Watercooling a Radeon HD 3870 X2 the Sapphire way

Our initial thoughts

Our preview look at the card, without firm pricing, indicates that on-paper specifications can be a touch misleading at times, and Sapphire's ATOMIC X2 water-cooled is a case in point.

The vital stats for the package indicate that it's a water-cooled Radeon HD 3870 X2 that ships with a single-slot-taking block that's pre-connected to an all-in-one pump/radiator/reservoir unit. The stats further confirm that it runs cooler than an air-based setup and the whole cooling appendage fits nicely into most chassis.

What the on-paper-bumf doesn't tell you is that the cooling is far noisier than we'd like; the block cannot be user-serviced; the tubing is limited such that the card can only be positioned in the uppermost PCIe x16 slot with ease, and that two cards cannot be combined, easily, to form a CrossFireX pair. All that with the knowledge that basic performance, as we tested it, is around five per cent faster than a default-clocked X2's/

Sapphire's cooling, we feel, is a half-way house between an air-cooled and proper water-cooled setup, really, and whilst does a good enough job of ensuring that this is the fastest single graphics card around, the implementation could have been significantly more elegant.

There is good to be found here, sure, as you're likely to hit the highest frequencies seen on an R6xx-based SKU with the minimum of fuss, but the very fact that one cannot attach another card, simply, into a system somewhat negates that benefit.

HEXUS always favours companies who go the extra mile and release non-reference products to cater for the niche market. In this case, Sapphire's ATOMIC X2 water-cooled isn't quite the brilliant product it could have been. Further, we feel that the package will need to come in at around £299 to attract significant interest - either that or it needs to be heavily, heavily pre-overclocked right out of the box, should the pricing be much higher.

Bottom line: consider buying it if you absolutely need the very last MHz from an R680 card.