14 DAY TRIAL // Traditional AMD video card manufacturing partner Sapphire has just announced a new video card powered by AMD’s Radeon HD 7750 GPU. The new card features a single-slot cooling system and a low-profile PCB that is perfectly suited for cramped cases.
The new device completely adheres to AMD’s reference specifications of the Radeon HD 7750 GPU, so the AMD’s “Cape Verde” graphics processing unit is clocked at 800 MHz when working in full load 3D mode.
In 2D mode, the frequency of the GPU will drop to a low 300 MHz.
The GPU has a very small 123-square millimeter die size, containing 1.5 billion transistors containing 512 unified shader processors, 32 texturing units and 16 ROPs.
The “full” “Cape Verde” comes with 640 shaders and 40 texturing units, but that’s the Radeon HD 7770, and Sapphire’s version has some of the units inactive.
The GPU is quite modest in its power requirements, and the Sapphire HD 7750 LP features a very simple cooling system yet quite prone to failure (because of the higher rotation speed) and likely noisy after some months of wear.
The Sapphire HD 7750 LP comes with 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4500 MHz default when in 3D mode, but it drops to 600 MHz when working in 2D.
The memory and the GPU work on a tight 128-bit BUS, so playing games with very high resolutions will be quite a challenge for the small card.
The pricing is reportedly slated at €90 to €100 for European HTPC enthusiasts and $100 in the US.