Sapphire HD 6950 Toxic Edition 2GB Review

The Sapphire HD 6950 Toxic Edition is another stellar card design from AMD's largest partner. While it is supplied with only a single fan, Sapphire have cleverly adjusted the board design to improve air flow, meaning the cooler will expel more hot air outside the rear of the case. As testing has showcased, it really does work well, reducing fan speeds.

On a performance level, the HD6950 Toxic Edition falls in between the reference HD6950 and the reference HD6970. If you are fortunate enough to get one which will accept the pre programmed bios settings with extra shaders, then you will end up with HD6970 performance out of the box. Sapphire aren't making a big deal out of this bios setting however as there is a possibility that the card might not work in the ‘unlocked' position. That said, our sample worked with the full 1536 shaders and could even be overclocked further with the TriXX tool.

The HD6950 Toxic Edition is supplied in a very high state of overclock, however we did manage to push the core even further, from 880mhz, to 954mhz. The GDDR5 memory also scaled to 5624mhz, which shows significant headroom. With 2GB of fast GDDR5 memory on board, high resolution gaming is also a strong point, across three screens.

Thanks to the proprietary cooler, the Toxic Edition is quieter than the reference design and temperatures peak just over 70c, when gaming.

While the card has not yet gone on sale, we have been informed that the price point should only be slightly more than the reference card design – with a £10-£15 premium. At this price, and with this specification and overall performance, it is clearly a very intelligent purchase.

Pros:

• great design.
• is supplied overclocked and headroom allows for more.
• runs cool.
• is quiet.
• bios switch can unlock more performance, but it isn't guaranteed.
• Bundle is impressive and includes Dirt 3.

Cons:

• Another fan would have helped reduce noise levels even further.

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