Hardware Canucks » sapphire

SAPPHIRE Announces Radeon HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition

Sam Reynolds — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:39:04 +0000

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new high performance model in its extensive series of graphics cards – the HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition with SAPPHIRE exclusive Vapor-X cooler. The SAPPHIRE HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 800MHz for the core and 1100Mhz (4.4 Gb/sec effective) for the memory giving users a considerable boost in performance.

The SAPPHIRE exclusive Vapor-X cooler ensures that the card runs quietly and efficiently. Together with other special hardware features including on-board 10-phase power control and SAPPHIRE’s highly efficient, cool running second generation Black Diamond chokes this ensures there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. SAPPHIRE’s overclocking tool for these models – TriXX – is available free for anyone to download from a link on the SAPPHIRE website.

Eyefinity and APP Acceleration
The SAPPHIRE HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition has the versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs as well as the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode.

In the HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition the third generation UVD (Unified Video Decoder) supports MVC (Multi-view Video Coding) for the smooth decoding of Blu-Ray 3D with reduced CPU load as well as other HD file formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are supported, and HDMI capability is HDMI 1.4a. This provides deep colour, enhanced high resolution output for Digital Theatre applications and 3D stereoscopic support as well as 7.1 high bit-rate audio.

The multiple stream processors of the HD 6800 series can be used to accelerate other applications such as video transcoding. The latest generation of web browsers can be GPU accelerated, and this is also supported for enhanced productivity in Microsoft Office 2010.

Second Generation DX11 support
The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series features the second generation of graphics technology from AMD designed to support all the features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and DirectCompute 11. This family of GPU’s is built in AMD’s 40nm process to deliver high performance with low power consumption.

Advanced hardware features include an enhanced Tessellation unit, dedicated HDR Texture compression, multi-threaded communication with system CPU cores, embedded support for many of the DirectCompute 11 instructions, 3D stereoscopic support, HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series is supported by AMD’s DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 features required for enhanced gaming experiences as well as GPU acceleration of supported applications.

Sapphire Launches Radeon HD 6950 TOXIC Edition, Fastest HD 6950 Yet

Sam Reynolds — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 06:16:11 +0000

SAPPHIRE Technology – the world leading supplier of graphics solutions, mainboards and other PC products - has just announced the SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition, the fastest production card in its class.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition ships with clock speeds of 880MHz for the core and 1300Mhz (5.2 Gb/sec effective) for the memory making it the fastest production HD 6950 on the market. This has been achieved by building the card on a high specification PCB with digital VRMs for excellent power regulation and 8 + 6 pin power connectors. It has a high performance cooler featuring a Vapor Chamber, blower fan and a new perforated backplate to increase airflow out of the system case.

Like the standard HD 6950, the SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition boasts true DX 11 capability and the powerful configuration of 1408 stream processors and 88 texture processing units. A Dual BIOS feature allows enthusiasts to experiment with alternative BIOS profiles and settings. Performance can be further enhanced with SAPPHIRE TriXX – the company’s dedicated overclocking tool which allows memory and core clock speeds and voltages to be modified and monitored and is available free to download.

With its two DVI, one HDMI and two mini-DisplayPort outputs, the SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition supports a wide range of monitor configurations, including AMD Eyefinity with up to four screens.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6950 TOXIC Edition has the latest Gen3 on-board hardware UVD (Unified Video decoder), considerably reducing CPU load and delivering smooth decoding of Blu-ray and other video content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as Mpeg files. The UVD can decode two 1080p HD video streams simultaneously and display HD video in high quality with Windows Aero mode enabled. The card has HDMI 1.4a which also supports Stereoscopic 3D output.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6950 family is supported by AMD’s DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 level features required for new gaming experiences and acceleration of the latest generation of browsers, transcoding and other high performance applications (AMD APP acceleration).

