Sapphire HD 7970 Toxic 6 GB

[W1zzard]

Sapphire's HD 7970 Toxic comes with 6 GB GDDR5 memory, a large clock speed increase out of the box, a "Lethal Boost" button to increase performance even further, and a large dual-fan cooler. In our testing this monster delivered the highest single-GPU performance we've ever seen, overclocking worked well, too.

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[AnnCore]

"Sapphire's HD 7970 Toxic is like a Lamborghini. It's expensive, not very efficient, and noisy. Unfortunately, noisy computer components don't impress people nearly as much as noisy cars, and a fast graphics card doesn't get you girls either."

Most original opening sentence for a conclusion.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Kind of a worthless GPU if you ask me. Just save the money and get the normal HD7970 or GTX680. Put the money you save towards something like an SSD.

 

[manofthem]

Beast card but too expensive. I'm a little disappointed that it could only hit 1275 core clock if the voltage is bumped to 1.35v in boost bios, I would expect slightly more. My first reference 7970 hit higher in lower voltage (before it died on me )

Great review as always!!!!!

Hey W1zz, top of temp and clock profile page, "Temperatures are good and in the typical range of other GTX 680 cards we have tested."

 

[NHKS]

7970 Toxic = 700$
7970 x 2 = 750$ to 800$

hmmm...

 

[EarthDog]

What a waste of vRAM. I mean the thing cant even support a resolution on its own to use that much vram... and 3GB was good to 5760x1200 or w/e soooooooooooooooo why?

 

[erocker]

What a waste of vRAM. I mean the thing cant even support a resolution on its own to use that much vram... and 3GB was good to 5760x1200 or w/e soooooooooooooooo why?

Easy! So that they can charge $700 bucks of course! Price is ridiculous... It would be somewhat feasible if it came with a water block or something.

 

[W1zzard]

Hey W1zz, top of temp and clock profile page, "Temperatures are good and in the typical range of other GTX 680 cards we have tested."

fixed. thanks

Easy! So that they can charge $700 bucks of course! Price is ridiculous... It would be somewhat feasible if it came with a water block or something.

the market for these cards is small enough. putting watercooling on them reduces the target audience a lot more

 

[BigMack70]

Pricing is too ridiculous on this card. I have 2 Lightning 7970s that hit 1200/1800, making them faster than the normal "lethal boost" on this card.

Many 7970s, and especially the nice 7970GE cards, can get close to this card's performance for WAY less money, and 6GB vram is stupid overkill.

The only place I see this card having is for someone who wants the absolute best of the best, cares little for value, and throws two of these bad boys into a crossfire setup.

The card would be much better if the price were $600 IMO. Would possibly be a justifiable purchase then.

 

[DarkOCean]

the price of this is just ridiculous :shadedshu.

 

[Frenzic]

One badboy card if you don't overclock and have the dosh for it Hey wiz are you gona review the Sapphire HD 7970 Vapor-X GHz Edition 3GB? thnx.

 

[BigMack70]

^^ IMO their 7970 Vapor-X GE is the way to go... it's $230 cheaper than this card and should be able to OC to the 1200/1600 range fairly easily

 

[EarthDog]

How did this card manage to pull an 8.9 is my other question. I mean its louder than most cards, costs a shhh ton for literally zero returns over a 3GB card, and sucks down even more power. How does this deserve that high of a score?

 

[W1zzard]

How did this card manage to pull an 8.9 is my other question. I mean its louder than most cards, costs a shhh ton for literally zero returns over a 3GB card, and sucks down even more power. How does this deserve that high of a score?

it's fast, and sapphire made extra good use of the dual bios feature

 

[erocker]

the market for these cards is small enough. putting watercooling on them reduces the target audience a lot more

I suppose you're correct. If this card is aimed at the LN2 crowd (with the accessible voltage readouts, etc.) a water block is just an extra unneeded cost. I just don't understand the cost of the card the way it is.

 

[EarthDog]

it's fast, and sapphire made extra good use of the dual bios feature

So are reference cards that mostly all manage to overclock to those speeds anyway for almost half the cost (and are quieter, and use less power). You are giving this praise for having a $250+ edited bios is what you are saying (and thats ok, I just didnt understand such a high rating). Cool, thanks for the explanation.

EDIT: PLEASE add editing tools for basic replies!!!!!!

 

[W1zzard]

So are reference cards that mostly all manage to overclock to those speeds anyway for half the cost (and are quieter, and use less power). You are giving this praise for having a $300 bios switch is what you are saying (and thats ok, I just didnt understand such a high rating). Cool, thanks for the explanation.

EDIT: PLEASE add editing tools for basic replies!!!!!!

many people dont know how to overclock and arent willing to fiddle with the tools. they prefer to buy custom cards for a price premium.

I just don't understand the cost of the card the way it is.

agreed on that. i doubt sapphire's own cost is anywhere near $700 considering a "normal" hd 7970 is like $450. but they must have their reasons

 

[EarthDog]

many people dont know how to overclock and arent willing to fiddle with the tools. they prefer to buy custom cards for a price premium.

Then they should get this instead...GIGABYTE GV-R797TO-3GD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition ...

Same clocks, better cooler, less power and ~$250 cheaper.

This card has no place in this market (at that price). Sometimes I do not understand companies.

 

[reverze]

check out the vapor x version , same card with slightly slower stock clock but alot cheaper, doubt toxic is much higher binned

 

[Frenzic]

^^ IMO their 7970 Vapor-X GE is the way to go... it's $230 cheaper than this card and should be able to OC to the 1200/1600 range fairly easily

Yer thats why i bought one and i must say, i'm not dissapointed

 

[W1zzard]

doubt toxic is much higher binned

ASIC quality 58.4% on my sample which is a great value for hardcore overclockers (they look for low values)

 

[Frenzic]

Are you going to review the vapor-x ghz 3gb w1z? as i have one

 

[AlienIsGOD]

No support for CUDA and PhysX

how can that be a con?!? Nvidia's closed software shouldn't count against AMD....

 

[Oberon]

I think the performance summary should be included for 5760x1080; there's really no other plot that matters for this card (you could maybe make an argument for 2560x1400, but not really anything else). You could even just leave off the NVIDIA cards if you don't want to show them in a bad light since they can't drive three screens with a single card, but it would be interesting to compare to the "vanilla" 7970s at that resolution.

 

[Nihilus]

No support for CUDA and PhysX

how can that be a con?!? Nvidia's closed software shouldn't count against AMD....

Yeah they always throw that garbage up there.

As far as this card goes, 6GB is still unnecessary. Even if mounted in quadfire, I don't think there would be a difference at the highest resolutions going from 6GB to 3GB. Just look at what a pair of GTX 690s can do with a mere 2GB! Waste of money especially with the HD 7990 just around the corner.