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  • Sapphire Radeon HD5870 Video Card Review
  • Sapphire Radeon HD5870 Video Card Review

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    Card Layout and Features Cont.

    The Sapphire Radeon HD5870 requires a total of 2x 6pin PCI-Express power connectors in order to run.  These should be across different power rails for the best performance.
    Often times the only branding opportunities a video card mfg has is by placing a sticker across the heatsink.  Sapphire is no exception to this and has always chosen to use sexy warrior women to help sell their products.
    The Sapphire Radeon HD5870 is based on the ATI reference design all the way down to their choice in GPU coolers. The reference cooler is made up of a squirrel cage fan designed with 2 separate air intakes.  The primary is the fan itself, while the other is the two orange vents shown here.  When more than one card is being used the primary air intake can be restricted so having more than one intake is good. 

    Afterwards the hot air is expelled outside the case to keep everything nice and cool.
    The Sapphire Radeon HD5870 does come with some goodies to make sure the gamer is ready to go when they open the box. With two power converter cables, a CrossFire ribbon bridge cable, and DVI to Analog VGA converter.
    Well not only did Sapphire make sure the user has all of their cables, but they also went ahead and supplied a couple of games, multi-national installation guide, and a driver CD.

    It is very nice that one of the games is Dirt2, which is also DirectX 11 ready.