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Sapphire Ultimate RADEON 9600XT Edition

It is all about being different and that starts already at the physical appearance of the card. Everybody is using active cooling for the GPU or VPU, and even the memory needs to be cooled in order to handle the operating frequencies necessary to supply the necessary data bandwidth to the processor -- or so they say. This is where the Sapphire Ultimate edition differs from everybody else in that the entire cooling unit is passive and based on heat-pipe technology. Of course, heat-pipe based cooling solutions have been branded by Zalman as part of their CNPS line of product. It is not surprising, therefore, that Sapphire gets outfitted by the pros - and that is Zalman.

It is not just the heatsink that sets apart the Ultimate Radeon 9600 XT edition from the rest of the world, the bundle and the overall configuration do the rest. Needless to say that the board supports both analog VGA and DVI out, along with the S-Video / composite connector in the center position.

       

Eldorado is featured on the front of the shipping box, the back has a cut-out window to take a glimpse / preview on the actual hardware. Inside the glamour-box is a corrugated cardboard box with the translucent TV-dinner plastic trays holding the box-contents that are a few adapters and s- and composite video cables.

      

Below: Top view of the Ultimate edition with the Zalman cooler embroidered with the Sapphire Logo --- the I/O panel features the industry-standard DVI and VGA out flanking the S-Video port in the center --- ATI has a close working relationship with Hynix on the GDR3 front and the DDR BGA components used here are Hynix as well, rated at 2.8 ns tCK which makes them good for about 650 MHz operating frequency.

       

Manual

Graphics cards don't usually require an elaborate manual, unless they bring some unusual features that go beyond the simple display functionality that is, after all, the main purpose of the adapters. Along these lines, the manual included by Sapphire is a terse 10 pages installation and configuration guide for those who have never upgraded a graphics adapter. Since the manual is featured in six languages, the overall volume increases to ~ 60 pages.

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