the focus on the ‘Nitro' brand name.

The card is equipped with a dual link DVI-D connector, three DisplayPort 1.2a connectors and a single HDMI 1.4a connector. Sadly, no support for the new HDMI 2.0 standard – which means you can’t get 4K 60hz from this connector. This is something I do depend on myself as I use a 65 inch Sony 4K TV for my gaming (which has only HDMI 2.0 ports).

The card takes power from two eight pin PCIe connectors. It has full bridge less Crossfire support, like the 390 series.

The Sapphire Nitro R9 Fury adopts an 8 layer 2 oz PCB with a 6 phase power circuit. Sapphire claim this design drops VRM temperature by up to 20%. A diecast mounting frame supports the PCB and cooler assembly and improves rigidity. The cooler shroud mounts to the frame and controls the airflow. The cooler assembly extends past the length of the PCB which helps improve airflow circulation. Sapphire are using their own Black Diamond chokes throughout to improve stability under load.

The cooling system comprises 5 copper heatpipes which measure: 1x 10mm, 2x 8mm and 2 x 6 mm.

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