Sparkle Calibre X680 Captain and Calibre X670 Captain Graphics Cards

Many times in the past, when we wrote about a graphics card from Sparkle, they were rebranded models, or cards with far too much memory for comfort (thus, obvious attempts at exhausting memory chip inventories). Fortunately, this is not one of those occasions.

The company has introduced two modified versions of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 670 high-end graphics adapters. They are called Calibre X680 Captain and Calibre X670 Captain. The former runs the GK104 graphics processing unit (GPU) at 1,124 MHz, or 1,189 MHz in GPU boost mode. For the sake of comparison, the reference GTX 680 runs at 1,006 MHz and 1,058 MHz, respectively. The second video card, Calibre X670 Captain, drives the GK104 2nm chip to 954 MHz base, 1,033 MHz Boost (NVIDIA's regular adapter operates at 915 MHz and 980 MHz). Interestingly enough, the 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM on each Captain work at the same level (6,200 MHz, 256-bit interface). Both of Sparkle's video controllers feature the special CoolPro Cooling System: three silent PWN fans, a Compact Stack Fin Heatsink and six 6mm heatpipes.

They also benefit from 2oz copper PCBs (printed-circuit boards), 6+2-phase power design (stability even at high loads) and solid components. All in all, the newcomers should be superior to NVIDIA's original cards, both in normal scenarios as well as overclocking setups. The similarities only break off at the connectivity specs: while both adapters get HDMI, DisplayPort and two DVI ports, the X680 has two dual-link DVI ports, while the X670 boasts a normal DVI port so that the DisplayPort may be dual-link instead. Unfortunately, we have no pricing information. Sparkle usually ships its products as soon as it posts the corresponding press release(s), but it did not go out of its way to delve into the matter this time. The normal GTX 680 hovers at $499/470-499 Euro, while the GTX 670 orbits the $370-400 rage (350-400 Euro), so Sparkle's modified cards shouldn't exceed those marks by too much.

Sparkle Calibre Captain
Image credits to Sparkle

Posted in: Hardware, Preview