Product Listing

Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X - The Cool Dude

By Kenny Yeo - 22 Dec 2009

Conclusion

Third Time Lucky

To our knowledge, Sapphire is the only major graphics card vendor employing this technology in the high-end space. While on paper it sounds good, we've tested two of Sapphire's vapor chamber technology offerings in the past (the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 and Sapphire HD 4870 1GB Toxic Edition ) and both were underwhelming as far as operating temperatures were concerned. This time round, the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X seems to have nailed it, managing a good 15 degrees Celsius reduction in operating temperatures over the stock cards.

When it comes to performance, the card performed up to our expectations. Sure, the factory overclocking might be a tad on the conservative side, but since this isn't a Toxic or Atomic edition, we will let that slide pass. That said, and as our overclocking test shows, the card is an eager overclocker and with ATI Overdrive so easy to use, we can expect many users to get their hands dirty and squeeze out that extra bit of performance.

We haven't had desirable results with Sapphire's Vapor-X coolers in the past, but they got it right this time with the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X.

Unfortunately, don't expect the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X to come cheap. At a recommended retail price of S$689, the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X is a whopping S$100 costlier than the most affordable standard Radeon HD 5870 we could find. For that kind of money, we expect to have more aggressive clock speeds, but alas, with the new NVIDIA Fermi cards nowhere to be seen, ATI has it easy.

So if you have cash to splash and want the absolute best, the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X is a good bet that performs to its billing.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.