XFX HD6950 XXX Edition Review – dual fan overclocked

The XFX HD6950 XXX arrives in a fantastic looking box, instantly recognisable as an XFX product from the futuristic artwork. It is an illustration depicting the dual fan configuration.

The bundle is fairly spartan, with literature on the product, software discs, a ‘do not disturb' sign for a door, and information on the XFX power supply range. They bundle a handy crossfire connector.

This is not the first time we have seen this XFX dual fan cooler design and we were very surprised not to see it make an appearance on the XFX HD6970 Black Edition. Our previous experience with this cooler on the HD6850 was very positive, so we hope XFX can manage to repeat the results, even on the hotter running HD6950.

XFX are the only company we are aware of who are placing ‘warranty invalid if removed' stickers on the back of the PCB. This means if you remove the cooler (to apply your own thermal paste on the core for example), you are in fact losing the warranty. While these stickers are commonplace with power supplies, it does seem a little strict with a graphics card.

The cooler is an attractive heat pipe design, with a sturdy black plastic shell surrounding the PCB – this is vented at the side for enhanced airflow. The dual fan benefits are two fold, firstly XFX can set up a less aggressive bios profile to move the same amount of air as a single fan and secondly the airflow is directed across the full length of the PCB for complete cooling proficiency.

The card is CrossfireX capable in 2/3 and 4 way configurations and it requires two 6 pin power connectors to operate correctly.

The card has support for Displayport (1.2), HDMI 1.4a, and 2 DL-DVI and SL-DVI connectors.

Removing the cooler is a straightforward process. XFX have opted for a dual heatpipe design which is filed flat to a perfect finish. The two heatpipes enter into the aluminum base and pass out heat to a set of fins on either side of the core area. This is a great design which has proven to work well on a video card.

A GPUz overview of the HD 6950 XXX Edition. As we discussed earlier, both core and memory clocks are enhanced. It is built around the Cayman core and has 1GB of GDDR5 via a 256 bit memory interface.

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