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Sapphire really need no introduction, as AMD's largest graphics partner they have been responsible for releasing some of the finest discrete solutions in all sectors.
Today we are looking at their latest mid range offering which is equipped with the highly regarded Vapor X cooler.
The Sapphire HD6850 Vapor X graphics card is not only equipped with the Vapor X cooler, but the clock speeds are ramped to 800mhz core and 1100mhz (4.4GB/s effective) for the 1GB of GDDR5 memory.
The card also receives a proprietary PCB design featuring a 10 phase power control and second generation Black Diamond chokes. This should help improve overclocking proficiency, and we will test this later in the review with Sapphire's own software tool TriXX.
So in theory it should be around £130? seems good. shame I missed that 5850 xtreme however, that was even better value.
The Vapor X cooler is great. I recently took my off to clean it as it is about a year old. I advise everyone to clean their systems out. the amount of dust that builds up in a graphics card over a year is scary !. can also stop performance too and block fans
Their fans are also good, you should have pointed that out more in the review.
Nice card, good for the price, but I want to aim higher next time, like a 6950.
After looking at the power consumption figures I’m wondering why this card has two 6pin PCIe plugs, surely they aren’t both necessary.
Sapphire normally do this with their cards to help with overclocking performance.