The Sapphire HD 7750 Ultimate is a small graphics card, so it doesn't require the larger packaging typically seen in the high-end market. This allowed Sapphire to store the graphics card in a smaller box which lists all the key features on the front, along with a model fully decked out in ninja attire. The ninja gear is perhaps a reference to the fact that the graphics card runs silently thanks to its passive cooling solution, yet still packs a gaming punch.
The back of the box has all the typical Sapphire flair including a list of various awards, a long list of the key features and Sapphire's own description of why this model is the right choice for its respective market. True to any Sapphire graphics card, the HD 7750 comes with more accessories than traditionally found with most cards in this pricing segment. In total Sapphire has included a full HDMI cable, a VGA to DVI converter and all the drivers and installation guides needed to get you gaming in no time.
The Sapphire HD 7750 Ultimate utilizes the Cape Verde Pro architecture, which is designed to fit into the mainstream market. Since the Ultimate edition graphics card is not overclocked, it uses the reference specifications giving it a GPU clock speed of 800MHz paired with 8 compute units, 512 streaming processors, 16 ROPS and 32 texture units. In addition, the core includes 1.5 billion transistors and is built on a 28nm node with a die size of just 123mm². The memory is also the same as the reference card, so the memory runs on a 128-bit interface and has a 1GB GDDR5 frame buffer clocked at 1125MHz (4.5Gbps QDR), which equates to a bandwidth rating of 72Gb/s.
Physically the HD 7750 Ultimate clearly differs from the reference design. The most obvious difference is the large heatsink that spreads across the PCB and wraps around the side. The size of the heatsink allows the Ultimate edition graphics card to properly cool the core even without any additional active cooling; to eliminate the need for active cooling, the heatsink had to made substantially bigger than the reference design, which measures in at 6.75 x 0.75 x 4.25. The Ultimate edition's heatsink, on the other hand measures 6.75 x 1.7 x 4.2 inches, which will easily occupy dual drive bays in most enclosures.
The Sapphire HD 7750 Ultimate uses the same video output configuration as the reference AMD model, so it comes with a single Display-Port connector, a single HDMI 1.4a connector and a Dual-Link DVI connector. The Ultimate edition however uses a dual slot design to allow more airflow to exhaust out of the rear of the case, and the curved heatsink stack running along the side of the PCB.
The Sapphire HD 7750 Ultimate also features AMD's robust support for multiple displays, though to a slightly lesser degree. It includes an HDMI port that uses the latest 1.2 standard to support up to three monitors per port (via MST Hub), as well as AMD's HD3D technology. The middle HDMI 1.4a connector also supports 3GHz speeds with frame packing. Essentially this allows the connection to run the frames faster, helping make viewing images and playing games smoother across the board. The HDMI and DP ports can also be paired together to support HD3D Surround.
The Ultimate edition's thermal solution utilizes a heatpipe design paired with a massive fin stacks. In total there are four 8mm heatpipes that extend across both the stock and the base. This allows the heatpipes to effectively spread the heat throughout the array, maximizing the surface area of the stack and preventing one area from building up too much heat. The middle of the heatsink also has 13 thick metal fins that give the base of the heatsink a larger surface area, ensuring the heatpipes aren't doing all the work.
The two additional heatpipes extend from the base in the opposite direction and are attached to a separate fin stack. This stack actually wraps around the side of the PCB and has a vertical design. This portion of the array is designed to utilize the airflow of any case fan attached to the side of the chassis. This is an important factor in keeping the Ultimate edition graphics card properly cooled; the large fin stacks and heatpipes will go a long way in cooling the core, but there still has to be some air moving across the stacks to dissipate the heat.
AMD's Radeon HD 7750 may not be the most powerful graphics card on the market, and for the most part its performance is only marginally better than the previous generation HD 6750. However, what the HD 7750 lacks in sheer gaming power, it makes up for in performance-per-watt, as this model is currently the fastest graphics card that can run under 75 watts. Additionally, the HD 7750 comes with all the features of the Graphics Core Next architecture, which gives this card excellent computation performance and a robust feature-set, all in a relatively small form factor.
Since the power consumption is below 75 watts, the core does not require a beefy thermal solution as is the case with the higher-end Radeon cards. This allows manufacturers to easily customize the heatsink to either improve the thermal performance or reduce the noise level during operation. The Sapphire HD 7750 we are examining here definitely takes the latter approach, as Sapphire has increased the size of the fin stack and went with a passively cooled heatsink design. So, the Sapphire HD 7750 Ultimate heatsink should still adequately cool the core while creating absolutely no noise while the card is running.
| Specification | |
| Output | 1 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI (with 3D) 1 x DisplayPort |
| GPU | 800 MHz Core Clock 28 nm Chip 512 x Stream Processors |
| Memory | 1024 MB Size 128 -bit GDDR5 4500 MHz Effective |
| Dimension | 170(L)x105(W)x43(H) mm Size. |
| Software | Driver CD |
