Sapphire is readying a new custom-design Radeon HD 6970 2 GB graphics card. The card uses a PCB that closely resembles the AMD reference-design PCB, but comes in blue color. It also uses a custom designed cooler that uses a traditional blower channeling air through a dense aluminum fin canal block. The most peculiar feature is a round rotary knob, which lets you switch between the two BIOS ROM chips on board, thereby letting you maintain two hardware-stored clock and fan profiles. This knob appears to be coin-turned. The Radeon HD 6970 packs 1536 VLIW4 stream processors, and connects to 2 GB of memory over a high-speed GDDR5 memory interface.

While it may not have toppled NVIDIA's fastest single-GPU graphics card, AMD's Radeon HD 6900 series sure stepped up competition in the high-end segment, with Radeon HD 6970 competing with GeForce GTX 570, and the HD 6950, which can be unlocked to the HD 6970, having a class of its own. To further increase competitiveness, and probably to ward off the GeForce GTX 560 threat, AMD is reportedly directing partners to add 1 GB variants of the HD 6950 and HD 6970.

Currently 2 GB of GDDR5 memory is standard for both SKUs. With half the memory and cost-effective choice of PCB and components, AMD partners can significantly reduce prices at the expense of some performance, but end up with equal or better price-performance ratios to GTX 570 and the upcoming GTX 560. The two new SKUs will be available soon. Pictured below is a Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB. Sapphire is said to be one of the first with HD 6900 1 GB series.

Sapphire is readying a new performance motherboard for LGA1155 Intel "Sandy Bridge" processors, driven by Intel P67 chipset. The most distinct feature here is the LucidLogix Hydra Engine chip, which takes in the lone PCI-Express 2.0 x16 link from the processor, and gives out three PCI-E x16 slots (electrical x16/x8/x8), which lets users build a variety of 3-way multi-GPU configurations, including mix-matching of GPUs of different types and makes. The fourth PCI-E x16 slot is wired to the P67 PCH, and is electrical x4. Other slots include two PCI.

The CPU is powered by an 8-phase VRM, and memory by a 3-phase VRM. Sapphire-marked self-cooled chokes and driver-MOSFETs are used. Storage connectivity includes four SATA 3 Gb/s and three SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one eSATA. Other connectivity features include 8-channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, USB 3.0, FireWire, Bluetooth, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. Overclocker-friendly features include redundant BIOS with manual selection, debug LEDs, power and reset switches on board.

Sapphire is keeping the All-in-Wonder series alive to an extant with its latest graphics card suited for home PCs and HTPCs, the Sapphire HD 5570 Xtend TV. The card is a full-height DirectX 11 compliant Radeon HD 5570 which integrates a standard-definition TV tuner. The tuner can scan for, and store channels, you can also program the software to record them at a set time. As a graphics card, it packs 320 stream processors and 512 MB/1 GB of GDDR3 memory over a 128-bit memory interface.

SAPPHIRE Technology, the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of graphics systems based on technology from AMD has just announced its first mainboard based on the exciting new APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) architecture from AMD. As a result of close collaboration with AMD, SAPPHIRE will introduce the SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W mainboard through its Global channel - heralding a new generation of low-power, fully featured PC solutions.

The SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W is a mini-ITX mainboard featuring the E350 (Zacate) APU from AMD. Zacate is the first generation of APU - a combination of CPU and GPU computing technologies onto a single die to improve the performance of both visual and data-intensive tasks. For the first time it combines high-performance serial computing and parallel graphics processing cores on a single chip. The SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W also uses the companion Hudson-M1 (A50M) Chip from AMD.

SAPPHIRE Technology, the largest manufacturer and supplier worldwide of graphics solutions based on AMD technology has just added two new models bringing higher performance and new features to the recently launched HD 6000 series. The new SAPPHIRE HD 6970 uses a new GPU architecture from AMD which features dual graphics engines in one chip with 24 SIMD engines and a total of 1536 stream processors with 96 texture units, providing massively parallel computing power for graphics and other accelerated applications. Its core clock speed of 880MHz, together with a dedicated high speed interface to 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375MHz (5.5Gb/s effective) delivers the highest performance in this series. New Tesselation engines bring up to three times the performance of the previous generation, and new Enhanced Quality AA and filtering modes bring the highest image quality ever achieved.

Hot on the heels of the global launch of the new HD 6000 series of graphics cards based on the latest generation of graphics technology from AMD, SAPPHIRE Technology announces its first enhanced product - the HD 6850 TOXIC Edition. The SAPPHIRE HD 6850 TOXIC Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 820MHz for the core and 1100Mhz (4.4 Gb/sec effective) for the memory giving users a considerable boost in performance. In addition, the efficient SAPPHIRE original cooler ensures that there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. A new overclocking tool - TriXX - is available to SAPPHIRE users as a download from the SAPPHIRE Select Club - free for SAPPHIRE enthusiasts to join online.

