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A different way to extend your display

Subject: Displays | February 24, 2012 - 02:04 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, VID-2X, multi monitor

The Sapphire VID-2X offers you a new way to utilize multiple displays without needing a graphics card capable of powering a resolution of 3840x1200.  It can both clone and stretch your desktop and is Plug & Play with no software or drivers to install, simply plug it into a dual link DVI port and it is ready to go.  At an MSRP of $180 it is less expensive than an SLI or CrossFire solution though it is limited in performance by your GPU.  You might be able to stretch your game across three monitors but you might find performance suffers somewhat.  Instead you can consider this a way to get multiple monitors from a single NVIDIA GPU or a way to avoid an active DisplayPort adapter for a Radeon card.  HiTech Legion has several videos of the VID-2X in action which you should check out.

saapphire_vid-2x.jpg

"Sapphire's VID-2X is a plug and play compact device that was designed to extend your existing monitor into one large field of view, in effect, tricking the system and allowing you to add two additional monitors to your system from just one display port, be it a laptop, netbook, home computer, or office PC. The VID-2X from Sapphire accomplishes this without you having to install any software or drivers. In addition, the VID-2X will make use of the video card installed and, without using system resources, maintain a resolution or output in clone mode of up to 1920 x 1280. The VID-2X offers several connection options using your existing cable option of DVI, with cables included, and once installed, will double your field of view. The Sapphire VID-2X will also adapt to VGA or HDMI display ports with adapters you may have on hand with your existing system."

Here are some more Display articles from around the web:

Displays

 

Source: HiTech Legion

Sapphire's new nettop will be great; at the right price

Subject: General Tech | February 22, 2012 - 04:25 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, amd, E450

The new nettop that Sapphire will be selling will be great for HTPC usage but you might not want to pick it up if you will be gaming.  The E450 AMD processor inside the machine does have an onboard HD 6350 which will handle 1080p streaming beautifully but as it is the low end of the Llano scale gaming may not be impressive.  Its power consumption will be 30W so neither heat nor power will be an issue.  It ships with Free DOS but will accept WinXP and Win7 for those who want a familiar interface.  The Inquirer expects this device to be less than its Atom powered predecessor which puts the price at or below $400USD.

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"GRAPHICS CARD VENDOR Sapphire has announced its AMD Fusion based Edge-HD3 all-in-one nettop PC.

Sapphire claims its Edge-HD3 is about the size of a paperback novel and, while that depends on what type of paperbacks you read, there's no denying that the system is small. Sapphire has slipped an AMD E450 Fusion chip, 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 320GB 2.5in hard drive into the case."

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Tech Talk

 

Source: The Inquirer

Sapphire overclocks the HD7950

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 20, 2012 - 02:48 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, hd 7950, hd 7950 OC, factory overclocked, cape verde, amd

There are a lot of custom Cape Verde boards to chose from, with varying clock speeds and custom coolers which is great for those who like something unique out of the box.  X-bit Labs received an overclocked HD7950 board from Sapphire which sports both a 100MHz overclock on the GPU and a custom low noise cooler.  The back of the card is fairly normal, with a dual-link DVI-I port, one HDMI 1.4a connector and two DisplayPort 1.2 ports available.  Overclocking potential on the card was impressive, with a final 1.15 volts allowing stable performance at 1100MHz GPU and 7360 MHz effective on the memory and a temperature of 74C at full load thanks to the cooler.  Even better is the fact that the cooler operates relatively quietly even at that high overclock.

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"Today we are going to review a graphics accelerator with phenomenally efficient cooling system with very low noise, high performance and superb overclocking potential, which even some Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards could wish for."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

 

Source: X-bit Labs

Mobile Multiscreen computing from Sapphire

Subject: Displays | February 8, 2012 - 04:06 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, VID-2X

You are probably familiar with the Lenovo ThinkVision, an external monitor easily added to a laptop to give you multiple working screens.  Sapphire offers a similar product with a big twist, the VID-2X is a small self contained device which will allow you to connect two 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 monitors via DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, or Dual-link-DVI depending on the model you buy.  Instead of being forced to use a small external monitor the VID-2X allows you to choose the monitors you will output to, as well as either cloned or stretched displays which gives you a lot more flexibility.  You'll have to visit Overclockers Club to find out how well it works.

