Final thoughts
We think that product differentiation becomes a key selling point when the market is littered with reference designs. This is never more true than in the graphics-card space where partners follow AMD and NVIDIA's designs to the letter.Seguing nicely, Sapphire's customised Vapor-X cooling is now outfitted to practically all 5-series AMD GPUs. A case in point is the Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X, which benefits from the Vapor-X cooler's quietness when compared to either reference design.
Clocked in at just a touch over default speeds and costing around £15 than the cheapest model, the Vapor-X can be recommended to readers who want a cutting-edge graphics card able to play most games at a full-HD resolution without making a racket.
Our view is that the Radeon HD 5770 still remains a little overpriced because general supply is still constrained. Right now, however, it's the only mid-range GPU that has all the feature-boxes ticked. Sapphire improves upon the basic model by strapping a better cooler on top...without charging the earth.
Everyone, it seems, is jumping on the aftermarket HSF-equipped HD 5770 bandwagon - the latest entrant being ASUS with its CuCore. Sapphire, though, has beaten most to the punch with the Vapor-X-equipped card, and it's a pretty safe bet at <£130.
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore the card is evaluated with respect to our 'mid-range components' criteria.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X 1,024MB graphics card
HEXUS Awards
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X 1,024MB graphics card
HEXUS Where2Buy
TBC.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