Unlike the standard model, the SAPPHIRE HD 6850 TOXIC Edition has the more versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs as well as the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode. With the release of the DisplayPort v1.2 drivers, it will be also be possible to daisy chain additional DisplayPort v1.2 monitors from each DisplayPort output.

After the Radeon HD 6800 series, the rest of AMD's Northern Islands family of GPUs seem to be taking their own sweet time making it to the market. With the HD 6900 series almost certain to be off its November 22 launch date, lower-end GPUs slated for early 2011 are still far away. Meanwhile Sapphire reportedly took the opportunity to rebrand the existing "Redwood" based Radeon HD 5550 to "Radeon HD 6390", in a bid to make some monies in Russia.

The Radeon HD 6300, at least the HD 6350, HD 6370 are reserved for an upcoming GPU codenamed "Caicos", its AMD reference board even made it through a casual photo-session. The HD 5550 and HD 6390 were found to have the same device IDs. An older version of GPU Caps Viewer detects it as HD 5550, while the latest version sees it as HD 6390. The HD 5550 is based on the 40 nm "Redwood" GPU, it has 320 out of 400 stream processors enabled, and a 128-bit wide memory interface to typically connect to GDDR3 memory. Some premium models also feature GDDR5 memory.

SAPPHIRE Technology, the largest manufacturer and supplier worldwide of graphics solutions based on AMD technology is announcing the first products in a second generation of video cards to support the advanced graphical features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and delivering spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors and 3D stereoscopic displays.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series features the second generation of graphics technology from AMD designed to support all the features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and DirectCompute 11. The new GPU's are built in AMD's 40nm process to deliver high performance with low power consumption. Advanced hardware features include an enhanced Tesselation unit, dedicated HDR Texture compression, multi-threaded communication with system CPU cores, embedded support for many of the DirectCompute 11 instructions, 3D stereoscopic support and HDMI 1.4a.

Sapphire is ready to launch its Radeon HD 6800 series products. As AMD's one of front-line partners, why wouldn't it be? The company will kick off its lineup with a Radeon HD 6870 model that sticks to the AMD reference design, and a Radeon HD 6850 based on an in-house design, probably marketed with the company's popular "Toxic" or "Vapor-X" brands. The Radeon HD 6870 card is compliant with the reference design, and uses reference clock speeds of 900/1050(4200) MHz (core/memory(effective memory)). It features DirectX 11 support, 1120 enhanced stream processors, 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface, and display connectivity that includes two DVI, two mini-DP 1.2, and one HDMI 1.4a. 2-way CrossFire is supported.

The Radeon HD 6850 card, on the other hand, sports an in-house design with both the PCB and the cooler. The PCB is colored in Sapphire's favourite shade of blue. The cooler looks quite muscular with a heatsink (probably making use of vapor-chamber technology) over the GPU, a 90 mm fan, and 8 mm heat pipes conveying heat to additional aluminum fin arrays. This card also reportedly sticks to reference clock speeds of 775/1000(4000) MHz, and features 960 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide interface. Display connectivity on this card is more akin to what we're used to seeing on the HD 5800 series: two DVI, one standard-size DisplayPort 1.2, and one HDMI 1.4a. Expect both these cards to be out on the 22nd. A non-reference HD 6870 later down the line from Sapphire can't be ruled out.

An pair of early listings by a Dutch online store indicates what prices of some Radeon HD 6800 series products could look like, in that part of the world. The Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 (part number 11180-00-20R), is listed at €158.82 without taxes (€189 with it); and Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 (part number 21179-00-40R) at €214.29 w/o taxes (€255 with it). We conservatively estimate the USD pricing to look like $199 for the HD 6850, and $249 for the HD 6870, on the basis of this listing.

SAPPHIRE Technology introduces the SAPPHIRE HD 5770 FleX, the latest graphics card in the highly successful SAPPHIRE HD 5000 series. This is the first graphics solution to support three screens in ATI Eyefinity mode, out of the box, without the need for DisplayPort monitors or active adapters. The SAPPHIRE HD 5770 FleX can also support four monitors in ATI Eyefinity mode with a single card.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5770 FleX is a SAPPHIRE original design based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. It supports the advanced graphical features of DirectX 11, and delivers spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just strengthened its mainstream range of ATI-based graphics cards with the introduction of several new models in the HD 5500 series and a new bundle deal with ArcSoft.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is based on the highly successful graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, built in its 40nm process. It supports the advanced graphical features of Microsoft DirectX 11, as well as on-board Stream Processing and video decoding, delivering superb video clarity and visual effects, whilst consuming very low power levels.

