Sapphire was the first company to release an 8GB version of AMD’s Radeon R9 290X graphics card, though it’s no longer the only one — a handful of other graphics card players jumped on board after AMD gave them a reference design to play with.
Sapphire is intent on standing out from the crowd, so it went and retooled its 8GB R9 290X with a triple fan cooler and some other changes.
According to Sapphire, its Tri-X triple fan cooler is the first in the industry to use a central 10mm heatpipe in addition to four subsidiary heatpipes for even heat distribution throughout the heatsink. The fans themselves have dust repelling bearings with dual ball races and are equipped with aerofoil section blades. Topping it off is a fan cowling designed to guide the airflow for maximum cooling efficiency, Sapphire says.
The company also points out that it builds its own PCB rather than outsourcing production. In this instance, its using a 6-phase VDDC power design.
You’ll find 8GB of GDDR5 memory on the new card, along with a 512-bit interface. The memory is “now clocked at 1375MHz (5.5GHz effective) delivering higher bandwidth than earlier models.”
Other features include a dual BIOS design, two 8-pin power connectors, and engine clock of up to 1020MHz.
As for pricing? So far we only know that Sapphire said the card comes it at a “slightly lower cost” but didn’t specify the exact price. It’s also unknown when it will be hitting retail.