HD 6870 Roundup: Diamond, PowerColor, MSI, Sapphire & XFX

admin — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:14:54 +0000

With high end and lower tiered cards being released to complete AMD’s full 6000-series lineup, many forget that the most popular market segment lies within the $175 and $225 price brackets. Here, cards like the GTX 560 Ti and HD 6950 1GB reign supreme but the HD 6870 with its long list of pre overclocked and custom cooled models still offers some great value. In this roundup we take a look at five different HD 6870 cards from some of AMD’s premier board partners.

Sapphire Pure Black X58 LGA1366 Motherboard Review

admin — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 04:32:25 +0000

Around here, we usually see motherboards from the like of ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI. Even EVGA makes an appearance every now and then but there is one other company which is trying to break into this market once again: Sapphire. With their new Pure Black X58, they hope to once again make an entry into enthusiast circles but is this board too little, too late? We’re going to find out.

Sapphire Launches TriXX Overclocking Tool

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:55:44 +0000

Jumping on board with the likes of EVGA’s Precision, MSI’s Afterburner, and other manufacturer branded overclocking tools, Sapphire is offering its very own customer tuning tool for users looking to get the most out of their Sapphire video card.

TriXX is the program now being offered to Sapphire AMD Radeon graphics cards owners and offers the following features:

Overclock your AMD RADEON based graphics card
- GPU Core
- GPU Voltage
- Video Card Memory
Save your Favorite Overclock Settings with up to 4 Profiles.
Adjust your Graphic Card’s Fan Settings with Automatic, Fixed or Custom Fan Speeds.
Information Tab with all you need to know about your Graphic Card including GPU, Interface, Memory, Driver Version, BIOS Version, Clocks, Shaders and more…
Multi-GPU support (CrossFireX)
Windows Sidebar Gadget option

Visit the product page link below to get more details or to download the utility

Sapphire Launches HD5550 Passive Video Card

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:16:32 +0000

Although high powered graphics are usually on the forefront of technology, the mainstream market and HTPC segment is always one to watch. Latest from Sapphire is their HD5550 series.

Being a passively cooled solution silent running is first and foremost in this cards feature set. Which should be ideal for the HTPC users or those who must have silent computing. On board memory is a modest 1GB of the older DDR2 set to run 800Mhz Effective speed. The Core clocks in at 550Mhz with 320 Stream Processors available to round out the design. Obviously not the fastest horse in th stable, it still will do an adequate job for the market group its meant to fill.

Connectivity is standard with DVI, VGA, and HDMI outputs on the rear panel. As well the card is of the single slot variety which will help it should space be constrained in your chassis. Naturally DirectX 11 support comes standard as well as DirectX 9.0-10.1 for the HD5550.

Availability and Pricing at the time of this posting were not known.

Sapphire Introduces 2GB HD 5850 Toxic Graphics Card

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:46:39 +0000

SAPPHIRE Technology today announced a new version of its successful HD SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition with a larger frame buffer size of 2GB. The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC series are SAPPHIRE original designs based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. They feature 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units delivering the fastest performance in class as well as supporting ATI Stream technology.

Designed for the enthusiast or demanding user, the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 2G TOXIC Edition is factory overclocked to 765MHz core and has 2GB of high speed DDR5 memory clocked at 1125MHz (4500MHz effective). SAPPHIRE’s World leading Vapor-X technology not only allows the cards to run as much as 15 degrees C cooler and 10dB quieter than the standard models, it provides additional headroom for further performance tuning (overclocking).

The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Editions speed up existing DirectX10.1, DirectX 10 and DirectX 9.0 games and applications, and support stunning new levels of detail, transparency and lighting effects in the latest releases of software using DirectX 11. They support all the advanced graphical features of DirectX 11, and deliver spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors whilst working at lower operating temperatures and significantly more quietly because of the SAPPHIRE award winning Vapor-X cooling technology. All of this comes with the modest active power consumption of less than 160W – and using Dynamic Power Management the card has a new super low-power idle mode at less than 30W.

These cards support the latest features demanded by Microsoft DirectX 11, including DirectCompute 11 instructions, hardware Tessellation and multi-threaded communications with the system CPU. These combine to provide new capabilities for the interaction between transparent objects, new lighting and accelerated post processing effects as well as physics calculations and accelerated video transcoding.