AMD is planning a major update for the ATI Radeon HD 5670 mainstream graphics card. Currently based on the 40 nm Redwood core with specifications which include 400 stream processors, 512 MB / 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface, the updated HD 5670 will be based on the larger Juniper core (on which are based HD 5750 and HD 5770). On the HD 5670, the Juniper will have 640 of its 800 stream processors enabled, while having the same memory interface of 128-bit GDDR5 @ 1000 MHz (4 GHz effective).

The core will be clocked at 750 MHz. Since the nomenclature remains the same, it is safe to assume that the price will be remain unchanged, around $90 for the 512 MB, and $110 for the 1 GB variant. Leading AIB partners such as PowerColor and Sapphire seem to be ready with their board designs which are essentially identical to those of their Radeon HD 5700 series products. Unlike the HD 5770 reference, the new HD 5670 will be able to make do without an additional PCI-Express power input. Looking purely at the specifications, the new HD 5670 will be able to perform on par with the Radeon HD 4770 in present applications, with the added DirectX 11 and hardware tessellation support. With CrossFireX connectors on some designs, these card will have the ability to pair with more than two of their kind. There is no word yet on the availability.

Sapphire is back to its vocation of being a motherboard vendor, the popular ATI Radeon board partner designed a new socket AM3 motherboard based on the new AMD 890GX + SB850 chipset, dubbed the Sapphire Pure CrossfireX 890GX. The board is built on the ATX form-factor, though comes with only four expansion slots spaced out. The AM3 CPU is powered by a 10-phase VRM, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory. The AMD 890GX northbridge is cooled by a large heatsink which shares its heat with one of the VRM heatsinks. The ATI Radeon HD 4290 IGP is assisted by 128 MB of SidePort memory apart from sharing the system memory.

Out of the four expansion slots, two are PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8 when both are populated) with some sort of manual PCI-E lane switching, and one each of PCI-E x1 and PCI. The SB850 southbridge gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports, while an additional controller provides an IDE connector (for two IDE devices). The eSATA port is driven by manually connecting it with one of the internal ports. Connectivity includes 8 channel audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF, USB 3.0, and display connectivity, which includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI with 7.1 channel audio. Available soon, Sapphire is yet to disclose its price.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just added a new silent cooled model to its extensive range of ATI-based graphics cards. The award winning ULTIMATE Series is SAPPHIRE Technology's Silent Cooled product line. The SAPPHIRE HD 5550 ULTIMATE is a new graphics card aimed at the mainstream market, whist sharing many of the exciting features of the latest high end series.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is based on the latest graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, built in its 40nm process. It supports the advanced graphical features of Microsoft DirectX 11, and delivers superb video clarity and visual effects, whilst consuming very low power levels.

Leading graphics supplier, SAPPHIRE Technology, has begun sampling the world's fastest graphics card, the SAPPHIRE HD 5970 4G TOXIC Edition. Previewed at CeBit 2010, the SAPPHIRE HD 5970 4G TOXIC Edition has 4GB of fifth generation GDDR5 memory, a total of 3200 stream processors and 160 texture units and runs with world leading clock speeds of 900MHz core and 1200MHz for memory (4.8GHz effective). This is significantly faster than the standard model, and makes the SAPPHIRE HD 5970 4GB TOXIC Edition not only the fastest card in its class, but the fastest in the world.

With twice the computing power of the highly acclaimed SAPPHIRE HD 5870 Series, this new HD 5970 model shares all the exciting features of the HD 5000 family - including support for the DirectCompute 11 instruction set of Microsoft DirectX 11, hardware tessellation and multi threaded communication with the system CPU. It also enables the acceleration of applications supported by ATI Stream, and the ability to display across three monitors simultaneously with ATI Eyefinity. All of this comes with a modest active power consumption and ATI Powerplay Dynamic Power Management to achieve super-low power consumption in 2D and idle modes.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced an exciting new version of the highly acclaimed HD 5870 PC graphics accelerator featuring six outputs allowing six monitors to be used simultaneously - and supporting a variety of SLS configurations with ATI Eyefinity. The new SAPPHIRE HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition is a 3D graphics accelerator with a single GPU and six mini Displayport outputs on the bracket. Any or all of these outputs can be connected to Displayport compatible monitors to give a choice of Eyefinity configurations to maximise gaming experience, enlarge work area for increased productivity or configure display areas for information or multimedia systems. The Eyefinity6 Edition is the first and only card in its class to support six monitors from a single graphics processor and delivers a stunning visual experience.

All of the SAPPHIRE HD 5870 series cards are based on the latest graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. The first two Displayport outputs on the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition can also be used with passive Displayport to DVI or Displayport to HDMI adapters (supplied) to connect alternative displays, including full support for audio over HDMI. The additional four ports can be connected to other displays using active adapters as an alternative to being connected directly to Displayport monitors.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new version of its successful HD SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition with a larger frame buffer size of 2GB. The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC series are SAPPHIRE original designs based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. They feature 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units delivering the fastest performance in class as well as supporting ATI Stream technology.

