The new SAPPHIRE HD 7800 series is ready for DirectX 11.1 and the new Windows 8 operating system as well as delivering all the features of the current DirectX 11 such as DirectCompute11 and multi threaded communications with the CPU. The HD 7000 series is the third generation of DirectX 11 compatible solutions from the graphics division of AMD - formerly ATI. Both have 2GB of DDR5 memory and a SAPPHIRE original Dual Fan heatpipe cooler. These share all the features of the HD 7870 models except that they ship with the lower core clocks of 860MHz and 920MHz respectively, and have a slightly lower Stream processor count. Offering excellent performance at an even keener price point, the two other models in the series are the SAPPHIRE HD 7850 and SAPPHIRE HD 7850 OC Editions.
Both models are equipped with SAPPHIRE's new dual-extractor technology - Dual-X - a highly efficient multi-heatpipe cooler with dual fans providing quiet and very cool operation during normal operating conditions, and superb cooling performance even under extreme load. At the same time SAPPHIRE is introducing a higher performance model, the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 GHz OC Edition, in which both core and memory are factory overclocked and the PowerTune limits are raised to allow even further performance tuning. It is equipped with 2GB of the latest DDR5 memory clocked at 1200MHz (4.8Gb/s effective). The first is the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 which will ship with a core clock speed of 1GHz, and will be known as the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 GHz Edition. Two models of the HD 7870 are being introduced by SAPPHIRE at launch. It is aimed at mainstream gamers looking for excellent performance together with good value and all the latest features. The new HD 7870 and HD 7850 GPUs have an optimised internal structure sharing many of the features of the high performance HD 7900 series already released but with fewer Stream processors and a new high speed 256-bit memory interface to the latest DDR5 memory types. The new SAPPHIRE HD 7800 series of graphics cards is based on the third family of GPU's from AMD built in its new 28nm process and featuring the highly acclaimed GCN graphics processing architecture.