Updated Sapphire 7850 Designs/SKUs

[BlockheadBrown]

"Sapphire has decided to update its HD 7800 series by announcing no less than three new models that will all be based on AMD's Pitcairn Pro GPU and be a part of Sapphire HD 7850 family. The new model list includes two new HD 7850 2GB as well as a cheaper HD 7850 1GB model.

As far as specs go, all HD 7850 graphics cards are based on the 28nm GCN Pitcairn GPU with 1024 stream processors and 256-bit memory interface. The first in line is the new standard Sapphire HD 7850 graphics card that will work at 860MHz for the GPU and feature 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1200MHz (4.8GHz effective). Sapphire will also be rolling out a higher perfomance model, the Sapphire HD 7850 OC Edition clocked at 920MHz for the GPU and 1250MHz (5.0GHz effective) for the same 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The last but not the least is a cost effective Sapphire HD 7850 1GB model working at 900MHz for the GPU and 1200MHz (4.8GHz effective) for memory.

All three models will feature dual BIOS, two DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, as well as Sapphire's quite recognizable Dual-X cooler with two fans.

The new Sapphire HD 7850 graphics cards are expected to hit retail/e-tail soon."
Source: http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/27866-sapphire-announces-new-hd-7850-graphics-cards

Aside from having a 1GB version and new plastic on the fan, does anyone have an idea why they're doing this? I can assume cheaper parts/assembly. I still fight with myself over staying with the GeForce 560 or going with a 7850.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

broken 2GB = 1 GB

 

[Rvenger]

Aside from having a 1GB version and new plastic on the fan, does anyone have an idea why they're doing this? I can assume cheaper parts/assembly. I still fight with myself over staying with the GeForce 560 or going with a 7850.

I heard something about this actually. They were going to cut back on cost of PCBs and make the cards overall cheaper. I hope the price is affected because they will likely overclock worse than previous versions.

Its to easy to match a 7850 to a 7870 or even a 7950.

 

[Plimogz]

Dual-BIOS huh? maybe some of these will unlock to 1280 stream processors.