Having hit the 1.00 GHz (core) mark with its recently-introduced Radeon HD 4890 Atomic Vapor-X, Sapphire still finds the need for a card with the Vapor-X cooler sans the factory-overclocking, leaving some headroom for enthusiasts to play with. The new HD 4890 Vapor-X uses a non-reference blue PCB, along with the Vapor-X cooler similar to that on the HD 4870 Vapor-X model. A vapor-chamber plate makes direct contact with the GPU. It conveys heat to a radial heatsink cooled by a central fan. The memory is cooled by heatsinks, while the VRM-area is cooled by a heatsink of its own.

Sapphire uses AMD reference clock speeds: 850 MHz (core), and 975 MHz memory. The card features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. Its outputs are care of DVI, D-Sub, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors provided right on the card. The card will reach retail in a few weeks' time.

Sapphire has a new high-end graphics accelerator in the works for launch next week: the Atomic HD 4890. The card features a blue reference PCB by AMD with a few enhancements, paired with Sapphire's Vapor-X cooler to keep this factory-overclocked card cool, and more importantly, quieter than the reference cooler.

What makes this card even more special is that Sapphire generously overclocked it. The core runs at 1000 MHz, and the 1 GB of GDDR5 memory at 1050 MHz (2100 MHz DDR, 4200 MHz effective). The Catalyst Control Center ATI Overdrive page shows its GPU core overlocking limit upped to 1100 MHz, from the 1000 MHz limit release-drivers were noted to come with. To sustain such high speeds, the card's VRM has been slightly expanded. The card uses an 8-pin PCI-E power connector alongside a 6-pin one. The price of this card is yet to be known.

XFX is starting its Radeon HD 4890 lineup with three models graded by the core clock-speed they come with. The base-model will carry reference clock speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory), the XFX HD 4890 XT, with clock speeds of 875/975 MHz, and the XFX HD 4890 XXX, with clock speeds of 900/975 MHz.

Something about the XXX model is interesting: almost every other AMD partner has a Radeon HD 4890 variant with the same core clock-speed: A certain ASUS Radeon HD 4890, Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic, HIS HD 4890 Turbo, and MSI HD 4890 OC, and a recent AMD slide exposé showing two distinct grades of Radeon HD 4890, with the second one being a "Radeon HD 4890 OC". This grade, according to Expreview, is believed to have high clock speeds, to increase competitiveness against the upcoming NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 accelerator.

Coming back to the XFX HD 4890 XXX, the card (not pictured yet) comes in a peculiar "X"-shaped box. It comes with a free copy of Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., and is backed by the company's "5-star support". It is expected to be priced above US $250, which is supposed to be the base-price for Radeon HD 4890.

Weeks ahead of launch, Sapphire's Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator has already started to to get listed on online stores, not concentrated in a particular region. The HD 4890 is characterized by the upcoming RV790 graphics processor, it is a current-generation successor to the HD 4870 accelerator. Its specifications are unclear, though most sources in the industry and press have so far revealed it not to be much of a featureset expansion over the RV770.

Dutch retailer Salland Automatisering BV has listed the Sapphire-made accelerator for € 253.95 inclusive of VAT (€ 218.95 excluding it). Another retailer, PB Technologies Auckland (New Zealand), has listed it for NZ $613.97 (325 USD), including applicable taxes. The Dutch retailer went on to list some of the card's specifications. It features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 3.90 GHz (975 MHz actual). Its core is clocked at 850 MHz. No pictures, or information about the GPU's internals (such as stream processor count, TMU/ROP counts) were provided. Both retailers have put the product on pre-order. AMD is expected to release the card on April 8, 2009.

Apart from being a major add-in board (AIB) partner for AMD's ATI Radeon and FirePro lines of graphics products, Sapphire is also a notable motherboard manufacturer that has been using chipsets by ATI for several generations of platforms now. Its latest offering is the DDR3-supportive Pure CrossFireX 790GX AM3 motherboard. It has been spotted at a Japanese store, where it was priced at 18,980 JPY (around 192.5 USD).

Based on the AMD 790GX + SB750 chipset, the motherboard features an AM3 CPU socket. Four DDR3 DIMMs provide support for up to 16 GB of DDR3 memory. A 5+1 phase CPU power circuit is present. Heatpipe based cooling spreads heat between the northbridge and VRM heatsinks. The southbridge gets its own small heatsink. Two PCI-Express x16 slots are provided, which arrange as electrically x8, x8 when both are populated. The motherboard lacks onboard lane switching logic, and relies on a switch card that has to be installed on the second PCI-E x16, for the first one to provide all its 16 lanes to the installed graphics card. The motherboard features a Radeon HD 3300 class IGP with dedicated 128 MB of DDR3 sideport memory. Audio-routed HDMI, DVI and D-Sub connectors are provided onboard.

