Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Edition Vapor-X Review - PAGE 1

Sapphire’s Vapor-X thermal solution first hit the scene way back in 2007 with their Radeon HD 3870 ATOMIC Edition graphics card, and since then they have continued to update the design to fit an ever changing market. The new HD 7770 Vapor-X graphics card still utilizes a vapor chamber cooling technology, but to improve efficiency even further their latest iteration of the thermal solution also features dual copper heatpipes and two 80mm fans. Both of these tweaks to the design should ensure Sapphire’s latest Vapor-X technology will be one of the most efficient to-date, and have no issues cooling AMD's 28nm Cape Verde GPU.

Since the Sapphire HD 7770 is using an extremely efficient thermal design, the clock speeds have been increased beyond the reference specification. A standard HD 7770 has default GPU and memory clocks of 1000MHz and 1225MHz, respectively. The Sapphire Vapor-X Edition on the other hand has a 10% faster GPU clock speed of 1100MHz, and the memory clock has been pushed up by 75MHz which is 6% faster than the reference models.

With a robust thermal solution and higher clocks, the Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X will undoubtedly perform better than the reference models on all fronts. However, aftermarket models always have a higher MSRP and the Vapor-X SKU is no different. A standard HD 7770 costs roughly $135, while the Vapor-X has an MSRP of $149. Still, it is not the most expensive HD 7770, so as long as the performance is there and the temps stay low, this could be one of the best Cape Verde XT based graphics cards on the market.