Packaging

The Card

For their RDNA 3 Radeon RX 7000 Series of graphics cards, Sapphire has come up with a completely new design. The main color is a matte gray that looks stunning. I love the looks of the main cooler, it's almost like it came right out of Apple's design labs. The metal backplate is a bit more busy, with various cutouts, logos and labels.


Dimensions of the card are 32.0 x 13.5 cm, and it weighs 1600 g.


Installation requires three slots in your system.


Display connectivity includes two standard DisplayPort 2.1 ports (RDNA2 had 1.4a) and two HDMI 2.1a (same as RDNA2).

AMD has upgraded their encode/decode setup. It now comes with two independent hardware units that can encode and decode two streams of video in parallel, or one stream at double the FPS rate. There's support for VP9, H.264, H.265 and AV1 decode, and encoding is supported for H.264, H.265 and AV1.


The card uses a classic dual 8-pin together with PCIe slot power input config, rated for 375 W maximum power. NVIDIA on the other hand uses the new 12+4 pin ATX 12V-2x6 connector, which is rated for up to 600 W of power draw.


This dual BIOS switch lets you toggle between the default BIOS and a "quiet" BIOS, which runs the fans at a more relaxed fan curve.

With this generation, Sapphire is including their software BIOS switch feature, too. The BIOS switch has three positions: left-most = default BIOS, middle = secondary BIOS, right = software-controlled. In Sapphire's TRIXX software you can now toggle the BIOS selection, without having to open your case or crawl under your desk.


Near the back of the card, Sapphire has placed an ARGB output that lets you sync the rest of the system to the RGB effects of your graphics card. Here you also get a 4-pin header for a case fan that runs synced with the graphics card fan speed. The "Fan In" label is misleading, I would have called it "Fan Out," or "External Fan."

Teardown

Sapphire's thermal solution uses five heatpipes and a copper base. The main cooler provides cooling for the memory chips and VRM circuitry, too.


The backplate is made of metal and protects the card against damage during installation and handling.