Designed for the enthusiast or demanding user, the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 2G TOXIC Edition is factory overclocked to 765MHz core and has 2GB of high speed DDR5 memory clocked at 1125MHz (4500MHz effective). SAPPHIRE's World leading Vapor-X technology not only allows the cards to run as much as 15 degrees C cooler and 10dB quieter than the standard models, it provides additional headroom for further performance tuning (overclocking).

At the ongoing CeBIT event, Sapphire is showing off what it claims will be the fastest graphics card in the market: the Sapphire HD 5970 OC 4 GB. This non-reference design Radeon HD 5970 dual-GPU graphics card sports two full-featured AMD Cypress GPUs, higher clock speeds, and twice the amount of memory. What is also ends up showing off is that Arctic Cooling seems to be ready with a cooler for the Radeon HD 5970.

Sapphire's new card uses a blue-colored PCB, a custom-designed cooling assembly by Arctic Cooling, clock speeds of 850 MHz (core) and 1200 MHz (memory), against reference speeds of 725/1000 MHz, 2 GB of GDDR5 memory per GPU (4 GB on card), and being able to draw power from two 8-pin power connectors. With the cooling assembly, the card is three slots thick. It has two DVI-D connectors, and one mini-DP connector. This card competes with a similar graphics card by ASUS in the works, called the ROG Ares dual-HD 5870. Its pricing and availability are not known.

Sapphire is readying a bundle of interesting new graphics products to be unveiled at this year's CeBIT event. Two such products that stand out include a non-reference design Radeon HD 5970 accelerator with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (2 GB per GPU), and the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2 GB. The HD 5970 model is particularly interesting, as its rival in the field, ASUS, will be showing off a similar accelerator called the ROG Ares "dual HD 5870" accelerator. Sapphire however, prefers to call its creation a custom Radeon HD 5970. It is expected to feature custom cooling, increased clock speeds (and probably overclocking headroom), and twice the amount of memory. There is a likelihood that Sapphire designs this along the lines of its high-end "Atomic" series that includes watercooling, and other exclusive features.

The other offering by Sapphire of course is the HD 5870 Eyefinity6. Probably sticking to AMD's reference design, the Eyefinity6 card is optimised for ATI Eyefinity setups with up to six physical displays. The card has six mini DisplayPort connectors, with which it can connect to each of its display heads. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide interface. Using AMD Cypress GPU, it packs 1600 stream processors, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. At the same event, Sapphire will show off several other of its new creations, such as the N450 netbook, Mini Projector 101, and mini-ITX form-factor motherboards supporting socket AM3.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just released two Special Edition graphics cards bundled with the highly acclaimed game Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5830 is a new graphics card based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. It features 1120 stream processors and 56 texture units. With its core clocks of 800MHz and DDR5 memory with speeds of 1000MHz (4GHz effective), it represents a new value proposition in the successful HD 5800 series.

Combining the highly successful HD 5000 series graphics architecture with its award winning Vapor-X cooling technology, SAPPHIRE Technology is now shipping two new graphics cards - the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition and the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 Vapor-X model.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition and the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 Vapor-X models are both SAPPHIRE original designs based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. Both models feature 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units delivering the fastest performance in class as well as supporting ATI Stream technology. They support the advanced graphical features of DirectX 11, and deliver spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors whilst working at lower operating temperatures and significantly more quietly because of the SAPPHIRE award winning Vapor-X cooling technology.

Sapphire is making an addition to its Toxic series graphics card that feature non-reference design with out of the box higher clock speeds, based on the ATI Radeon HD 5850 GPU. The Toxic HD 5850. It features what appears to be a non-reference blue PCB by Sapphire, a non-reference cooler with a dash of racy blue graphics, and higher clock speeds. Its GPU is clocked at 765 MHz and memory at 1125 MHz (4500 MHz effective), against reference clock speeds of 725 MHz and 1000 (4000 eff.) MHz, respectively. The Radeon HD 5850 GPU is DirectX 11 compliant, has 1440 stream processors, and a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface. There's 1 GB of memory on board. It is expected to be released on or before 15th Feb. Online store Overclockers UK has listed this card before its announcement at £269.99 including applicable tax, though we expect the price to come down after release.

SAPPHIRE Technology is now shipping a new family of graphics cards in the highly successful HD 5000 series. The SAPPHIRE HD 5570 is a new low profile model aimed at the mainstream market, whist sharing many of the exciting features of the latest high end series.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is based on the latest graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. It supports the advanced graphical features of Microsoft DirectX 11, and delivers superb video clarity and visual effects, whilst consuming very low power levels.