All the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 models have the latest on board hardware UVD (Unified Video decoder) considerably reducing CPU load and delivering smooth decoding of Blu-ray and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as Mpeg files. In this series the UVD has been enhanced to be able simultaneously to decode two 1080p HD video streams and to be able to display HD video in high quality with Windows Aero mode enabled. HDMI capability has also been upgraded to HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio support.

In addition to spectacular image clarity, speed and visual effects, members of the SAPPHIRE HD 5000 series support a new multi-monitor mode known as ATI Eyefinity. This allows a single GPU to display images over an array of several monitors. With its versatile output configuration of two Dual-link DVI connectors plus HDMI and DisplayPort, the HD 5850 series supports up to three monitors in ATI Eyefinity mode, with a resolution of up to 7680 x 1600. This opens up exciting possibilities not just for multi-screen gaming, but also for information systems, multimedia systems and promotional displays.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series is supported by AMD’s DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 level features required for new gaming experiences and acceleration of next generation high performance applications as well as ATI Eyefinity and ATI Stream technology.

Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 4GB OC – A Graphics Monster

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:15:43 +0000

With the launch of NVIDIA’s GF100 series cards drawing near, ATI really doesn’t have anything to quell the hype of the release, or do they?

At CeBIT this morning, HEXUS.net managed to catch a quick glimpse of a graphics monstrosity by Sapphire, a 4GB 5970 OC. The card features more than just doubled ram however; whereas the current 5970 utilizes only a dual 5850+5870 GPU mixture (each GPU has 1,600 shaders but only opperates at 725MHz/4GHz), this beast uses two true 5870 GPU’s on a single PCB, meaning 3,200 combined shaders and each GPU running at 850MHz core and 4,800MHz memory.

Sapphire has also managed to keep the full load just shy of 300W but the report indicates that 400w draw – given the extra overclocking headroom – wouldn’t be out of the question. The card requires two 8-pin PCI-E power connectors.

Sapphire has also teamed up with Arctic Cooling to provide a beefy triple cooler design, which manages to keep load tempuratures hovering around the 90C mark.

The rumoured street price for the behemoth, a paltry $1,000 USD.

Sapphire Gives Radeon HD 5850 a Toxic Makeover

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:10:32 +0000

With the 5750, 5770 and 5870 all offered as factory overclocked Vapor-X models, the HD 5850 was likely feeling a bit left out, so Sapphire has given it, its own update.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic is built on a classy blue PCB, featuring an aftermarket cooling solution that does away with the typical ATI Red. It also gives a welcome boost to card speeds with 765MHz core (vs. 725MHz ref.) and 1125MHZ/4500MHz effective (vs. 1000MHZ/4000 eff. ref.) memory. Aside from that, the card is the same with 1440 stream processors and 1GB of GDDR5 memory with 256 bit interface.

The card uses the same Vapor-X contained liquid cooling solution as Sapphire’s other models, but they strangely decided to drop the Vapor-X moniker for the model.

Otherwise there isn’t much more to report. It is a wicked looking deviation from the norm that is sure to provide some exceptional performance from an already top notch bang/buck card, making it all that much more appealing.

The card has been listed for pre order on Overclockers UK before the official launch with a price of £229.78 excluding VAT, translating into an estimate street price of $359USD. Provided Sapphire sticks to this pricing model for North America, the Toxic HD 5850 would be the best value factory overclocked model available.

Launch date is set for February 15th, 2010.

AMD ATI HD 5670 Launch – Complete Manufacturer Release Listings

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:27:01 +0000

This morning we have another exciting launch from ATI, this time of a sub $100 video card that brings DirectX11 and ATI’s Eyefinity technology to the masses for an incredibly reasonable price.

While the Radeon HD 5670 will surely not be the last of the HD 5000 series to be released – and likely not the cheapest – it offers exceptional value for the money and performs surprisingly well in basic games, along with allowing users to experience smooth media playback and great overall workstation usability.

