Sapphire RX 9070 GRE Pulse Review

Up Close

Up Close

The Pulse is, along with the Nitro, one of the two big names Sapphire use. It’s slightly below the Nitro in their lineup, although still excellent. It is, therefore, the perfect choice for the new AMD GRE chip. It fits into the AMD range between the RX 9060 XT and the RX 9070. As we’ll see, performance is better than that.

Around the back you get the simplicity of the Sapphire Pulse cooler. The GRE chip itself is very near the PCI Express slot connector. Otherwise things are dominated by the massive cut out to help maximise airflow. If where you are is anything like Britain right now, we need all the cooling air we can get.

We’ll never tire of getting to see the heatsink and heat pipes in all their glory. So often companies cover everything up. Let the exactness of your engineering prowess shine. With the Pulse cooler Sapphire clearly agree with us. Sexy.

Whether because the majority of affordable builds tend to just have PCIe connectors, or whether AMD see this as an upgrade path, or simply because they understand the fears about 12VPHWR connectors haven’t fully gone away, the GRE has just a standard pair of 8pin power inputs.

The Sapphire build quality is famous and the Pulse is no exception. It’s very chunky which, as we’ll see later on, reaps huge benefits in the temperature department.

Lastly, as is common with Radeon cards, the GRE sports two of each, DisplayPort and HDMI. Perfect if your monitors only support one type of input. Being able to see the heat pipes through the Sapphire plate makes us happy campers.