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Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX 512MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Monday, 10 April 2006 |
HotHardware reveals a review on the Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX 512MB PCIe graphics card. Sapphire has been one of ATI's premier board partners for quite some time now. Their products tend to be very similar to those available directly from ATI themselves, but Sapphire does take additional steps to differentiate their offerings with unique accessory and software bundles, and occasionally unique cooling solutions. In the past, we've reviewed a couple of Sapphire's passively cooled Ultimate edition cards and have also evaluated a few products in their Toxic family of products that feature oversized air coolers. Today though, we're going to take a look at a Sapphire's first liquid-cooled card, the Blizzard X1900 XTX board.
 Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX 512MB PCI-E Review
As its name implies, the Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX is based upon ATI's latest flagship GPU, but instead of featuring a dual-slot heatsinks/fan assembly like ATI's cards, the Blizzard is equipped with a slick, self-contained liquid-cooler that keeps the GPU cool without generating much noise. Sapphire also plans to ship the card pre-overclocked, which will give it a performance advantage over any standard Radeon X1900 XTX that strictly adheres to ATI's reference specifications. The Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX is therefore very similar to an ATI built Radeon X1900 XTX on some levels.
Both cards share the same PCB, GPU, memory and components. But because this card is equipped with a custom liquid-cooling apparatus, that cools only the GPU, the card's RAM chips are adorned with individual heatsinks to help keep temperatures in check. Other than the differences in the cooling hardware, the Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX differs from an ATI built card only in its core and memory clock speeds. Sapphire plans to ships the Blizzard at the end of this month with its Radeon X1900 XTX core clocked to 675MHz and its 512MB of memory clocked at 1.6GHz, increases of 25MHz and 50MHz over stock specs.
Sapphire's Blizzard X1900 XTX is appealing on a few different levels. First off, the card ships with a very complete accessory bundle that includes video editing and DVD playback software, two full version games, and an assortment of cables that give users the ability to connect the card to a multitude of different display types. The Blizzard's liquid cooling apparatus is also another plus in our book. The card's liquid cooler does a better job at keeping the GPU cool than a stock heatsink assembly, and it does so while generating much less noise overall.
We also like the fact that the cooler can be relocated into a different slot position within a system, and that it doesn't have to be right up against the video card. The Blizzard also proved to be a very competent overclocker, and because it's powered by ATI's flagship Radeon X1900 XTX GPU and 512MB it's obviously a heck of a performer too. With an MSRP of $569, the Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX is not cheap. But considering that stock Radeon X1900 XTX's are currently selling for about $530-580, and Sapphire will be offering a $30 mail in rebate, we think the Blizzard's price premium is well justified.
The Blizzard's quieter liquid-cooler and complete bundle easily make up for the increased cost. Based on the information we currently have from Sapphire, we think the Blizzard X1900 XTX is one of the more attractive high-end video cards.
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