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Our review sample was supplied via AMD, so we didn't receive retail packaging, or accessories. The Sapphire R7 265 Dual X is a nicely designed graphics card featuring a two tone grey and black cooler, with dual fans.
The PCB is black, matching the rest of the card design.
The I/O plate has a DVI-I and DVI-D connector, alongside a full sized HDMI and DisplayPort.
It is widely known that AMD Radeon HD 7xxx parts (and earlier) currently can support a maximum of 2 HDMI/DVI displays, and the rest must be DisplayPort connections (or active DisplayPort adapters).
AMD Radeon R9 Series can now support up to three HDMI/DVI displays for use with AMD Eyefinity technology. A set of displays which support identical timings is required to enable this feature. The display clocks and timing for this feature are configured at boot time. As such, display hot‐plugging is not supported for the third HDMI/DVI connection.
A reboot is required to enable three HDMI/DVI displays. DisplayPort outputs are supported in addition to the three HDMI/DVI displays (up to 6 in total).
The Sapphire R7 265 takes power from a single 6 pin connector, shown above.
The card is Crossfire capable in a 2 way configuration.
Sapphire are using a cooler with two thick heatpipes running into separate racks of aluminum fins on either side of the core contact point. SKHynix GDDR5 memory is used on this board.
Above – An overview of the Sapphire R7 265 in GPUz. Does this look familiar?
Above, the GPUz screenshot from our VTX3D VChamp HD7850 review from last October. We can see the same PitCairn core built on the 28nm engineering process. Both cards have 32 ROP's and 64 texture units. The older VTX3D VChamp HD7850 is however clocked higher, at 1000mhz.
The Sapphire R7 265 which we received for this review is not in an overclocked state although it is using high grade SKHynix memory clocked at 1,400mhz (5.6Gbps effective).
You know im in two minds over this.
Firstly, for the price – wow, what a great deal.
But another rebadge with some ‘tweaks’ from AMD? come on, its such a cop out 🙁 At least they didnt send you a reference card. makes a change!
The HD7850 continues to live – to be fair its AMD’s best GPU ever. Thats my take, so plenty of life still left in it, especially for £100.
The GTX760 is faster, but its £200, it wont be faster than two of these in Crossfire, for the same money!
Im glad the 7850 is still around. I got upgraded to one under warranty when my 6870 died. Its great and it can play pretty much anything almost on full at 1080p.
Then I did something silly and I got another one. Crossfire is really disappointing to me. There are too many games that don’t support it properly.