As with every product launch we have received a barrage of manufacturer press releases, all toting their “unique” and generally reference design cards. As such Hardware Canucks has compiled them all into one simple news post which you can browse at your leisure and pick out the manufacturer’s cards that interest you most.

If you wish to read more on the performance of the ATI Radeon HD 5670, check out the detailed Hardware Canucks review of the Sapphire HD 5670 1GB.

Manufacturers:

XFX HD 5670 1GB Video Card

GIGABYTE HD 5670 1GB & 512MB Video Card

SAPPHIRE Launches HD 5670

MSI Officially Launches R5670-PMD1 Graphics Card

PowerColor Radeon HD 5670 1GB/512MB

(Updated As PR’s Received)

Manufacturer List of Launched ATI Radeon HD 5970

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:41:00 +0000

Instead of treating you to the near dozen press releases from manufacturer’s all announcing the same thing – the launch of the Radeon HD 5970 – we have syndicated the PR’s into one enormous article.

Link below are the respective manufacturer’s and more will be added as their announcements trickle into the mailbox.

Manufacturers:

Gigabyte

MSI

XFX

Sapphire

Powercolor

HIS

Sapphire reveals the HD 5870 Vapor-X

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:32:22 +0000

From before the release of the HD 5870, telltale images of Sapphire’s Vapor-X version have been making their way through the internet. Today we have some additional information about this eagerly anticipated product from the world’s largest ATI board partner.

The information we now have points to the Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X being loosely based around the reference PCB but it will sport a slightly modified layout while maintaining the usual 11” length. It seems like the core clock gets a minor bump of 20Mhz while the memory moves up from 4.8Gbps to 5Gbps or from 1200Mhz to 1250Mhz. This should result in a claimed 1.1x increase in performance over a stock-clocked HD 5870.

The star of the show however is the massive, full length Vapor-X cooler which adorns this card. It is still a dual slot heatsink but it packs a silent fan which looks to be much more efficient than the one on a reference-based HD 5870 1GB. According to Sapphire’s numbers, their setup will result in an 8.4dBA decrease in noise while the card is under load along with a good 13°C drop in temperatures. Those are some serious claims but judging from our past experiences with Vapor-X technology, it is well within the realm of possibility.

This being the first custom cooled HD 5870 on the market; people are understandably excited for its impending release. Our review will be up in the coming days.

If you wanted to read more about Vapor-X technology, Click here

Sapphire Launching HD 5750 Vapor-X Video Card

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:17:03 +0000

In the pursuit of the perfect combination of a reasonably priced video card that delivers exceptional performance, Sapphire is releasing their popular Vapor-X version of the ATI HD 5750.

The HD 5750 is targeted to mainstream and price conscious consumers who wish to adopt the new ATI chip for its technological advancements – such as the revolutionary Eyefinity display option – as well as do some modest gaming.

The HD 5750 Vapor-X includes a uniquely designed cooler utilizing Sapphire’s “Vapor Chamber Technology” and improved heatsink design for superior airflow and much cooler operating temperatures. The exact specs have been detailed, and unlike our earlier assumptions of stock speeds, the card is clocked (albeit trivial ) slightly higher, including 1GB of GDDR5 memory and a core speed of ~~700MHz~~ 710MHz with memory at ~~1150MHz (4600MHz)~~ 1160MHz (Effective 4640 MHz).

With its small size and 16W idle low power consumption, the card is perfect for media centres. It includes dual DVI, as well as HDMI and Display port on the rear.

The Vapor-X is scheduled to be released November 3rd and will likely demand a small premium over Sapphire’s regular model.

Update (10/27/09): We received clarification on the exact speeds of the new video card. Sapphire will be clocking both core and memory 10MHz higher than stock at 710MHz and 4640MHz (effective).

Sapphire Giving Away a 5800 Series Graphics Card Every Day!

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:32:46 +0000

Looking to bring enthusiasts together, Sapphire is promoting its “Sapphire Select Club”, not unlike other manufacturer’s who have communities for their consumers, but the popular video card focused company wants to offer a unique and special treat.

