Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB Vapor-X graphics card: the best in the world?

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An aftermarket cooler on the best GPU around. Find out if Sapphire has done it right with the Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X.

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Read more.

<Sigh>....I would just love one of these. The few mm less of length wouldn't hurt either.
However, I'm not yet seeing any huge improvements over my 4890, other than power/temp, that would entice me to outlay the £330 for an upgrade.
Probably in the summer, when DX 11 may start to be more important.

I'm a bit disappointed that it is louder than the reference design under load. Considering the lowered temperatures, there seems to be scope to have the fan running slower/quieter without going above the reference temps.

Having said that, those few extra mm saved on length could help me - my case only has 11" between the HDD enclosures and the rear of the case, exactly the length of a 5870, shaving a few extra mm could mean the difference between fitting and not fitting in my case.

Did you transpose the 285 and 295 temperatures? I find it hard to believe the load temps of a 285 being higher than a 295?

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Originally Posted by GheeTsar

I'm a bit disappointed that it is louder than the reference design under load. Considering the lowered temperatures, there seems to be scope to have the fan running slower/quieter without going above the reference temps.

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Where does it say that? I can't see any mention about noise at all.

PK

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Originally Posted by Syllopsium

Where does it say that? I can't see any mention about noise at all.

PK

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Oddly the noise bit was tucked away on the card description page:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20948&page=2

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Originally Posted by Hexus article

Looking quite funky in a perforated black housing, the card is quieter than the reference when idling in 2D, barely noticeable above the background noise, but is a touch louder when playing games.

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That kind of defeats the point then! Sad... Oh well, I was going for watercooling already since I figured it probably couldn't be much quieter due to the heat generated, so I'm not too disappointed. Reference or branded standard for me!

Is that saying a touch louder than reference or a touch louder than background? I read it as a touch louder than background the first time i skimmed over it... it is a bit too ambiguous :/ Can Hexus clarify please?

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Originally Posted by Zhaoman

Is that saying a touch louder than reference or a touch louder than background? I read it as a touch louder than background the first time i skimmed over it... it is a bit too ambiguous :/ Can Hexus clarify please?

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That's how I read it as well. Clarification would be great as it's one of the key selling points.

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Originally Posted by Zhaoman

I read it as a touch louder than background the first time i skimmed over it...

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That's how I read it too - it'd seem odd to make a point of it being quieter than the stock cooler at idle and *not* also make a point of it if it was louder than the stock at load...

But anyway, the point of Vapor-X is not that it's quieter than normal cooling, it's that it's ... well, cooler! Which this one is, significantly.

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

That's how I read it too - it'd seem odd to make a point of it being quieter than the stock cooler at idle and *not* also make a point of it if it was louder than the stock at load...

But anyway, the point of Vapor-X is not that it's quieter than normal cooling, it's that it's ... well, cooler! Which this one is, significantly.

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I hope you are right about being only slightly louder than idle at load rather than louder than the reference card at load as I would be willing to pay the premium on the card for the quietness (although I wouldn't if it was just for the performance/coolness).

Tarinder - can you shed some light please?

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Originally Posted by GheeTsar

I hope you are right about being only slightly louder than idle at load rather than louder than the reference card at load as I would be willing to pay the premium on the card for the quietness (although I wouldn't if it was just for the performance/coolness).

Tarinder - can you shed some light please?

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Exactly. The card sells on it's cool and quiet credentials, not straight performance.

Dropped Tarinder an email asking to take a look at the questions posed to him by forum users via the contact form that pops up when you click his name at the top of the review

Chaps, thanks for the commentary. Tarinder is currently away from his desk, but he has updated the article to clarify the segment on noise. It now reads:

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Looking quite funky in a perforated black housing, the card is quieter than the reference design when idling in 2D, and it's barely noticeable above the ambient background noise. However, put it to work in 3D gaming, and the Vapor-X is a touch louder than AMD's stock cooler.

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Hope that helps clear up any confusion.

Yes it does thanks.
<dammit>

One suspects that you could set slightly quieter fan profiles - although then would you get the same benefit from the enhanced cooling? Sounds like ATI have put a *really good* fan on the reference card... ;)

It seems to me that Hexus should possibly be querying this result with Bill Donelly then because Sapphires own Press Release states :

"SAPPHIRE’s World leading Vapor-X technology not only allows the card to run as much as 15 degrees C cooler** and 10dB quieter** than the standard model, it provides additional headroom for performance tuning (overclocking). "

Weren't the 48xx Vapor-X cards queiter than reference?

