Sapphire HD5870 Vapor-X (REV 2) (WITH PIC's)

Well here they are folks - in all their glory!...
The Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X (REV 2) gfx cards.

(Please note: these are the new revision 2 cards and not the earlier model that has largely been reviewed by various tech sites).

 

Do want.

- PR-0927

 

Nice man

i still feel that they should of kept power at the side.

 

so sexy!

 

Comparison with GTX285:

 

Cards Installed!

 

looks nice i'm jealous

 

Awesome,

Wish the PCB was black tho.

 

I should mention that this new revision also seem's to be clocked just a tad higher on the GPU compared to the previous model.

REV 1 = 870MHz
REV 2 = 875MHz

 

Sapphire has a history of sticking with the blue-green PCB's for all of their cards. My Vapor X 4890 and 4850 both have the same color PCB. I don't think Sapphire cares to throw money away at different PCB colors. They pride themselves in offering quality products USUALLY at the best price.

 

^The Rev1 has a black PCB,



so they've changed it to blue for some reason...

 

My guess is that the 5870 Vapor-X was never meant to be a stock PCB card from the get-go. I think Sapphire used the standard ATI 5870 PCB in order to get product flowing, but very much intended to release a "non-standard" product once they had enough of the right parts and their assembly lines tooled correctly for the design change.

Some have stated that the change is likely due to cost cutting measures, but I really don't think this is the case at all.
I'd have to imagine that it would have been cheaper to stay the course with the origional version, than to develope this updated model.

 

Nice!

i always liked these vapor x models, ever since 3870 and the fact that the fan is allot more silent and cooler compared to std models.

 

Are these cards more expensive?

Do they still support voltage modulation in software?

If 'no' then these changes were made to cut costs, even if they otherwise have no tangible effect on performance.

 

no they are more €€

~365€ normal 5870
~425€ vaporX 5870

at least here..

 

The point of reference should naturally be the rev.1 Vapor-X cards that use the reference PCB. Unless the rev.2 cards have seen a significant price hike or gained noticeable features while not loosing any (like software-controlled voltages) then there's no reason to believe the change has been made for any other reason than cutting costs on Sapphires end.

Believing otherwise would mean Sapphire, a for-profit company, were doing its customers a favor from the goodness of their hearts - and paying for it themselves.

Let's chalk that down to 'exceptionally unlikely'.

 

First Vantage Run!

Still need to tweak the drivers and such... But I think my first run results seem ok. (At least I know the cards are working properly at their stock settings).

Using CAT 10.1






- One odd thing though is that the Windows Experience Index is only scoring 6.0 for both Aero/Desktop performance and 3D gaming.
I ran it twice just to make sure, but have gotten the same score each time.

I did make sure to properly clean out the Nvidia drivers from my previous GTX 285 install, but I suspect their could be something still lingering behind, causing this buggy result.

 

So beautiful!

 

iWant!

 

Test from PCGH.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...por-X-Rev-2-with-custom-PCB-reviewed/Reviews/

As I see it they run a bit quieter during load but get a little bit hotter, not a real concern though and they have a (minor) core clock increase (5hz) though due to the new components you can no longer overvolt the card with utilities like say "afterburner".
(Only of interest for more serious overclockers, heat is still fine, unsure how the different components affect anything but perhaps it'll hold longer, hehe.)