The main strength of the Sapphire Vapor-X lies in its unique cooling package. The Vapor-X hardware is fairly slender yet it manages to keep the 4890 cool whilst making almost no noise. We were bowled over when we reviewed the Vapor-X HD 4850, but the Vapor-X HD 4890 is even more impressive as it has to cope with an extra 50W of power compared to the HD 4850.
The extraordinary thing is that the extra power appears to have no effect whatsoever as the new Vapor-X seems just as quiet as the previous model. We are forced to rely on memory as the HD 4850 was reclaimed by Sapphire many months ago.
Far Cry 2 Framerate Results
1920 x 1080, Ultra High Quality, No Anti-Aliasing
Longer bars are better
1920 x 1080, Ultra High Quality, 2x Anti-Aliasing
Longer bars are better
We used a Core i7 system based on an Intel DX58SO motherboard which has a passively cooled chipset. Our CPU cooler was the Akasa Nero that won our recent Core i7 cooler round-up. This combination of CPU cooler, motherboard and graphics card is effectively silent in operation even though the PC offers a prodigious amount of gaming grunt.
COMMENTS
I like it.
i have this card, i've had it for a month (the 2gb version)
i like it, pretty decent, not arsed about DX11 (look at the DX10 debacle!)
you can make it sound like a hoover if you go into catalyst and set the manual fan to high.
Oh and the blue LED goes bye bye with a pair of tin snips, however, since my case lights are green, a soldering iron and a green LED were a better idea.
@AC
Yep, ATI drivers still crash Vista when aero is running, it has to be disabled to avoid crashes.
It's the only way, I've had this issue, tried every new driver release and it still isn't fixed.
The Return of Captain Obvious
Hmmmm. Nvidia 275 has higher performance and less power and CUDA/PhysX. Takes two cards in crossfire to beat this - but could add a 2nd Nvidia ard that will once again beat this card hands down with less power.
Captain Obvious has returned.
what about the 4850X2?
CONSISTENTLY being named as THE card to get?
quieter cooling is definitly to be appluaded tho..
some cards/pc's sound like hoovers!
cheers,
bill (eupeople.net/forum)
Looks pretty useless to me
Nice technology, but overpriced. Heating up the interior of the case is not encouraging - the point is to expel the air out of the case.
With the 5850/5870 you'd have to be an idiot to buy a card now. 4870s are going from 100 quid inc VAT too..
Now, if they can produce a Vapor X 5870 with Eyefinity, then I'm seriously interested..
