KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
The Sapphire HD6950 FleX Edition arrives in a very nicely designed box, featuring an almost obligatory 3D rendered ‘chick with a tude' on the front.
A comprehensive bundle is included. A user manual, driver disk, Sapphire Select Club invitation, a 6 foot HDMI cable, Crossfire bridge connector, DisplayPort to HDMI dongle, HDMI to DVI dongle, DVI to DSUB adapter and a pair of 4 pin molex to 6 pin PCIe adapters.
The Sapphire HD6950 FleX Edition is no reference board, as it comes supplied with a VaporX Edition cooler. The large (92mm) fan is centrally positioned to ensure good air flow across all the underlying components. It is a very attractively styled card and one which will appeal to gamers who aren't willing to opt for a reference cooled design. The blue PCB looks great.
Just like the reference card, the HD6950 FleX Edition requires dual 6 pin PCI E power connectors to operate properly. It is also CrossfireX capable, in 2, 3 or 4 way configurations. There is also a dual BIOS switch behind the rear bridge connection which allows for quick recovery or bios flashing if so desired. AMD recommend a minimum of a 500 watt power supply for this specific design.
The connectivity is strong, with dual link DVI, single link DVI, HDMI and a pair of DisplayPort connectors offered. To allow for a third DVI connection, Sapphire have included a HDMI to DVI dongle so that three DVI monitors can be used for an EyeFinity SLS display. This means you don't have to spend a fortune on DisplayPort capable monitors for tri screen gaming.
Underneath we see the VaporX cooler which should significantly outperform the reference AMD cooling solution on this particular card. The FleX Edition is using a high quality Chil CHL8266 Voltage controller. The reference card uses a Volterra VT1556 controller.
A basic overview of the hardware as highlighted in GPUz. The card is running at 800mhz core with the 2GB of memory running at 1250mhz (5GBps effective) across a 256bit memory interface.
