Sapphire Reveals Tiny R9 285 Graphics Card

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Sapphire's R9 285 ITX Compact Edition card is tiny.

Sapphire Reveals Tiny R9 285 Graphics Card : Read more

 

[icemunk]

Woo, see? All this complaining about the R9 285 - and look! A mini version already; perfect for a mini PC or HTPC

 

[ubercake]

Wonder what kind of heat this pumps out?

 

[Guest]

Wonder what kind of heat this pumps out?

190w tdp, so... quite a bit?

 

[icemunk]

Wonder what kind of heat this pumps out?

Probably not bad. The R9 285 uses max 190 watts, versus 250 watts from the R9 280 - so considerably less thermal load. I can't wait to see some real world benchmarks and testing though

 

[sha7bot]

This form factor frustrates me. Why don't they make these low profile so it can fit in HTPC cases. The motherboard is longer than that card!

 

[icemunk]

This form factor frustrates me. Why don't they make these low profile so it can fit in HTPC cases. The motherboard is longer than that card!

It can be done, generally with a PCI-e right-angle 90 degree riser, or the like. It all depends, sometimes it takes a bit of creativity.

At 190 watts, this card uses just slightly (10 watts) more than the 270X

 

[bmdc]

That is pretty damn badass, and Sapphire makes very nice coolers. I think this card would be an amazing addition to any HTPC intended for gaming and movies.

 

[BulletSponge420]

"small premium", I see what you did there

 

[SlimSpaceman]

This form factor frustrates me. Why don't they make these low profile so it can fit in HTPC cases. The motherboard is longer than that card!

In a more ideal world, of course the manufacturers would rather cater to the narrower standard of half-height cards; but it seems that they can just be make a shorter full height card more efficient, for example at cooling due to a bigger possible fan.

 

[christinebcw]

I suspect "cooling power required fan of X diameter instead of half-height diameter". Still, two smaller-diameter fans set in a funnel-style connection might handle it all.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

I hope that fan is large enough that it can run at lower speeds even under load. I would like to get rid of the noise video cards usually have. My case is super-quiet now, and that's the last "loud" component I have. I also love the compact size, and I hope more mfgs release this size.

 

[akshayghai29785]

does it have hdmi 2.0

 

[MEC-777]

This form factor frustrates me. Why don't they make these low profile so it can fit in HTPC cases. The motherboard is longer than that card!

It's difficult enough to make a card with this much graphics horsepower at half-length, let alone low-profile. There wouldn't be enough room for the die, Vram modules, VRM's etc. on anything smaller than this. Maybe in 10 years the technology will allow for such efficiency, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Also need room for sufficient cooling.

Keep your eyes and ears open in the near future for the R7-250XE, which supposedly will be a low-profile, HTPC friendly GPU with a low (35 watt?) TDP and the equivalent performance of an HD7770 +/-.

But yeah, we just simply don't have the technology to physically fit all the necessary components of a GPU as powerful as the R9-285 on such a small PCB foot print yet.

Be patient.

 

[Guest]

The fan is going to be overworked.