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"With many in the industry projecting a sharp decline of desktop PC sales over the next few years, an external portable solution for laptop and netbook users on the go may find it a product that will handily fit into their carrying case and very useful for sales presentations, or to just make their tasks easier with increased screen estate. The idea of reduced toggling between multiple open programs and applications is also very appealing as well. As an avid user of a multiscreen desktop setup, I can attest to how much more easy and enjoyable the access is in day to day computing, project management, and content creation software settings.This product would also seem to hit its stride in board rooms and businesses."

Here are some more Display articles from around the web:

Displays

 

Source: Overclockers Club

Check out the speeds on this air cooled HD7970

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 16, 2012 - 06:11 PM |
Tagged: trixx, sapphire, overclocking, hd7970

The HD 7970 is nice but not nice enough for Kyle and the gang over at [H]ard|OCP who started overclocking the card as soon as they polished off the review at default settings.  If they were hoping for a challenge, the card was a bit of a disappointment as they cranked the overdrive frequencies to their maximums of 1125MHz GPU and 1575MHz RAM only to find that the card remained 100% stable.  Discouraged but not defeated, they reached out to Sapphire for a custom version of the TRIXX Utility, which allows more control over voltages as well as significantly higher clock speeds.  The resulting tests pegged the card at 1.26GHz GPU and 1725MHz for the memory, not too shabby for air cooling!

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"We overclock the Radeon HD 7970 in Overdrive and show you what 1.125GHz of performance looks like. Then, we go to the edge and overclock the voltage and take this GPU past 1.2GHz for stellar overclocked gaming performance. We compare this to an overclocked GeForce GTX 580 and see how performance stacks up."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

 

Source: [H]ard|OCP

The many faces of Sandybridge motherboards

Subject: Motherboards | October 18, 2011 - 06:21 PM |
Tagged: Z68XP-UD3, x68, sapphire, sandybridge, Pure Platinum Z68, p67, Maximus IV Extreme B3, Intel, gigabyte, G1.Sniper, asus

When building a SandyBridge system you have several types of motherboard chipset to choose from, some with more capabilities than others.  The ASUS Maximus IV Extreme B3 is the odd duck in this roundup, being the only P67 board in an Z68 round up which means that it loses out on Intel SRT, which is not a drawback for those planning on using an SSD with a high enough capacity to be used as a main drive.  The two Gigabyte boards and the Sapphire board are Z68 and therefore sport all of the bells and whistles that come with that chipset.  In terms of pure performance and overclocking ability it is not the feature set that matters, it is the ability of the board its self.  Check out which of these 4 boards reigns supreme in Neoseeker's benchmarks here.

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"A quartet of motherboards based the Intel P67 and Z68 chipsets arrives at Neoseeker's labs, covering both the value and enthusiast market spectrums. There just might be something for everyone with a Intel LGA 1155 socket CPU in our latest motherboard roundup."

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Motherboards

 

Source: Neoseeker

The new Sapphire Toxic HD6950 is [H]ard core

Subject: Graphics Cards | August 30, 2011 - 02:45 PM |
Tagged: toxic, sapphire, hd6950

To get the bad news out of the way first, as Josh observed last week the stocks of HD6950 and 6970s are sparse, so you if you see the Sapphire Toxic HD6950 for sale grab it right away!

Why should you grab the card without hesitation?  It has Sapphire's Vapor Chamber cooling and comes with an 80MHz GPU clock and 50MHz GDDR5 overclock right out of the box and [H]ard|OCP hit 978MHz GPU and 1450MHz GDDR5 using Sapphire's TriXX OC Utility to boost the frequency and voltage.  You don't even have to worry about flashing the BIOS to make the card an HD6970, Sapphire did it for you, plus there is also a BIOS available which will set the +20% to PowerTune automatically.  This is the most serious GPU for under $300 right now.

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"SAPPHIRE claims to have produced the fastest HD 6950 on the market in the SAPPHIRE HD6950 TOXIC Edition. It competes with a stock Radeon HD 6950 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570. We also put it to the test against a Radeon HD 6970 and GeForce GTX 580 with results that might shock you. And did we mention you get two free games?"

