VIP signs up with Sapphire
Distributor partners with vendor for range of Windows Vista-Ready graphics cards
Components and peripherals distributor, VIP Computers, has teamed up with graphics card maker, Sapphire, to launch three Windows Vista-Ready series of cards to the UK market.
The new card families are the Radeon X1050, X1550 and X1950 series, which cover the entry-level, mid-range and performance/enthusiast market segments, respectively. All three series are based on ATI’s Radeon technology and come with Digital Visual Interface inputs.
The low-end X150 is being targeted at customers with PCs using integrated graphics, but who want to be able to use Vista’s graphics-intensive interface. It has four pixel shader units and a core clock speed of 400MHz. There is a choice of performance options, including active or passive cooling and different memory configurations, ranging from 128MB 64-bit double data rate (DDR) 2 666MHz with active cooling to 256MB 128-bit DDR 400MHz with passive cooling.
Matt Parish, product manager at VIP Computers, said: “The new Radeon X1050 and X1550 products are absolutely vital at a time when users are crying out for affordable ways to upgrade their systems to be Windows Vista-Ready.
“As an official UK distributor for Sapphire, VIP’s customers have the complete ATI product range available to them, from the mainstream Radeon X1050 and X1550, to the X1650 and X1950 performance products.”
Neil Spicer, UK sales manager at Sapphire, said: “Sapphire is very pleased to be working with VIP Computers for the launch of these Vista Premium-Ready graphics cards.”
The midrange X1550 comes with four pixel shader units also, but with a faster core clock speed of 550MHz and a memory clock speed of 800MHz. On-board memory options stop at 256MB of 64-bit DDR2 memory and there is also support for ATI’s HyperMemory optimisation technology. The high-end ATI Radeon X1950GT comes with up to 48 pixel shader processors, CrossFire support for hooking up to another card in the same PC and enhanced support for Windows Vista.
All three cards offer support for High Definition Multimedia Interface and High Definition Copy Protocol.
>> Further reading: