Who has the world's fastest graphics card? AMD will claim it is the Radeon HD 7990, Nvidia will doubtless push out benchmarks in favour of the also-dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690, while partners such as ASUS will draw your attention to the custom-designed ARES II.
Now it's the turn of Sapphire to turn up the heat - pun intended? - and tip its ring into this debate open to those with truly deep pockets.
You see, while Sapphire has a reference Radeon HD 7990 based on AMD's latest design, it has been cooking up a fully-custom board in the skunkworks. The six-output HD 7990 Atomic 6GB card uses an enclosed liquid-cooling system as found on the ARES II but is presented in a much sleeker form factor than ASUS's offering.
We grabbed Sapphire's global PR director, Bill Donnelly, and encouraged him to whet enthusiast appetites by spilling a few more details about the card.
It must be noted that the at-show card is a very early sample and Sapphire will refine the tubing, pump and reservoir before limited-run production in a few months. Sapphire declined to discuss frequencies yet indicated that it would certainly be the fastest HD 7990 around.
When pushed on price, Bill relayed that the card package - GPU, pre-fitted waterblock, tubing, two-in one reservoir and pump - would likely cost around £1,000. You had better start saving if you're a fan of AMD graphics!
