CES 2007: Sapphire

[W1zzard]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual5_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual5.jpg)
Sapphire's hottest new product at CES was the "Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual". The X1950 Pro has 512 MB GDDR3, 36 shaders, 8 vertex processors and 256-bit bus, clock speeds were not revealed at this time. Each of the two cores runs at those specs using ATI CrossFire. Windows will detect the card as two video cards, then you enable CrossFire like you would with any other CF setup. No special drivers or software (apart from Catalyst) is required. With ATI Physics close, it is also possible to use one core for physics and one core for graphics.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual2.jpg)
In the future Sapphire wants to combine two or three of those cards for 4-way and 6-way CrossFire setups. However, this requires quite some adjustments from ATI side in their drivers, and performance is still lacking.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual3_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual3.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual4_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/dual4.jpg)
The product is almost ready, some very minor adjustments need to be made. To show off their progress, Sapphire has been running a demo system with one of these cards. Even though two GPUs are in use, the cooler will only use one fan that sits in the center of the card. To accomodate the increased power requirements two PCI-E power connectors are required. When asked if it is possible to rotate the power connectors of this huge card, Sapphire replied that they would sure look into that.
From a price and performance point the card will fit into the void between X1950 XTX and GeForce 8800.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/ultimate1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/ultimate1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/ultimate2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/ultimate2.jpg)
Another X1950 Pro product from Sapphire is this X1950 Pro Ultimate. It follows the X1950 Pro specs closely, comes with 256 MB of GDDR3 and uses a Zalman cooler to reduce fan noise and improve the overclocking potential.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/x1650_1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/x1650_1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/x1650_2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CES2007/Sapphire/images/x1650_2.jpg)
For users who want a silent PC, in Media PCs for example, this completely passive cooled X1650 Pro has been developed. While it may not be the fastest card on the market, it sure is the quietest.

[EviLZeD]

that dual gpu x1950 is gna be awesome too bad it isnt dx 10

[Jimmy 2004]

That X1650 must weight a ton! The dual X1950 looks nice, it will be interesting to see how much of a performance gain it will have over standard DX9 cards. It could well turn out to be the fastest non-DX10 that we'll see.

[pt]

the x1650 would look cool on a media center :)
the dual gpu card looks nice but it's surely a power hog

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Well, if the X1950 Pro can be used for Physics later on, it gives it more life.

[OOTay]

all i gotta say is Nice Job Sapphire very impressive lol! that dual core looks especially great.

[Azn Tr14dZ]

I wonder if the Dual X1950 Pro will perform better than the Asus counter-part with Dual PCB.

[ryboto]

That picture of the dual x1950pro still has the internal crossfire cable...does that mean I could buy that and use it with my existing x1950pro? 3 Gpu's?

[ATIonion]

That picture of the dual x1950pro still has the internal crossfire cable...does that mean I could buy that and use it with my existing x1950pro? 3 Gpu's?

i think that is the way they want it to go....but they still have driver work to do in order to make that possible. plus they need mobos that can do it as well...

the new cooler for the dual core looks a lot like the 8800 coolers...i like it ....and with Dx10 still a ways off of mainstream, the dual core single card idea looks tempting....too bad its sapphire tho....

[WarEagleAU]

Im sure the driver will be the hardest part for ATI. They get that, then they can simply do a bios flash update for current crossfire boards (maybe not the RD200 but the 1600 and 3200 perhaps). Im interested in seeing this thing with some benchies. Too bad its more than a X1950XTX. I wonder if it will out perform it? I like the one with the zalman cooler, but Im sure you could get that and replace the stock fan on the original dual sapphire gpu.

[PVTCaboose1337]

ZOMG!!! Huge heatsink more maximum pwnage!

[tkpenalty]

That card is as big as an 8800!!! Its good that one core is for Physics and one core is for Graphics as it adds some capability in DX10 games.. although we will have to run them in DX9 mode

[boecke]

Sapphire makes such ugly cards, unfortunately.

[PVTCaboose1337]

Sapphire makes such ugly cards, unfortunately.

Elegance. :D