Sapphire already has a fair few custom Radeon HD 4800-series SKUs, but there's still room for more. Today, it's announcing Vapor-X editions of the Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850.
Featuring Vapor-X cooling - first seen back on the Radeon HD 3870 ATOMIC - the card's promise to run quieter and more efficiently, aimed at those seeking the best possible reliability. That's made possible by Sapphire's Vapor Chamber Technology, a system that vaporises liquid coolant on a hot surface, condenses the resulting vapour on a cold surface and repeats. It sounds complicated, but the result, in theory, is less noise than a high-speed fan and lower temperatures.
The Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X, pictured above left, will feature stock speeds of 750MHz for the GPU and an effective 3,600MHz for the memory. Speaking of memory, it'll be equipped with a choice of 1GB or 2GB of GDDR5.
Similarly, the Radeon HD 4850 Vapor-X, pictured above right, is stock clocked at 625MHz and an effective 2,000MHz for both GPU and memory, and features the standard 512MB of GDDR3.
Both cards are built upon custom Sapphire PCBs, and feature what Sapphire calls a "Diamond Black" choke - equipped with a tiny heatsink to allow it to run up to 10 per cent cooler. All ingredients for overclocking headroom, we reckon.
If you're worried about heat - and let's face it, AMD's reference Radeon HD 4870 can get a little hot - these could be a viable option for you. Unfortunately, they will arrive at a premium. Sapphire tells us that both cards are shipping to stores today, and will be priced slightly above its regular cards, but below the extreme TOXIC editions. Judging by today's prices, we'd therefore put the 1GB Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X at around £180, and the 512MB Radeon HD 4850 Vapor-X at around £130.
Interested? Check out this clip of Nick and Sapphire's Bill Donnelly talking us through the cards on HEXUS.tv, and stay tuned for our in-depth review on HEXUS.net.
Official press release: SAPPHIRE steps up with new Vapor-X Series
