Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT

Sapphires box design is a real mixed effort, there are some good aspects such as the window which allows us to see the card and some listed specifications which mention the audio and HD functionality of the card, however there is very little information on the detailed card specifications.

Sapphire also mention that the card doesn’t need an 8pin PSU only 2x6pin however it is nowhere near as prominent as the Asus explanation and only when reading the box in detail do we find the info. As with all 2900XT's the Sapphire card requires a 550w PSU with 750w recommended for Crossfire systems, this is noted on the packaging which is good to see.

Sapphire’s retail bundle is quite different to the Asus approach. We do have some of the same components such as the DVI>VGA converters, HDMI (audio and video) out and a CrossFire connector along with the component out and S-video/composite VIVO, however Sapphire have opted for a number of Cyberlink solutions including PowerDVD 6 rather than a bundled game. This Cyberlink software is a nice addition however disappointingly the version of PowerDVD included does not support HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback. There are two further software items bundled, the first is the HL2:Ep2/Steam voucher and the second is a copy of Futuremarks 3Dmark06 which may prove useful. We did also note that there are no Molex>6pin cables included in the box and therefore it is essential that the systems PSU already has these.

Shown above is Sapphire’s Radeon HD 2900 XT, it is near identical to the reference ATI design with only 2 minor changes, both of which are stickers. The first sticker is on the centre of the cards fan and the second is on the 6pin power connector. There is nothing wrong with this design however it would have been nice to see Sapphire go that extra mile to differentiate their card from the rest. Because the card follows the reference design we again have core of 740MHz and 512Mb of DDR3 @ 825MHz. There are also 2 CrossFire connectors along the top of the card which support the current 2 card setup and future 3 card setup.