Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Vapor-X OC 1GB Graphics Card Review

The card is pretty much what we expected, being part of the Vapor-X range with a large cooler encompassing the whole card and Vapor-X branding. The design of the cooler is made from black plastic with silver accents. It also includes some styling to reflect that the card is made from some other material, mainly with the fake screw situated to the rear of the card, which is a novel little design flair to say the least.

In the middle of the card is a large 90mm fan with gloss black fins. Underneath this is the Vapor-X design vapor chamber heatsink and copper heatpipes which transfer heat away from the baseplate, and carry it to the furthest parts of the aluminium vapor chamber heatsink.

As we know from the two included Molex to 6-pin power adapters, we find two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors in their usual location at the top of the card, towards the front.

Moving towards the rear of the card, we find a single CrossFire connector, of which Sapphire generously include a large CrossFire adapter to help you on your way. Simply purchase another 6850 and you can try out some extreme CrossFire action, but be warned, with this being a pre-overclocked card, and pairing it with another stock card, will cause both cards to perform at the slowest speed card.

In typical fashion, we find the normal connectors on the rear of the card, with two dual-link DVI ports, a single HDMI port and two mini DisplayPorts. With this variety of connectors, you can utilise AMD Eyefinity technology, through a multitude of ports, though most commonly used ports will end up being the two DVI ports and the HDMI port, mainly down to the fact of DisplayPort monitors still being on the expensive side.

The core of the card is overclocked from its stock value of 775MHz to 800MHz while the memory sits comfortably at 1100MHz or 4400MHz Effective. Obviously the card does have scope to increase the clocks further, and Sapphire bundle in their famous TriXX utility if you wish to do so.