I wonder if the change in shroud from that used in the 48xx has resulted in a change in the noise level.

I'm a bit disappointed, i really wnated something that was going to be quiter than my pair of Powercolor 3870 PCS currently are. Maybe the 5850 version will be different...

I have the 4890 version, and it is very quiet indeed. I have never heard it.

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Originally Posted by Mathonar

It seems to me that Hexus should possibly be querying this result with Bill Donelly then because Sapphires own Press Release states :

"SAPPHIRE’s World leading Vapor-X technology not only allows the card to run as much as 15 degrees C cooler** and 10dB quieter** than the standard model, it provides additional headroom for performance tuning (overclocking). "

Weren't the 48xx Vapor-X cards queiter than reference?

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Yeah Vapor-X cards have been both cooler and much quieter than reference from what I remember so this is a very surprising and slightly disappointing result. Maybe it's because the 4 series had such a bad cooler to start with. This is definitely not in line with previous Vapor-X products on the noise front anyway. :(

We thank the HEXUS.community members for their insightful comments.

HEXUS takes the evaluation of products very seriously. After extensively testing the the Vapor-X card from Sapphire Tech we note in our editorial that it’s slightly noisier under load than the reference card. Compounding matters, the Vapor-X’s fan has a different, more-annoying pitch.

We appreciate that this sounds quite unlikely, especially when the press release makes claims about the fan being much quieter – a fact that has historically been true of the Vapor-X cards.

Responding to your comments, HEXUS.community members, we setup both cards side by side on one of our high-end graphics platforms and listened again. Further, we also took some screengrabs showing the temperatures under load together with the fan speeds. You can find these at the following URLs:

http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car...ref_load_1.png
http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car...r-x_load_1.png

Corroborating our earlier findings, the result was the same, with the Vapor-X noticeably, but not hugely, noisier. We’re adamant that the noise delta between the cards is greater than the small fan-speed difference would indicate.

HEXUS has since contacted Bill Donnelly, global marketing director for Sapphire Tech, and he's providing us with a second Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X sample. We will keep you posted and update the review accordingly, if needs be.

Did you pass them a link to this thread? If I were in their boots I'd be pretty concerned!

Wow. That's dedicated tech journalism. I'm impressed. I knew there was a reason I like Hexus :)

Would be interesting to compare the reference card overclocked to the same speeds, as well as fan speed and see where the noise sits at that point. The Vapor-X fan is running at 53% compared to the reference card at 30% in those screen caps (and i'd be interested to see where temps sit at that point)

Perhaps the extra noise is being generated more by the perforated cover Sapphire have gone with this time around?

Yeah, I'd be interested to see how the reference 5870 performs cooling wise with a similar fan profile to the Vapor-X card. Seems like the Vapor-X version's fan is running faster, which of course would result in the card also running cooler. Maybe run a test with both cards locked to 60%?

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Originally Posted by GheeTsar

Wow. That's dedicated tech journalism. I'm impressed. I knew there was a reason I like Hexus :)

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It's one of the things I've becoming increasingly aware of, and delighted by, on Hexus. I used it as my go-to site for reviews for about 4 years before I joined the forums, mostly because the review setups and results were very clearly laid out and I found it much easier to compare between different reviews on Hexus. Since I've joined the forums I've been very impressed by just how often the staff get involved with the (often enthusiastic) members - I've had some interesting discussions with both Tarinder and Scott in the forums, and the current Batman AA thread indicates how seriously many people in the industry take Hexus.

It makes a lot of sense when you're running a review and tech news site with an attached forum though, as (I imagine) it provides Hexus with a lot of traction when looking for exclusive interviews etc. - they can just point to the forums, and their interaction with us, as being a direct line from, say, an AMD exec to their customers: something that's harder to get elsewhere. We benefit, Hexus benefits, and the tech companies benefit: good stuff all round :D

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The AMD Radeon HD 5870 is, arguably, the best consumer graphics card that money can buy right now

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But the GTX295 got higher FPS in most tests, and had the most marks?

