Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate Passive 1GB GDDR5 Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

As we’ve mentioned the Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate holds a premium over baseline R7 250 models. In the USA that premium is $10, this card sells for $99.99 on Newegg. In the UK the premium is slightly higher and we’re seeing it sell for around £70-75 which is a fair bit higher than run-of-the-mill 1GB GDDR5 R7 250s that are selling for £60-65. The Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate comes with a 2 year warranty.

Overview

Sapphire’s R7 250 has caught my eye more than other R7 250s – this is mainly due to it packing the faster Cape Verde Pro SKU of the R7 250. It has demonstrated a significant improvement over Oland XT based R7 250s and as a result is a much more compelling purchase. The performance of this card is broadly very good – it runs cool with moderate case airflow, it is totally quiet (derp it has no fans) and it overclocks well. This is also a flexible graphics card in terms of display connectivity as having a DisplayPort 1.2 port is a HUGE advantage – you can support native 60Hz 4K playback, you can run MST hubs and so on. Oland XT based R7 250s typically only have HDMI, VGA and DVI and are limited to 30Hz on 4K displays. In that sense the Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate is significantly more impressive than most other R7 250s. Of course none of these things are surprising if we consider this card is based on Sapphire’s very popular HD 7750 Ultimate.

At $100 we do run into a similar pricing issue that we did with other R7 250s – you can get R7 250x graphics cards at the same price. Of course, they won’t be passive so that’s the main design advantage of this product – you get a solid passive cooling solution for just $10 more than reference pricing. If you’re not bothered about a silent experience then you’d benefit more from getting a cheaper R7 250 with a fan and saving $10, or buying an R7 250X for the same price and accessing more performance. However, this product does offer a convincing solution for someone who wants silent 1080p gaming or an entry into the world of 4K displays and media playback, where silence is also desired. My only quibble is that the passive design makes this graphics card bulkier than you’d expect – I think Sapphire could have found a more efficient utilisation of space the heatsinks that hang behind the card seem a little excessive. The size does rule out the use of the graphics card in really compact HTPC/Media Center style cases because it is taller than a full length PCI slot and effectively uses 3 PCI slots due to the top heatsink overhang. However, you’ll still be able to fit this into most compact cases due to its modest length.

Pros

• Totally silent
• Highly efficient passive cooling solution
• Good display connectivity
• Uses Cape Verde Pro R7 250 GPU
• Comes with HDMI cable
• Overclocks well

Cons

• No innovation in the Ultimate’s design from the last generation card – it’s a 100% rebrand
• 3 PCI slots wide due to top overhang, quite a bulky graphics card
• Priced too close to the R7 250X (AMD problem)

“If you’re in the market for an affordable passive graphics card, Sapphire’s R7 250 Ultimate is probably the best performing and best value option currently on the market. Sapphire make smart use of the faster R7 250 SKU and their Ultimate passive cooling solution. It may be a rebrand but as the old saying goes ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.“

Thank you to Sapphire Technology for providing this review sample.