To celebrate the launch of the new Select Club, they are giving away a brand new Radeon HD 5800 series video card every day until the end of October! All you have to do is join the club, and you not only get the great benifits of membership but chances to win great prizes.

“At SAPPHIRE, we like having the best. And we like giving the best to our fans. Only thing was, how would we do it? Welcome to SAPPHIRE Select Club. Get free stuff, enter contests, get access to downloads, and more.

All you need to do is join. Become a member of SAPPHIRE Select Club (SSC) and we’ll reward you. Here’s what you get with your membership.Find out what you’re missing!” Registrants must be 18 years or older.

Benefit/Requirement

Silver

Gold

You’re automatically entered for most contests we run from SSC – and if you need to do something for your prizes, you’ll be informed about it first.

Get special discounts on SAPPHIRE products.

Get the latest technology updates, news, tips and tricks sent to your inbox.

Get access to free software downloads – games, nifty apps, freebies, and trials.
To get access to this, you need to be a member and register your SAPPHIRE product with us.

–

To signup for the select club, and enter to win a new HD 5800 series video card, pop over to http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/member/member_index.aspx?cpn=1

SAPPHIRE Launches HD 5870 and HD 5850

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:48:31 +0000

SAPPHIRE Technology announces the most exciting development in graphics for several generations – not only the fastest single GPU ever, but also the first video cards to support the advanced graphical features only available in Microsoft DirectX 11 and delivering spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5870 is based on an advanced new graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. This is the very first series of graphics solutions to support the forthcoming DirectX 11, soon to be introduced with Windows7 and supported in Windows Vista.

With a new 150GB/s memory interface supporting fifth generation GDDR5 memory and a new architecture with a total of 1600 stream processors and 80 texture units* the HD 5870 has twice the computing power of the previous generation. It will be lightning fast with existing DirectX 10.1, DirectX 10 and DirectX 9.0 games and applications – but where it excels will be in new releases ofsoftware using DirectX 11 where it will support stunning new levels of detail, transparency and lighting effects. All of this comes with the modest active power consumption of less that 190W – and using Dynamic Power Management the card has a new super low-power idle mode at 27W.

At the same time, SAPPHIRE will introduce the SAPPHIRE HD 5850, with the slightly smaller configuration of 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units offering users access to the same new generation technology and full DirectX 11 support at a lower price point.

Microsoft DirectX 11 includes DirectCompute 11 which allows the graphics architecture to process general purpose calculations and provides programmers and developers with exciting new ways to programme effects that were never possible before. This includes new capabilities for the interaction between transparent objects, new lighting and accelerated post processing effects as well as physics calculations and accelerated video transcoding. Only hardware like the SAPPHIRE HD 5870 and the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 with their true DirectX 11 implementation can support DirectCompute 11 – earlier and competing DirectX 10hardware can only support a subset of these features.

SAPPHIRE graphics cards based on previous generations of ATI hardware have had the ability to perform a type of image enhancement known as Tessellation, but required special programming to implement it. Now DirectX 11 supports Tessellation, and developers can make full use of this feature to dramatically increase the detail in 3D models – on the fly – and deliver spectacular improvements to the detail and realism of images, including characters, objects and scenes displayed using the 6th generation hardware Tessellation engine in the SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series.

Another performance boost in DirectX 11 comes from its improved support for multi-threading. With DirectX 11 the graphics processors can accept data streams from any number of cores in the CPU, unlike DirectX 10 which could only accept data from one CPU core at a time. This accelerates communications with the stream processors in the GPU and dramatically speeds up applications such as Video transcoding and rendering that are supported by ATI Stream technology. The SAPPHIRE HD 5870 has computing power of 2.7 Teraflops (single precision) or 544Gflops (double precision) – the greatest computing capability ever delivered in a single graphics processor.

