Sapphire

New packaging

Sapphire rounds out the list of companies I met with at Comdex 2003. I actually met with them right after my ATI meeting on Monday. First, Sapphire wanted to discuss its new packaging strategy: light retail versus retail.

Retail box up top, light retail on bottom

Light retail box is much smaller

The light retail cards are those you traditionally see online as “bulk” or “OEM white box” units. Sapphire wanted to dress up the white box so to speak, but at the same time minimize shipping costs by going with a very diminutive box. Normally, the light retail cards won’t ship with any software, but since the ATI/Valve deal is based on a per chip basis, even Sapphire’s light retail cards will come with a redeemable voucher for Half-Life 2.

The hope is that Sapphire will be able to pass on the reduced shipping costs to the consumer without confusion. Full retail cards will cost about 5-8% more than light retail.

Sapphire launched four new ULTIMATE cards at the show. Two of the cards are based on ATI’s latest ALL-IN-WONDERs, the AIW 9800 PRO and AIW 9600 PRO. But since ATI has exclusive distribution rights to the ALL-IN-WONDER line in North America, those of us in the USA and Canada will never see them. The other two cards are the RADEON 9800 XT ULTIMATE Edition and the RADEON 9600 XT ULTIMATE. Of course, by now you should know that the ULTIMATE Editions fuse a Sapphire graphics card with a silent heat pipe cooling solution from Zalman, making them ideal for those of you looking to build the quietest PC possible.

The Ultimate in its box and the fan

As a precaution, Sapphire bundles an external Zalman 1500RPM fan with the RADEON 9800 XT ULTIMATE. Sapphire included the fan because they found that the 9800 XT ULTIMATE’s temperatures were a little higher than what they wanted. Fortunately the fan is quiet (Sapphire claims sub-20 decibels) and thanks to thumbscrews, doesn’t require any tools for installation.

Besides the new cooler, the ULTIMATE boards ship with a copy of Tomb Raider, and typically go for about $50 more than a standard Sapphire ATLANTIS board.

For those of you who don’t have a lot of money to spend, but want a RADEON 9600 XT with a little more juice, Sapphire will offer the 9600 XT Fireblade edition. This board will ship with 650MHz DDR SDRAM modules.

What's that!

It's a water cooling kit

A closer look at the graphics core

At the top of the heap, Sapphire is working with Koolance on a RADEON 9800 XT card with water-cooling. We were given a sneak peek of this exciting card at the show:

I've seen GeForce FX cards thicker than this

What prototype wouldn't be complete without the warning label

We weren’t given any specific clock speeds, prices, or dates on when this card will be available, or even if it will be released. Sapphire merely showed it to us because they know how much we like drooling over cool hardware. If Sapphire does announce something, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Sapphire's ATX 9100 AGP board

Another shot of the AA29

Sapphire's AA39

Sapphire also had two new RADEON 9100 IGP boards that aren’t listed on their website on display at Comdex 2003, the ATX AA29, and the micro-ATX AA39. Sapphire will be adding controllers from Realtek, VIA, and Silicon Image for audio, FireWire, networking, and Serial ATA. With ATI’s IXP 150 used for the South Bridge rather than IXP 200 because the Realtek LAN is cheaper than the IXP 200’s 3Com. Sapphire expects the AA29 to sell for $85, while the AA39 should hover around $70-$75. If Sapphire is able to deliver at that price point, they could be a very viable solution for the value market.