Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X

[W1zzard]

Sapphire's HD 5770 Vapor-X features their exclusive cooling solution which promises to reduce temperature, fan noise and increase overclocking potential. In our testing we confirmed that the card does indeed run quiet, cool and offers the highest overclocks we saw on a HD 5770 so far.

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[eidairaman1]

nice card n all but Id like to see them actually make their own PCB using higher quality components and then test a few of the boards 10% of a batch for overclocking to see how well they do and then pack them up. I'm sorry but for companies to overclock cards out of the box defeats the purpose of overclocking in itself as you are spending way more on something that may fail right after using it for several months.

 

[MKmods]

quote:
"Unfortunately Sapphire does not include any out of the box overclock with their card, which would have made it easier for less experienced users to get the max out of their card."

LOL, can you imagine all the noobs trying to use the program and messing up the cards. Their RMAs would soar...

The card out of the box is excellent for 99.5% of users/gamers..

About the comments on the Vapor X cooler, if that cooler could cool a 4870 that it should work wonders on the 5770. Now do the MSI Hawk, with dual fans(can be run at a slower speed) and a possibly even better cooler in theory it should be even quieter under load
(lol, the reference one at 100% sounds like a vacuum cleaner)

 

[Assassin48]

I found this interesting

The overclocks of our card are 990 MHz core (16% overclock) and 1450 MHz Memory (21% overclock). Very impressive! The card is not only quiet but also overclocks incredibly well. So far this is the best overclock of all our HD 5770 cards tested so far (HD 5770 ref: 925 / 1325, PowerColor 5770: PCS+ 900 / 1395, MSI HD 5770 HAWK: 970 / 1420).

It beats out the new Hawk 5770

 

[pantherx12]

Anyone tried sticking a trad2 or something like that to a 5770 yet?

Wonder how high they clock with epic cooling.

 

[Assassin48]

Anyone tried sticking a trad2 or something like that to a 5770 yet?

Wonder how high they clock with epic cooling.

http://hwbot.org/community/submissi...tage___performance_radeon_hd_5770_14859_marks

1230/1545 not bad

 

[MKmods]

It beats out the new Hawk 5770

did W1zzard already review the MSI HawK card?

 

[Assassin48]

did W1zzard already review the MSI HawK card?

I'm guessing he did just hasn't posted the review yet

that quote can be found under the gpu-z screen
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_5770_Vapor-X/33.html

 

[pantherx12]

http://hwbot.org/community/submissi...tage___performance_radeon_hd_5770_14859_marks

1230/1545 not bad

no bad at all!

1ghz easy with a t-rad2 I reckon.

hmmmmmm
these cards become more and more tempting

 

[SystemViper]

yea, they should be a fun card to play with, getting a 5000 series for $150

 

[GLD]

I have this card. The mfg. specs and GPU-Z show the core at 860 MHz, not the reference 850. :shadedshu

 

[MKmods]

isant this the card that showed less shaders and needed a bios upgrade? (I think that was the reason I was waiting for the 5830s)

 

[GLD]

I bought mine Dec. 29th from Newegg. Mine shipped with 800 shaders. I got a free 4G usb stick with it. Newegg must have known of the possible bios mess up. That is mighty nice of them, IMO.

 

[Assassin48]

isant this the card that showed less shaders and needed a bios upgrade? (I think that was the reason I was waiting for the 5830s)

Yep it was

I have 2 right now and about to pick up a 3rd for Trifire benching

 

[eidairaman1]

isant this the card that showed less shaders and needed a bios upgrade? (I think that was the reason I was waiting for the 5830s)

Irregardless, Sapphire has the fix along with our site, so if you happen to have been a unlucky one to get such a part, get the updates

 

[MKmods]

Irregardless, Sapphire has the fix along with our site, so if you happen to have been a unlucky one to get such a part, get the updates

LOL, not everyone likes messing with bioses (meaning me)

 

[Assassin48]

LOL, not everyone likes messing with bioses (meaning me)

If you get the wrong one you could always rma it and get a flashed one.

Flashing isn't really hard to do, i flashed both of my XFX ones to the Asus Bios for the unlocked CCC and the voltage options

 

[kpo6969]

I have this card. The mfg. specs and GPU-Z show the core at 860 MHz, not the reference 850. :shadedshu

Same here
860 is the reference clock out of the box.