ATI Radeon specialist Sapphire is preparing a new SKU based on its recently unveiled cooler design based on its Vapor-Chamber technology. In an attempt to step up performance and spicing up specifications sheets, the company plans to load 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on an HD 4870 accelerator. To hold that much memory, GDDR5 chips are populated on both sides of the PCB. The chips on the back of the card are cooled by a heatsink, while the ones in the front are subjected to the fan's air-flow. The card uses reference AMD clock speeds of 750/900 MHz (core/memory). DVI, D-Sub and DisplayPort make for the card's connectivity. It is expected to be priced at 258 EUR.

ATI's official partner Sapphire Technology is showcasing a new type of video card cooling at CeBIT 2009. The VGA heatsink incorporates Vapour Chamber technology and will be featured on some of the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 video cards to come. The Vapour Chamber technology is a rather new kind of cooling technology for video cards, and until now it was used only by ASUS. In essence, it is very similar to the heat-pipe technology we've seen plenty of times before, taking heat and transferring it away from its source to a cooler area. However, in the Vapour Chamber technology the cooling effect is achieved not by a gas, but by a vacuum chamber. The heatsink occupies two PCI slots, and also features a big fan on top. Unfortunately, that's all the information we have for now.

Although the Radeon HD 4850 X2 is an official SKU by AMD, launched (rather paper-launched) by the company along with the HD 4870 X2, Sapphire ended up being the only company to come up with an HD 4850 X2 series product line, since AMD didn't specify a reference design of its own. Sapphire went on to launch 1GB (2x 512MB) and 2GB (2x 1GB) variants of the said accelerator.

In AMD's latest release of the Catalyst driver suite (version 9.1), the HD 4850 X2 was excluded from the supported hardware list. Instead the company now released a special release of Catalyst 9.1 for the Radeon HD 4850 X2 series. The driver provides the same feature-set and list of fixes as described in the original release notes document for Catalyst 9.1, albeit being specific for the said accelerator. The WHQL-signed drivers are available for Windows Vista and Windows XP operating systems from the AMD website here.

Sapphire looks to continue bringing out new graphics cards based on the Radeon HD 4670, to cater to the sub-$100 segment, this time with the Ultimate Radeon HD 4670. This one is Sapphire's silent-cooled card that takes advantage of the RV730 core and its favourable thermal properties. The card uses a blue PCB that draws all its power from the PCI-Express interface.

The cooler consists of a central GPU block that doubles up as a heatsink. From this block, arise two heatpipes that convey heat to an aluminum fin array that extends to the back of the card. The card features 512 MB of memory across a 128-bit GDDR3 bus. Outputs provided include an HDMI connector along with DVI-D and D-Sub connectors. There are no CrossFire bridge connectors on the PCB, leaving the option of internal-CrossFire. The card is said to use reference AMD clock speeds. It is priced at 73€.

The Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor made itself some place in the sub-$100 graphics market. AMD's partners maintained profitability as the production costs of this accelerator remained low. Its opponent, the GeForce 9600 GSO, though available in its price-range makes it difficult for its manufacturers to sell at low price-points owing to it being based on the G92 graphics processor. Eventually, NVIDIA found a way around with releasing the GeForce 9600 GSO+ SKU, where the G94 GPU with reduced shader core count was employed. This made sure NVIDIA's partners brought in aggressive pricing to counter the Radeon HD 4670.

Sapphire on its part, put innovation to the table and attempted to spice-up the specifications sheets using the "GDDR4" moniker. The company released the first Radeon HD 4670 accelerator that uses 512 MB of GDDR4 memory across a 128-bit memory bus. The new graphics card features a shorter than usual PCB. It uses a central aluminum-based GPU cooler, with memory chips being cooled by heatsinks. The GPU is clocked at 750 MHz, with the memory clocked at 2200 MHz, a 200 MHz increment over the reference specs. It provides outputs in the form of a D-Sub, a DVI and a HDMI connector. It is priced as low as 75€.

