Sapphire reveals "Toxic" Radeon X800 line

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We met with graphics card manufacturer Sapphire Technology on the E3 show floor where company representatives updated us on the status of the Radeon X800 Pro rollout and gave us a quick peek at Sapphire’s new “Toxic” Radeon X800 line.

The Radeon X800 Pro was available in extremely limited quantities at launch, but enough chips have reached board manufacturers to increase availability in the coming weeks. A quick survey of online retailers that have cards in stock shows prices in the $430 to $450 range. Prices will still stay above the $399 MSRP until supply catches up with demand.

Sapphire is only shipping Radeon X800 Pro cards right now, but the company will soon add a Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition card once ATI makes those chips available for release. In addition to its normal line of Radeon X800 cards, Sapphire will also offer a new enthusiast line of Radeon X800 Pro and XT Platinum Edition cards under a new Sapphire "Toxic" brand.

The Sapphire Toxic Radeon X800 cards will have a distinctive bright-blue PCB (printed circuit board) and a large orange cooling fan. According to Sapphire, the cooling solution offers near-silent performance while in operation. We didn’t get a chance to see or, more importantly, to listen to a sample card in action, but the fan unit does look like a low RPM design made for quiet operation. Cards will also feature copper plates and ramsinks for additional cooling. The fan unit will have an opening to accept a thermal diode for temperature monitoring, but users will have to purchase a 5.25-inch drive-bay LCD temperature display to take advantage of the feature.

Sapphire Toxic cards will also offer an Automated Performance Enhancement (APE) software program that allows users to overclock the video card memory. Currently, ATI’s Overdrive technology only allows users to overclock the core graphics chip--Sapphire’s APE technology will give users access to the memory side. Sapphire will prequalify all the memory going onto Toxic boards, and the APE system will allow users to overclock the memory up to factory pretested speeds.

The Sapphire Toxic game bundle will include Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow.