Sapphire Technology has posted a teaser of its upcoming custom Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. The board is equipped with a rather remarkable cooling system that promises to enable higher-than-AMD-recommended frequencies out-of-box as well as some additional overclocking potential.
Since AMD designed a rather compelling triple-fan cooling system for its Big Navi-based family, many graphics card vendors — Sapphire included — decided to go with reference coolers and cards with their initial Radeon RX 6800/6900 offerings. But custom coolers with better performance enable makers to build factory-overclocked graphics cards that are sold at a premium, so Sapphire and its rivals are eager to bring them to market.
The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card comes with a rather interesting 2.5-wide or even 3-wide cooler that that has three fans of different sizes. One of the fans looks particularly larger than two others. The powerful custom cooling system almost certainly means a custom PCB with an enhanced VRM too, so expect Sapphire's Nitro+ RX 6800 XT to offer increased stock clocks along with some additional overclocking potential.
Unfortunately, Sapphire did not disclose when it plans to release its Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT as well as its out-of-box frequencies. Though, it is reasonable to expect this card to arrive in the coming weeks.
The Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT certainly looks impressive and could easily feature one of the most advanced air-cooling solutions around. In the meantime, it remains to be seen what Sapphire has for its top-of-the-range Radeon RX 6900 XT offering up its sleeve.
Back in the day Sapphire was one of ATI's (and then AMD's) key graphics cards partners and had a very special treatment, so the company experimented with off-the-shelf cooling solutions quite often. It was first with a 'liquid metal'-based cooler in 2005, then it was first to offer a stock liquid cooling system with a graphics card in 2006, and then it was first to offer a vapor chamber cooler in 2008. I