TechConnect have got hold of what appears to be official imagery of a new 1GB variant of the Sapphire HD 4870 Toxic. It shows the card will feature a dual-slot, 3 heatpipe, Vapor-X Cooler, presumably using the same Vapor Chamber Technology (VCT), though one would hope that the heatpipes will not be in the way of the Crossfire fingers when the card hits retail. It can be seen on the product packaging that the card is factory overclocked and if the 512MB 4870 Toxic is anything to go by, the GPU will be clocked around 780Mhz with the memory around 4Ghz. There is yet no word on availabilty or pricing, but TechConnect expects it to arrive in the next few weeks.

Bringing the highest levels of graphics and gaming performance ever seen in the PC, SAPPHIRE Technology - the leading innovator of ATI-based graphics solutions - is now introducing the amazing single slot, liquid cooled ATOMIC Edition of its HD 4870 X2.

Featuring a closed loop liquid cooled system, the SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC brings workstation class cooling to the PC, enabling faster clock speeds and quieter operation - and delivering the fastest graphics performance ever seen in a single slot solution. Both GPU's in the SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC are clocked at 800MHz and each has 1GB of DDR5 memory clocked at 1000MHz, making a total of 2GB of memory on board. The streamlined single slot cooler assembly on the graphics card evenly cools both GPU's and their associated memories - enabling this dual graphics system to run with a high level of stability even when delivering the highest levels of performance - currently the fastest PC graphics available.

SAPPHIRE Technology is now introducing the SAPPHIRE ATOMIC HD 4870 X2, an exclusive new dual GPU water cooled version of the standard ATI HD 4870 X2 card. Because the article is written in Greek which is not my strongest language, I'll stick to the specs and pics, after all that's all we need. As usual, the SAPPHIRE ATOMIC HD 4870 X2 comprises of two complete HD 4870 graphics systems on a single PCI-Express card connected by an on-board PCI Express Gen 2 bridge chip. Each GPU has 1GB of GDDR5 memory, making a total of 2GB on-board memory. Core clock speed for this model is 800MHz, there are 2x800 stream processors, the memory clock speed is 1000MHz with 512-bit memory interface. What's so special in this model is the full cover liquid cooling provided by the famous OEM cooling expert Asetek. The water-block cools both GPUs, all memory chips, the bridge chip and all the power elements. Two Dual Link DVI outputs are provided as well as TV-Out. Additionally the card's bundle includes a CCL UV lamp and Sapphire USB memory stick with drivers. The card will be available starting December 18th for a MSRP of $649.

Sapphire has really stepped up on its engineering lately, designing the industry's first graphics card based on two RV770 Pro (Radeon HD 4850) cores. While the card that has been making news for a while now, has 2GB of GDDR3 memory, with each GPU having access to 1GB of it, Sapphire has decided to carve yet another SKU, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, where each GPU has access to 512 MB of it.

The card is expected to fit comfortably between the Radeon HD 4870 1GB and the Sapphire HD 4850 2GB in the markets, while offering performance levels that justify its price. The two RV770 GPUs are clocked at 625 MHz, with memory clocked at 1,986 MHz. There is no word on its availability or pricing yet.

After last week's brief introduction of the first dual RV770 Radeon HD4850 spotted in the wild, we've now managed to find some benchmark scores for you thanks to the guys over at VR-Zone. Apparently they have the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 card in their lab and have decided to pair it with an Core i7/X58 platform to deliver the maximum out of it. This card is clocked at 625MHz for the core, 1000MHz for the 1GB GDDR3 memory and has 1600 stream processors (800 for each of the two RV770 GPUs). More pictures of the card and results from different widescreen resolutions can be seen here.

ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics card, which was formally announced way back in August and is still unavailable, was spotted today over at pchacc.cn leading us to believe that it will finally hit the market for real. The card below is build by ATI's major partner Sapphire and features custom dual-slot cooling system, 2GB of GDDR3 memory, a 256-bit memory interface, CrossFireX support and blue PCB. Last but not least are the two 55nm RV770 GPUs and the GPU bridge that links them. The card will require an extra 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe connectors. Currently, there's no exact release date, but the little brother of 4870 X2 is expected to become available later next month.

AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners are ready with graphics cards based on the company's newest GPU, the ATI Radeon HD 4830. Sapphire, on its part, is ready with a card based on its own PCB/cooler design. The company has already released a Radeon HD 4850 based card on the PCB and cooler. Identical pin layout of the GPU (RV770LE) and memory wiring, makes this possible. Features are listed below:

• ATI RV770 LE graphics processor, made on 55nm silicon process(by TSMC)
• 256-bit GDDR3 memory bus
• 575 MHz GPU core, 1800 MHz (900 MHz actual) memory
• 512 MB memory
• 640 Stream Processors, DirectX 10.1
• Supports ATI Crossfire X
• Supports UVD 2.0 hardware video acceleration

SAPPHIRE Technology, the leading manufacturer and worldwide supplier of AMD/ATI based graphics solutions is introducing two new graphics families aimed at mainstream users.

The new SAPPHIRE HD 4550 is a new mainstream product based on the architecture of the highly successful HD 4000 series. With its 80 stream processors, core clock speeds of 600MHz and carrying 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 900MHz (1.8GHz effective) the SAPPHIRE HD 4550 brings features previously associated only with high end cards to the cost conscious user. These include DX 10.1 compatibility, on board hardware UVD version 2.0 with support for AMD's Avivo HD, HDMI support with 7.1 surround sound as well as extremely low power operation featuring AMD Powerplay dynamic power management.

AMD/ATI's graphics partner Sapphire has released today Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC, an overclocked Radeon HD 4870 card with a custom cooling on it. What makes this card so special is the patented Vapor-X cooling system and its clock speeds higher than the reference boards. The cooling itself takes up two slots, makes use of a Vapour Chamber technology and features a thermally-controlled fan supported by three copper heatpipes. The new TOXIC model is also factory-overclocked to 780MHz GPU from 750MHz stock speed and 4000MHz memory from 3600MHz stock respectively. The card is equipped with 512MB GDDR5 memory. It offers 800 Stream Processors, has DirectX 10.1 and CrossFireX support, a PCI-Express 2.0 interface and two DVI connectors. Except that and maybe the fancy retail box it ships with, there's nothing else about this card that could interest you more. Pricing and availability are still unknown.

Sapphire has been showing off their new HD 4850 non-reference design, that you have already been discussing here. The card uses an eight layer PCB designed by Sapphire and comes with a quieter cooler. Even though it offers these improvements, the card is cheaper to make which should bring its retail price below that of the reference design cards.

The first product images of the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 have been posted at Pro-Clockers. This card is based on the reference ATi design and features a total of 2 GB GDDR5 memory. GPU Café reports online stores to have started listing this product (such as this one) within a 5% price-range of the GeForce GTX 280, pre-release reviews already point to high performance gains over the GeForce GTX 280. The product formally launches this Tuesday.

The success of the RV770 graphics processor (GPU) meant that partners of ATI could experiment with the design and come up with several products based on the GPU. The likes of Sapphire, HIS, PowerCOlor, Palit, HIS, etc., have already come up with numerrous non-reference designs, though all those designs had a common ATI designed PCB, with a primary PCB design with common layout of the various components, where the memory configurations and coolers used made all the difference. Sapphire has come up with a new non-reference PCB design for the Radeon HD 4850 that places components in a different way, perhaps it aides manufacturing and keeps the memory chips at a distance from the VRM circuitry enough to keep it cool enough to be passively cooled by a central cooler's air-flow? Whatever be the design methodology, Expreview pictured an upcoming Sapphire product based on this new PCB.

Following the introduction of the highly acclaimed HD 4800 series, SAPPHIRE Technology, the leading manufacturer and worldwide supplier of AMD/ATI based graphics solutions is now shipping two new models of HD 4850 providing a further choice of price:performance points for the enthusiast.

The new SAPPHIRE HD 4850 1GB is a new version of the HD 4850 designed by SAPPHIRE for the user who demands more memory for specific applications like rendering. It offers similar overall performance to the standard model, with clock speeds of 625MHz (core) and 993MHz (memory).

The ATI Radeon HD 4850 has been a success so far and Sapphire decides to expand their product range with Sapphire Radeon HD4850 1GB. Chinese website ITOCP released fresh pictures of this new card. It looks promising. This follows the release of pictures of the Toxic Radeon HD4850 we covered here.

The pictures show the card in the usual blue Sapphire PCB, and a heatsink covering in a similar fashion to that of some NVIDIA cards.

Fudzilla released the first pictures of an upcoming ATI Radeon HD4850 model from Sapphire, the Toxic Radeon HD4850. This card looks very familiar. It reminds us of the successful Radeon X1950 Pro custom-design by Sapphire using the familiar Zalman VF900-Cu cooler. It uses small aluminum heatsinks over the memory chips, a copper heatsink is used to cool the card's VRM. Expect this card to come with overclocked parameters.