Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X Reviews

Pro Reviews

Average Review Score: 10

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X Reviews

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X Previews

"Sapphire have taken ATI's reference board as far as possible with the superb 4870 Vapor-X. They have all of the standard Radeon features present such as 7.1 audio over HDMI, Blu-Ray acceleration and DirectX 10.1 but the addition of a brilliant cooler keeps noise and heat to a minimum. If there is one minor disappointment about Sapphires 4870 2 GB card it is that it would have been nice for them to push the clocks higher and ship as an enhanced model. The great temperatures achieved by the product give it plenty of scope for overclocking as our testing showed, so going that little extra would make this even more impressive. Of course there is nothing to stop end users performing the overclock themselves."

DriverHeaven »

"The Radeon HD 4870 is not the newest available card from ATI; the HD 4890 replaced it earlier this year. Performance on the HD 4870 is still excellent for the price. Sapphire went the extra mile with the cooling on the card, rarely going higher than 68C even under the most stressful situations. 2GB of memory really shows off when setting anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, as the extra memory gets used in those situations. Sapphire offers an attractive package with the addition of 3DMark Vantage to show off your new card's potential. The performance is on the same scale as other HD 4870 cards in most situations due to the clock speed being the same."

Motherboards.org »

"For the mainstream consumer, perhaps a little factory overclocking would have gone a long way, in this particular video card's case. The cooler would have no trouble sustaining even a healthy, 8% overclock (or thereabouts), nor would this have caused unsafe levels of stress on this well-designed HD 4870. Sapphire should be praised for building such a nice rendition of the HD 4870 -- the overclocking, power-saving, and well-designed cooler are good selling points to the enthusiast, but the Sapphire Vapor-X is still a tough mainstream sell against the diverse and inexpensive competition when it comes to the ultimate measure of a video card: how many frames are being pushed a second."

Neoseeker »

"With most 1GB HD 4870 cards going in the $190 range, the price on this card is a premium at $259, or about $70 more than your reference cards. It is a premium product though, when all things are considered. The Vapor Chamber cooling is worth the price of admission alone if you are tired of the hair dryers ATI throws on the reference based cards. Your ears will thank you. Vapor chamber cooling, high end components, custom built PCB, 2GB of memory, native HDMI, excellent overclocking, silent cooling, what more could you want? Sapphire has built another winner when it comes to cool running performance video cards."

Overclockers Club »

"Although I like this card and what it brings to the table, I still feel the 2GB model is a waste of time. For the price of this exact model, you can score an HD 4890, and unless you don't care deeply about noise, that would be the more sensible purchase. I can't see proof of more memory being beneficial on a card like this at this point in time, so I really think you should save your money and stick to the 1GB model. Luckily enough though, even the 1GB model falls below some of the competition's pricing, so choosing it is a no-brainer."

Techgage »