The Basics:

Before you can lay your eyes on the Toxic Radeon HD3870, Sapphire wants to remind you to provide the necessary power to the card in order for it to function properly. The sketch is rather generic, but it gets the point across.


The next two images provide an overview of the card. Compared to all of the other brands and models that sport a red PCB and red cooler, this card has quite a unique look. The cooler just isn't colored differently, as the method of cooling is much different than what you would find on a reference design card. The "Vapor-X" technology is something like heatpipe cooling, except it is a large chamber situated above the graphics processor. The design is rather interesting and this video on YouTube sheds a bit more light on the subject.


A 6-pin power connection is found in one corner, and it is what Sapphire was directing your attention to with the STOP sign on the anti-static bag.

The back panel features two DVI connections and a TV-out connection, and we will see later that the bundle of accessories will allow you to adapt these connections to work with just about any display. The GPU and the bulk of the memory modules are located under the black cooler, but there is a smaller aluminum heatsink towards one end of the card. While this heatsink looks like it will be passively cooling these remaining memory chips, the fan blows in this direction so it will contribute to the cooling.


The back of the card is shown below, and here we can see the two tabs for CrossFireX support, and the spring loaded bolts that keep the Vapor-X cooler tightly in place.