Card Layout and Photos
If we ignore the bright white finish and the third fan the RX 7700 XT PURE is very similar to the design of the RX 7700 XT Pulse. It has the same hockey stick like line accents between the fans and sticking out toward the ends. But those accents look a lot better in grey on the white than they do with red on the black. It makes me think that on the Pulse grey would have looked good on it as well. The fan shroud is all plastic and half is flat with the angled top and bottom edges on the left, again just like the Pulse. They even have the same fan design only these are bright white to match the rest of the RX 7700 XT PURE. But I have to admit that there is something about the all-white card that just puts it a step above.
To fit the third fan into the mix, the RX 7700 XT PURE is a longer card than the Pulse. It is 320 mm long which is 15mm shorter than the XFX QICK and 40 mm longer than the RX 7700 XT Pulse. It is 128.75 mm tall, the same as the RX 7700 XT Pulse, and just a hair shorter than the QICK. It is a 2.5-slot thick card measuring in at 52.57 mm, which makes it more of a 2.6-slot card really, and is the same thickness as the Pulse and less than a mm thinner than the QICK.
The triple fan design does have one big distinction from the dual fan RX 7700 XT Pulse, the center fan spins in the opposite direction which you can tell from the twist of the blades. This is a trick that Gigabyte uses as well and it helps with any air that doesn’t blow down into the heatsink. With the middle fan flipped the right side of the left fan has its air going down and to the right while the middle fan on the left side has air going down and to the left and you get less turbulence. The fan design is the same other than that with the dual angled blades which Sapphire calls their angular velocity fan blade. The fans have dual ball bearings and on the outside have a ring around the edge that locks all of the blades in together. They have a sticker in the middle with the Sapphire PURE branding and a circle with a dot similar to what was on the packaging. Through the fans, you can see the aluminum sheet metal heatsink which is in a vertical orientation to push warmed air up towards the top and bottom of the card.
Up on the top edge of the RX 7700 XT PURE, a few things are going on. The fan shroud and the backplate both wrap around to leave room to put a few logos on there. On the end of the card is a grey Radeon logo. Then in the middle, there is a big red piece that is attached to the fan shroud with white printed on it leaving a red Sapphire logo. This is backlit to light this and the entire area up in red. Then of course the top also has the power connections. The RX 7700 XT PURE has two 8-pin PCIe power plugs, just like all of the other RX 7800 XTs and RX 7700 XTs. The benefit of course is that with the older PCIe plug you can use your old power supply if you have one and can avoid having to use an ugly adapter.
Working around the top and bottom edges as well as the end of the card tells us a little more about the cooling setup as well on the RX 7700 XT PURE. The top of the card has both the fan shroud and backplate wrapped around the length of the card with them touching at the start and down at the end. This covers up some of the airflow room but Sapphire has compensated for that with openings on the backplate. The covers section down at the end helps force the air into the blow-through section as well. The end of the RX 7700 XT PURE is mostly covered and bright white but does have a window that gives us a peek through to see the end of the heatsink and the five exposed heatpipes. Then along the bottom, we can see that each section of the heatsink is perfectly formed around each component on the PCB to not leave any surface area. In the center you can see where the heatpipes shift up and also how they contact the heatspreader that sits on top of the GPU and memory. The heatpipes are flattened there for the best contact and the five heatpipes that we saw at the end of the card continue on to the left side of the card as well with three of those wrapping around a second time as well. Then there is the one 6-pin connection to run power up to the fans and for the lighting. Even these wires and the plug are bright white to match the rest of the RX 7700 XT PURE.
The backplate for the RX 7700 XT PURE is again similar to what we saw on the RX 7700 XT Pulse. It is stamped metal and wraps around up at the top to give it more strength. Sapphire has cut out multiple triangle-shaped holes along the top edge for additional airflow at the top of the heatsink. There is also a cutout around the back of the GPU and GPU support bracket and more holes down at the end of the card. Those are the blow-through design once the heatsink gets past the PCB. Sapphire has also hidden a small switch in the middle that turns the lighting up on the top of the card off. The backplate is of course bright white to match the rest of the card and has a few lines printed on it in grey as accents along with the Radeon logo which is also in grey and the Sapphire PURE logo in grey and black. All of that text is upside down to make it readable when installed in most cases.
For display connections, the RX 7700 XT PURE has the same setup that the RX 7700 XT Pulse had. You get two HDMI and two DisplayPort connections. This is unique compared to what you see from almost anyone else, three DisplayPort and one HDMI are the standard these days. Most monitors can support either and having an extra HDMI could be a benefit if you have older monitors or if you are using televisions at all. The PCI bracket has a tinted metal finish and it does have the Sapphire logo stamped into it down at the bottom edge. The RX 7700 XT PURE isn’t designed to push air in this direction at all but above all of the display connections, it does also have some ventilation which consists of angled slots.
I did get a picture of the RX 7700 XT PURE alongside of the RX 7700 XT Pulse and I think that does a great job of showing just how similar the design is while also being completely opposites with the all-white and black with red accents. I included a second picture with the XFX QICK 319 RX 7700 XT Black in there as well and you can see how it is longer and while it has a triple fan configuration it doesn’t have the same size fans as the RX 7700 XT PURE does. I do like that the XFX doesn’t have branding all over it though, the RX 7700 XT PURE has a Sapphire logo visible from any angle you look at it including three on the front.
The red accent at the top of the RX 7700 XT PURE is backlit as well. It lights up the logo and really the entire center of the card in a Radeon red. This isn’t RGB and you can’t do anything fancy with the lighting other than using the switch on the back to turn it on or off. I’m not a big fan of backlit branding, it can make your PC start to feel like Times Square but I have to admit that I do like the glow that this lighting gave the rest of the card. It would be nice if it was in more than just that one spot though and even just white lighting would be nice or RGB to be able to pick a color that matches your build.
