Sapphire releases Pulse RX 5700 XT BE

Sapphire has released a new variant of the RX 5700 XT graphics card designed to bring it to as low a price as possible: the Pulse RX 5700 XT BE.

Sapphire’s custom versions of AMD graphics cards are divided into two families, the feature-rich and premium Nitro crew and the more toned-down and budget-conscious Pulse selection. The original RX 5700 XT Pulse debuted almost a year ago (we even gave it a sexy black and white paint job), and now Sapphire has seen fit to give it a more cost-effective brother.

The new card ships with the same clock speeds (1,815MHz Game clock, 14Gbps memory rate), the same 241W power figure, and a rehash of the two-fan Dual-X cooler. This means it has not changed in dimensions either, with the Pulse RX 5700 XT BE also measuring 254mm long, 135mm tall, and occupying 2.3 slots (three slots, practically speaking).

So what’s the difference, you might ask. In short, it boils down to aesthetics, cooler design, and features. Starting with aesthetics, the paint job on the external shroud is less jazzy with a basic all-black finish. The red LED logo along the top edge has also been chopped; there’s still a logo, it just doesn’t glow red.

The Pulse RX 5700 XT BE also has a heatsink with a lower overall mass, no doubt due in part to it carrying one fewer heat pipe. It also does away with the fan quick connect feature which makes cleaning and replacing fans a very easy task. These differences could result in a difference in performance compared to the original Pulse, as cooler changes can affect throttling/clock speeds, but whether that’s true and how dramatic it is remains to be seen.

The final difference is that the new card drops the dual BIOS feature, presumably easing the costs of engineering and validation ever so slightly.

The Pulse RX 5700 XT BE is on sale now for $389.99 in the US. That works out as just over £355 once you add 20 percent for tax, but UK pricing and availability is still TBC. More information is available on the official website.