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Originally Posted by Kotoa

But the GTX295 got higher FPS in most tests, and had the most marks?

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Hence arguably. 5870 is a single GPU, uses less power and is DX11 compatible.

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Originally Posted by Kotoa

But the GTX295 got higher FPS in most tests, and had the most marks?

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We think that 'best' means more than a benchmark lead, as Phage has pointed out.

Hello, peeps.

We received a second Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X sample yesterday and, appreciating the comments above, re-ran the noise/fan-speed tests.

A few HEXUS.community members requested that we observe the fan-speed and noise profiles when both the Vapor-X and reference card's fans were set to the same speed, and the cards at the same frequencies.

Cranking the reference card up to the Vapor-X's 870MHz/5,000MHz clocks and attempting to match fan speeds:


http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car..._fixed_rpm.png - Sapphire HD 5870 VaporX idle fan-speed (HEXUS-fixed)
http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car..._fixed_rpm.png - Reference card idle fan-speed (HEXUS-fixed)

http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car..._fixed_rpm.png - Sapphire HD 5870 VaporX load fan-speed (HEXUS-fixed)
http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_car..._fixed_rpm.png - Reference card load fan-speed (HEXUS-fixed)

The speeds aren't identical, down to the lack of granularity for ATI's Overdrive panel, and the fans spin at different percentages to achieve the same rpm, but do provide a better apples-to-apples comparison.

Running them this way highlighted that the second sample's fan exhibited a noise profile that was about the same as the reference fan's - but certainly no quieter, making Sapphire's 10dbA-quieter claim seem rather optimistic.

Sapphire's engineers are now taking another look at the cooling and will report back to us.

Dammit. Really wanted one of those...
Actually, now that you have two samples are they for sale ? Cheeky I know, but don't ask, don't get.

Tech journalism at its finest. Keep up the pressure on Sapphire!

Thanks for going the extra mile Tarinder and also to Sapphire for enabling Hexus to do this.

Looking at the figures it's always a case of matching the stock and Vapor-X fan speeds so this really shows that the stock fan and vapor-x fan have a similar noise level when running at the same RPM.
However the vapor-x is keeping the GPU a lot cooler under load so i would have been interested to see how far you can drop the Vapor-X fan speed before the temp rises to that of the stock cooler. If you can get it a bit under 2000rpm does that make it much quieter?

Yeah Mathonar's point is very good, I'd mainly be interested if I could get a quiet 5870 even if only at stock speeds. It's bad news for the Vapor-X reputation if it's louder than reference :(

Really good job Hexus - companies that are making claims like this need to be watched carefully and taken to task when they dont deliver.

Thanks for that Tarinder, appreciated.

Certainly as pointed out, the VaporX does run cooler than the stock. Guess it depends if you can live with the extra temps by lower the fan speed using the xml profile edit method for the quieter option (something i do for usual desktop browsing).

A test with Folding@home Gpu, possible ?

@+
*_*

Ps: My english is very bad, excuse me.

:stupid:

I think part of the reason for the dissapointing resaults here is that ATi really went to town on the stock cooler (for once)
They made a very good well designed cooler on both the 5870 and 5850.

Any chance of getting some pictures of the 5870 vapor-x cooler with the shroud removed?
Really need to start doing this more often, not only to see what's hidden under there, both cooler and pcb.

I'd be intrested to know if sapphire are going to make a vapor-x 5770?
The reason being is that Ati used a vapor chamber design on the 5770 stock cooler.

Hardwarecanucks have also reviewed this card and they say that : "To make matters even better, the fan went about its job in near silence. What more could you ask for? " (Page 21) so i wonder if it's a case of a dodgy batch of fans or something.

There's also a user review on Overclockers saying his one is pretty damn quiet.

At least according to this article at HardOCP availability of 58xx chips should be starting to improve from here on in.

It is interesting that Sapphire went with the top and the bottom of the 5xxx range for their initial Vapor-X offerings, especially as the 5750 one looks so different to what we've seen before. It leaves you with quite a gap in performance in your choice of quiet running cards.
Maybe the 5770 & 5850 will use something closer to the 4850 style setup which i thought looked quite cool, i hope they announce them soon as i'm itching to upgrade and my Windows install is in desperate need of flattening.

More reviews. Bit-tech also stated that it was quieter than the reference cooler.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...por-x-review/9.