Packaging
Sapphire is always so consistent with their packaging which makes it easy to spot them on a shelf if you have seen them before. For the RX 9070 XT Pulse, the right side of the card has a black background which includes the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT model branding, AMD has dropped their red wrap-around for this black branding this generation and it looks great. The black goes well with Sapphire's blue branding for the RX 9070 XT Pulse. The right side has the Sapphire Pulse logo and then in the top left corner you also have the Sapphire logo by itself, I’m not sure why the logo needs to be there twice. The left side of the front has a black background with multiple shades of blue and the Pulse zig-zag line like you would see pulse telemetry on medical machines. The 16GB VRAM is there in the bottom left corner as well. On the back, the AMD wrap-around is there in black again and it highlights some of their key features. Then on the right in the blue Sapphire has a proper picture of the RX 9070 XT Pulse which is great to see. They do list out specifications but the only thing there is the display connections. Those are important to know, and I get that packaging is designed before clock speeds are set, but I would like to see the card dimensions listed as well as the power connections needed. Anyone who is looking at the box is most likely shopping in person and those shoppers will want to know what the card looks like, if they can power it, will it fit, and will it hook to my monitor.
Inside you will find a brown cardboard box. This box opens up and has a layer of foam sitting on top of everything. Below that the documentation is sitting on top and then the RX 9070 XT Pulse and its accessory box both have cutouts in a thick foam layer to keep them from moving around. The RX 9070 XT Pulse itself comes in a plastic static protective bag as well as has plastic all over the card that you will need to remove.
For documentation the RX 9070 XT Pulse comes with a generic quick installation guide and then an installation guide for the included card support bracket. Then for accessories, as mentioned, you get a nice metal support bracket. This can mount to three PCI slots and runs across with an adjustable rubber-ended section that pushes up on the end of the card for more support. It is black and does have the Sapphire branding to match the RX 9070 XT Pulse itself as well.
Sapphire was careful to put a bright yellow warning on the card about this but this is the first time I have ever seen the card itself being stuffed with foam that you need to remove. They put it in the blow-through section between the heatsink and the backplate to keep the heatsink from moving around. I would rather see that space just filled with more heatsink in most cases, but it is too early to judge on that. This was a big pain to get out though.
