Sapphire Reveals Tiny R9 285 Graphics Card
Sapphire's R9 285 ITX Compact Edition card is tiny.
The AMD Radeon R9 285 has just been announced, and already a number of card designs are hitting the web. One of the designs that stood out to us comes from Sapphire, in the form of a Mini-ITX-oriented card.
The card that Sapphire has revealed is the R9 285 ITX Compact Edition, which will also be available in an OC variant. The reference R9 285 features 1792 stream processors and will run at up to 918 MHz. Sapphire’s card will carry 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and will run at the reference frequency, which is an effective 5.5 GHz. It communicates with the GPU over a 256-bit memory interface. The OC variant of the card will have its GPU clocked at 928 MHz, which is a measly 10 MHz overclock.
As we mentioned, it's the form factor that makes this Sapphire card stand out. The unit is just 171 mm long, which is a mere 1 mm longer than a standard Mini-ITX motherboard. We still have to wait until September 2 for the reviews to show up, but this may well be the most powerful Mini-ITX graphics card to date.
Display outputs are handled by two Mini-DisplayPort interfaces, along with a single HDMI interface and a dual-link DVI port. The card also supports CrossFire without the need for a CrossFire bridge.
There's no official word on availability yet, although AMD indicated that the launch date for the R9 285 is September 2. Pricing for reference cards is set at $249, but we should probably expect a small premium for this card.
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190w tdp, so... quite a bit?
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
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
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.
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.