Like the previous generation, the SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series has an on board hardware UVD (Unified Video decoder) considerably reducing CPU load and delivering smooth decoding of Blu-ray™ and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as Mpeg files. In the SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series the UVD has been enhanced to be able simultaneously to decode two 1080p HD video streams and to be able to display HD video in high quality with Windows Aero mode enabled. HDMI capability has also been upgraded to HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

In addition to spectacular image clarity, speed and visual effects, the SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series supports a new multi-monitor mode known as Eyefinity. This allows a single GPU to display a choice of images over an array of several monitors. The standard card supports up to three monitors, with a resolution of up to 7680 x 1600. Special editions will support up to six monitors from a singlegraphics card. This new feature does not constrain the monitor configuration to be in a linear or rectangular array. L-shaped and T-shaped configurations are allowed, opening up exciting possibilities not just for multi-screen gaming, but also for information systems, multimedia systems and promotional displays.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series is supported by AMD’s DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 level features required for new gaming experiences and acceleration of next generation high performance applications.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5870 and HD 5850 standard editions are shipping from 23rd September. Full retail editions of the HD 5870 will include a coupon for Dirt2 – the PC version of this exciting driving game which has full DirectX 11 support – as well as BATTLESTATIONS PACIFIC. SAPPHIRE plans to introduce special editions with enhanced cooling solutions and different memory configurations in the coming weeks.

SAPPHIRE offers BumpTop to graphics users

skymtl — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:17:06 +0000

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced that it is making BumpTop, the revolutionary desktop alternative for the PC, available to users of SAPPHIRE graphics cards.

BumpTop changes the way the users organise and use files and applications by making a 3D view on screen within which icons can be arranged, grouped and used – more similar to the way real items are used on a desk or table top than the traditional 2D view.

BumpTop has dozens of themes to choose from, allowing the user to chose a look and feel as well as colour scheme to suit different styles or even changes in moods. In the 3D BumpTop view, users can create piles, just like people do in real life. But with advanced search and sort capabilities, it’s always easy to find things again.

A very visual system, BumpTop lets users interact with items on the desktop. For example, important files or sticky notes can be stuck to a wall so they are not forgotten. And BumpTop makes more frequently used files get bigger and heavier so they can be found more easily.

BumpTop also lets users stay connected to friends and family right from the desktop. Users can create a photo frame on a wall to watch friends’ photo feeds, or toss a photo to a Twitter or Facebook widget to share it within a social network.

“Sapphire makes great graphics cards, and when you combine BumpTop with a Sapphire GPU you get an amazing, immersive, visual experience,” said Anand Agawarawla, BumpTop co-founder and CEO. “We’re excited that Sapphire has chosen BumpTop to help demonstrate the value of 3D graphics in everyday computing.”

Existing users of SAPPHIRE original graphics cards will be able to download BumpTop from www.sapphiretech.com. With future new products, BumpTop will be available on the installation disk shipped with SAPPHIRE graphics cards.

For more information on BumpTop please visit www.bumptop.com

Source: Sapphire

Sapphire Gets Green with Enviromentally Friendly Packaging

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:43:20 +0000

Sapphire Technology, supplier of AMD/ATI based graphics products is aware of the increasing awareness of the impact of excess packaging on the environment, and has an ongoing programme to play its part in conservation. In another industry first for Sapphire the company is now introducing paper pulp trays as the inner packaging for graphics cards.

Sapphire already offers its customers the option of ‘Lite Retail’ packaging – in which cards are shipped in a smaller display box with a basic bundle of essential cables and driver disc. This smaller size and weight reduces shipping costs for the customer and material waste both in manufacture and for the end user.

Outer boxes for Sapphire products already use environmentally friendly inks and are completely recyclable. Now Sapphire is introducing a new type of inner packaging for many of its mainstream models and looking to roll it out across the range.

In another industry first for Sapphire, the company is introducing paper pulp trays. These are made from recycled paper materials and are further recyclable. Most of Sapphire’s graphics cards have previously shipped with an inner cardboard box – which in some cases have multiple folds and cut-outs to retain the cards and accessories. Now many of these can be replaced with the pulp tray which is moulded to hold the components safely during shipping. Work is ongoing to further develop this method and apply it to even the heavier models which currently ship in plastic carriers or foam packaging.

Sapphire is committed to being environmentally friendly, and where existing package designs cannot be replaced by the new method, the company is specifying recycled materials wherever possible.