 

[lism]

nice card n all but Id like to see them actually make their own PCB using higher quality components and then test a few of the boards 10% of a batch for overclocking to see how well they do and then pack them up. I'm sorry but for companies to overclock cards out of the box defeats the purpose of overclocking in itself as you are spending way more on something that may fail right after using it for several months.

The benefit from an out of the box oc'ed card is that warranty supports it. Or your card has warranty because its factory overclocked.

If you would overclock your card and frie it, you cannot claim your warranty because overclocking can cause other harms then just higher FPS. Ofcourse its a different story when you say i dont know what happend and all of a sudden there's a smoke coming out of my VGA n stuff... they would have to accept your RMA,

but anyway, good review I'd love coming back here every day.

 

[kylzer]

5770 is easy to oc on stock cooling

1050 on the core here

 

[infosoph]

FYI to potential buyers - I ordered one from Newegg. Although the BIOS is up to date with 800 shaders, there was no voucher for Dirt2 or SimHD.

 

[eidairaman1]

The benefit from an out of the box oc'ed card is that warranty supports it. Or your card has warranty because its factory overclocked.

If you would overclock your card and frie it, you cannot claim your warranty because overclocking can cause other harms then just higher FPS. Ofcourse its a different story when you say i dont know what happend and all of a sudden there's a smoke coming out of my VGA n stuff... they would have to accept your RMA,

but anyway, good review I'd love coming back here every day.

Original point of overclocking was to get Free Performance, not pay for it.

 

[theorw]

W1zzard,i am pretty sure the L6788A SUPPORTS software control cos in fact i used it in my previous reference 5770!

 

[W1zzard]

which software did you use with it ?

 

[unclewebb]

I bought one of these cards recently and I'm very happy with it. Good bang for the buck. MSI Afterburner works with the Vapor-X and you can use that to go beyond the 960 MHz maximum limit that the Catalyst CC uses for this card. Just add this to the MSIAfterburner.cfg configuration file:

EnableUnofficialOverclocking = 1

1050 MHz on the core is easy enough with some additional voltage. I tried 1100 MHz too but it wasn't stable and was going to need more voltage than I wanted to use.

The other option is to flash to the Asus 5770 bios which I also did.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=237414

This gets rid of the 960 MHz limit in Catalyst and you can then go as high as 1200 MHz in CCC. For 24/7 use I just use 1000 MHz for the core which is fine at default voltage. MSI Afterburner works but it kills the 2D clocks so 1000 MHz / 1300 MHz is good enough for me.

Here's what you need to watch out for. Sapphire is shipping two completely different versions of this card with the same part number. The one I got does not come with the Dirt2 voucher and comes with completely different Samsung memory chips. These chips are not nearly as good as the Hynix memory chips that were on the card that W1zzard tested for this review. I run them at 1300 MHz but 1400 MHz or beyond just isn't possible with the Samsung memory. A little disappointed but ultimate performance isn't that important to me.

What is important is sound level. Even when overclocked I can have the fan speed locked to 20% in CCC which is equivalent to about 1100 rpm. Same noise level in 2D or 3D. The first gaming card that is dead silent. I have to put my finger on the fan at this speed just to make sure it is still turning because I can't hear it. I love it.

Edit: There is a new hotfix driver out that addresses the gray screen issues that some users have seen. It is designed for the 5800 series at the moment but this fix should help out the 5700 cards too when the driver for them is ready. I've only seen this once while doing some aggressive overclocking. I tried installing the 5800 download but it screwed things up so I had to play musical drivers and go back to the original.

Here's a picture of my Vapor-X 5770 with the Samsung memory and the same part number and the same SKU number. Paying extra for the Dirt2 voucher seems to get you the better Hynix memory chips.

Edit: I noticed that the MSI Radeon HD 5770 Hawk that was tested also uses these exact same Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 memory chips that are rated at 1250 MHz. The Samsung memory chips on the Hawk did a little better than the Samsung chips on my Vapor-X. Increasing the GPU core speed will get you a bigger increase in performance compared to increasing the memory speed.



Here it is after running 3DMark06.

Using Afterburner I kept bumping the core voltage up +0.025 until it was stable. 1050 MHz took 1.275 volts which is typical for these cards. The memory was stable enough at 1350 MHz to complete 3DMark06 but it's not stable at 1400+ MHz like the Hynix chips are. It's a Sapphire 5770 Vapor-X but it's been flashed with the Asus bios so that's why it reports Asus. By default, both versions of the Vapor-X use the same bios.