AMD introduced its Radeon HD 2900 XT three months ago, and it pitched it as a value orientated high-end part, with partners pricing their retail packages at between $450-550. As normally happens with a new technology, supply firms up in the subsequent weeks, and the price, inevitably, drops. Now, three months on, Radeon HD 2900 XT's can be purchased for $425, so it's high time that we took a look at the largest AIB's offering, the Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card. Sapphire has been known to produce truly customised SKU's in the past, so will its R600 buck the reference trend? So hang on and check with us as we reveal the details of this high-end video card. - Hexus

Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB Version Review

Somewhat blatantly, Sapphire's Radeon HD 2900 XT is based on the reference design. As such, the only difference between it and a gaggle of other cards is the sticker on the heatsink, which reads Sapphire. It's clocked in at the reference 743MHz core and 1656MHz memory, as well. Our look at the reference model indicated that the copper heatsink's fan modulated in pitch when placed under 3D load. The modulation appeared to be a driver issue, and we commented on just how long it would take for AMD and its partners to fix the problem. Two driver revisions on and the Sapphire exhibits the same pitch related problems.

The underlying R600 GPU carries a full DirectX 10 supporting architecture. About 700m transistors are tasked with providing the unified graphical grunt, so it's no surprise that the card weighs a lot so be sure to strap it in to the PCI Express slot with care; you don't want it falling on other cards in your system. The need to drive such power is manifested by the presence of both 6-pin and 8-pin PCI Express power connectors. It's abundantly possible to run the Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT with two 6-pin connectors, which'll provide a maximum of 225W once the PCI Express slot's power is taken into consideration.

Sapphire includes what's known as the Black Box voucher that encompasses a collaboration between AMD and Valve, through its Steam download service. Sapphire has all the bases covered. Perhaps the one missing element is the lack of PCI Express to molex power adapters. Still, we expect most folks considering this card to have the necessary cables on their power supplies. The Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT is backed up by a 2 year warranty. Claims in the first year are handled by the supplier from whom the card was purchased from. Claims after this period are handled by a Sapphire service centre.

Summing it up, the underlying R600 SKU is good, but we're adamant that there's more performance to come once the drivers have been fully optimised. Still, the Radeon HD 2900 XT makes for a interesting case at around $425 it has plenty of potential but also a number of foibles, notably a wattage eating GPU and annoying fan pitch modulation under 3D load. Sapphire has used the common sense approach and released its Radeon HD 2900 XT with no alterations to the reference design, keeping the all important price metric competitive. A custom designed cooler would have been a real bonus, to reduce the noise.

Our advice for users looking to upgrade their present PCI Express based graphics card and have around $425 to spend, then, would be to look at either this Sapphire card or a low-cost, big name GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB as both are strong in different areas, and neither will be a bad buy. In short, work out your budget and you won't go wrong with any of our recommendations. A tried and trusted formula from Sapphire, being low cost and high availability makes its Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB a decent enough choice. Can we please have a new BIOS to shut that cooler up, though?