Adding to a long line of Sapphire-designed graphics cards is the 1,408-shader Radeon HD 6950 2GB TOXIC Edition, launching today.
Reckoned to be the fastest HD 6950 in production, the TOXIC is clocked in at 880MHz core and 5,200MHz memory, up from the 800MHz/5,000MHz clocks of the reference card, and almost matching the frequency specifications of the Radeon HD 6970.
Sapphire beefs up the card's overclocking potential by including both 8-pin and 6-pin power connectors, and uses the tried-and-trusted Vapor Chamber cooler and blower fan we've seen on previous models. This time, however, the company adds in a new backplate that's supposed to enhance the air-exhausting capabilities of the cooling.
Outfitted with two DVI ports - single- and dual-link - HDMI and two mini-DisplayPort connectors, four-screen Eyefinity is supported from the get-go.
As is the norm with high-end Radeon cards, this one has dual BIOSes, which can be toggled at the flick of a switch. Sapphire doesn't go as far as to say that switching over will enable a Radeon HD 6970 architecture, but makes the right noises by saying it "allows enthusiasts to experiment with alternative BIOS profiles and settings." And help is at hand with TriXX, the firm's overclocking software.
Whatever the case, this looks like one mean graphics card. Sapphire hasn't divulged the pricing, but it needs to be slot in between £225 and £250 for it to make commercial sense.
