Review: Sapphire HD 3870 Atomic graphics card

Sapphire’s HD 3870 Atomic is the first product to be launched under the company’s new Atomic range of gaming hardware.

It’s also the first HD 3870 we have seen that uses a single-slot cooling solution instead of the reference dual-slot cooler design.

To prove just how efficient the cooler is, Sapphire has tinkered about with the both the core and memory speeds.

The core clock runs at 825MHz, 50MHz above reference, while the 512MB of GDDR4 memory is rated at 1,200MHz (2.4GHz effective) rather than the standard 1,100MHz (2.2GHz effective).

The memory modules are made by Samsung, with the K4U52324QE-BC08 chips rated at 0.8ns and with a clock speed of 1,250MHz (2.5GHz effective) – the fastest GDDR4 memory currently available.

To cool the Atomic, Sapphire has used its new Vapour-X cooler, which makes use of vapour chamber technology.

This works like a two-way heat-pipe (heat-pipes usually only work in one direction), which offers lower thermal resistance and much better, and faster conductivity than standard heat-pipes.

In effect, the base of the heat-sink is a very large, flattened cooper heat-pipe. Indeed, it works so well it actually keeps the card 10-15 degrees cooler than the reference dual-slot design.

The card is built on a red PCB and uses a six-pin PCI Express power adapter to provide extra power over and above what the PCI Express slot provides.

It’s not often that the packaging of a product warrants a special mention, but then it’s not everyday that a graphics card is sold to you in a small metal flight case.

The card is securely held by foam under which sit all the rest of the hardware bundle including a pair of small cold cathodes and a three-metre HDMI cable.

The advanced cooling might push up the price a little, but it’s an impressive design.

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