Sapphire RX 5600XT Pulse Review

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The Sapphire RX 5600 XT Pulse comes in a vertical box which we are always fans of just because it’s different. The fact it also matches up to the office wall is neither here nor there.

  

The Pulse dual-slot, dual-fan cooler promises to keep the RX 5600 XT cool with big heatsink and thick heat pipe coupled to those two fans. Given how thermally efficient the latest AMD GPUs have been, this should be more than enough to keep the card frosty even with a nice overclock in place.

  

Two things are immediately obvious when you look at the rear of the RX 5600 XT Pulse. Firstly there is plenty of space to let the hot air move away from the card, but secondly that the PCB which lays beneath this cooler isn’t anywhere near as deep as the cooler makes it seem. It’s purely a matter of taste, but if you hate your heat pipes sticking out of a card and ruining its smooth lines then the Pulse might be the very thing for you.

 

Despite being a card aimed at the all-in 1080P gamer, or light 1440 gamer, the RX 5600XT Pulse is still a dual slot cooler with a very hefty heatsink underneath that shroud.

  

If you ever fear that backplates are a nice idea but restrict the airflow across the all important back of the PCB, leading to warping and similar issues down the road, then you need to have no such concerns regarding the Pulse as it has plenty of holes to air ventilation every where you look.

  

The BIOS switch adjusts between performance and silence modes as you choose. The silence mode doesn’t underclock the card as much as you might imagine, and is a good balanced profile if you’re just playing games which come more from Indie studios than £60 ‘games as service’ titles. 
 
 
  
 
At the business end we find the usual AMD combination of DisplayPort and HDMI outputs, as well as the tasteful Sapphire branding which handily doubles as a low airflow restriction exhaust.

  

Lastly the Sapphire Pulse has a single 8pin PCIe power input, perfect for frugal gaming and easy cable routing thanks to the deep recession. This shot also confirms that it shares the same PCB as the 5700 and 5700XT.