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offering only the finest in PC enthusiasts apparel awesomesauce shirts are not only threaded they're hyper threaded and come factory over cloth get yours today on the awesomesauce tool what's up guys today I'm taking a look at what I would consider an ideal graphic solution for a portable gaming PC this is the r9 285 ITX compact from sapphire and the one I have here with me today is the OC edition which comes back to read overclocked now before you blow up the comment section and say things like but Kyle the 300 series is just around the corner why would I even care about the 200 series at this point and yes if you're looking to upgrade the video card in your gaming desktop it makes sense to see what AMD brings to the table with its next line of GPUs which is now just mere weeks maybe even days away from its big release but if you've been tossing around the idea of building that HTPC for your living room or that portable LAN rig that you can pick up in a moment's notice an AR 9200 series card can still go a long way in terms of performance and features sapphires mini r9 285 being a reasonable option as most of us know by now the r9 285 fills that price gap between the r9 280 and 280x though at its core the 285 shares more in common with the latter as both ships are in fact tonga GPUs utilizing AMD's GCN 1.2 architecture remember that the r9 280 is simply a rebranded Radeon HD 7950 sporting a Tahiti GPU a chip that's now more than three years old and carrying a slimmer feature set with its GCN 1.0 architecture as far as Ross specs go this card has a base clock of 928 megahertz which tweakers can push quite a ways further as the r9 285 is a great overclocker and no I don't mean those tweakers packin 1792 stream processors the card has a memory clock speed of 50 500 megahertz on a 256 bit interface with a 2 gig frame buffer while it's true that the r9 280 has 3 gigs of memory on a wider bus iterations said the GCN architecture have improved the overall memory bandwidth efficiency of the 285 which serves to compensate for the lower memory spec also with the Tonga chip comes better power efficiency allowing the car to run at a 190 watt TDP that 60 watts lower than the Tahiti based r9 280 surely this lower heat output is a bit plus when building in an era started mini-itx system while everything under the hood seems appropriate for a current retail price of 220 USD let's talk about the actual hood no not that hood I should really stop using double entendres the cards dual slot cooler spends just 171 millimeters long which allows it to fit in a wide range of even the smallest Mini ITX cases on the front is a single 85 millimeter fan surrounded by a polycarbonate shroud with metal plated accents that make us wish more mini ITX chassés had side panel windows to appreciate the cards stylish design from the side angle we can see the cooler has four copper heat pipes two of which are 6 millimeters thick the other two are 8 millimeters thick there's also a dual BIOS switch that toggles between legacy or UEFI compatibility mode this button resides where you might expect to find a crossfire finger but like other cards in the 200 series the r9 285 doesn't require a physical bridge for multi-gpu setups at the front we get a better look at the aluminum fin of our heatsink and a single 8 pin PCIe connector off to the far right which promotes less clutter than having two 6-pin connectors here's a quick look at sapphires compact PCB which measures the same length as the cooler fortunately and incorporates a classy matte black finish finally on the rear we get two mini display ports full size HDMI and dual link DVI outputs you also get some generous accessories including a 1.8 meters HDMI cable a 2 6 pin 2 single 8 pin PCIe adapter d sub 2 dual link DVI adapter mini DisplayPort 2 full-size DisplayPort adapter a mousepad along with driver CV and documentation while I found the card to be plenty quiet under load I decided not to conduct any benchmarks as dozens of tests online already demonstrate the r9 285 s Pro s staying neck-and-neck within videos similarly priced gtx 960 in most games where this card really shows its value however is in its form factor this is still one of the most powerful GPUs for its size apart from the few GTX 970 s out there which retail for over $100 more if your main gaming rig needs a serious upgrade there's no doubt that waiting for the 300 series and even invidious gtx 980ti is a wise choice but those of you seeking a secondary portable machine on a budget Center this compact yet capable card from sapphire as a suitable option but let me know what you guys think of this card in the comments and I'm also curious to know which flagship card from team writer team green you're currently waiting for the most as always toss me a like on this video if you enjoyed it and be sure to check out my store where you can pick up an awesomesauce shirt and help support the