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Sapphire's custom cooled HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 DiRT 3 Special Edition

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 28, 2011 - 03:22 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, HD6950 2GB DiRT 3 Special Edition, hd6950

The HD6950 is a fairly mature card, which means that the top tier partners have had time to perfect their designs and implement functional improvements.  Sapphire chose to customize the cooler on their DiRT 3 Special Editon HD6950, which [H]ard|OCP took advantage of to focus on overclocking.  Sapphire's TRIXX Tweak Utility played a big part in their testing, especially when overvolting the card.  Check out the full review here.

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"Overclocking a video card provides a better gameplay experience, or so every enthusiast hopes. Today we have the Sapphire HD 6950 2GB DiRT 3 Special Edition on our gaming rig to see how well it performs and overclocks using Sapphire's TRIXX Tweaking utility. Will this overclock yield a better gameplay experience?"

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Sapphire jumps on the AMD A75 chipset

Subject: Motherboards | July 27, 2011 - 06:03 PM |
Tagged: a75, sapphire, sapphire pure platinum, llano, hudson

Longtime GPU partner Sapphire is taking advantage of the new AMD A75 Hudson-D3 FCH chipset to put out their new Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 motherboard.  Onboard are five SATA3 ports, a single PCIe 16x, a single PCI 4x, two PCIe 1x, and two 32-bit PCI slots along with 7.1 sound from a Realtek ALC892 chip and a mini PCIe slot.  Externally you will find four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, a LAN port and even Bluetooth.  As far as budget boards for Llano go, Hi Tech Legion have not seen better and that was before they managed the 35% overclock.

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"Sapphire has just released their venture into Llano with the Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 Motherboard. The Platinum A75 offers all of the premium niceties that can be found with AMD's Lynx platform. First, there is the top tier A75 Hudson-D3 FCH chipset. This has an FM1 socket for the latest Llano APU chips. There is support for up to 16GB of 800/1033/1333/1600/1866 MHz speed DDR3 memory. This chipset offers exceptional connectivity as you get five SATA3 ports, one 16x PCI-E, two 1x PCI-E, one 4x PCI-E, two 32-bit PCI, and four USB 3.0 ports. Because the APU is a CPU/GPU combination, for video connectivity, there is an HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort available."

Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:

Motherboards

Source: Hi Tech Legion

Sapphire Introduces New Pure Platinum Motherboard Supporting AMD A-Series APUs

Subject: Motherboards | July 21, 2011 - 11:25 AM |
Tagged: sapphire, motherboard, fusion, APU, amd

Sapphire Technologies, most popular for their line of AMD discrete graphics cards, has recently unveiled a new ATX motherboard supporting AMD’s A-Series APUs. Dubbed the Sapphire Pure Platinum A75, the board supports the latest interface standards including SATA 3 6Gbps, USB 3.0, PCI-E 2, and USB 2.0. Further, the board supports Gigabit LAN, Bluetooth, and four dual channel memory sockets.

Sapphire Pure Platinum A75.jpg

The Pure Platinum A75 motherboard is a full ATX affair that is chock full of expansion slots. Four dual channel DIMM slots for DDR3 memory, two PCI-E 2 x1 slots, one PCI-E 2 x4 slot, one PCI-E 2 x16 slot, and two PCI slots along the bottom of the board. On the storage front, the motherboard contains five SATA 3 6Gbps ports with ACHI and RAID support and a single SATA 2 3Gbps port that is connected to the rear header and is used as an eSATA connection.

Other features of the board include Dual Graphics support when the APU is paired with a AMD HD 6600 or HD 6500 series for a boost in graphics performance by using both the discrete card and APU together. A single digital debug display, push buttons for resetting the BIOS, starting, and restarting the system, Dual BIOS support, and voltage test pads that allow voltage readings of the APU and memory circuits. Further, the motherboard uses gold plated connectors on the USB 3.0 and LAN ports in addition to solid capacitors and Sapphire Diamond Black chokes in the VRM area.

Sapphire Pure Platinum A75_rearIO.jpg

Rear IO of the board includes Display Port, DVI, HDMI, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, one Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR antenna, one eSATA port, and one PS/2 keyboard/mouse combination port. The board also included the standard fair of audio ports, supporting up to 7.1 audio.

According to Sapphire, the board is currently in production and will be available through the usual channel partners and retailers. You can check out more photos of the motherboard here.

Source: Sapphire

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