I actually had 3 cards in my possession for over a week. Spent a lot of time with each one, finding their limits in a very detailed manner. This card impressed me the least.
6900 XT Sapphire Nitro+
Most efficient clock/ voltage: 2685MHZ @ 1085mv (it will go as low as 1040mv with no crashing, but times were actually slower with too little juice, and periodic micro-stutter in some games, like the Witcher 3 (non-next gen upgrade). Temps were already really low at 1085mv, so I left it there.
6950 XT Sapphire Nitro+ (non-Pure)
First impression: Terrible undervolter. It crashed at almost any frequency under 1140mv. Even just 2600MHZ. It would not go below 1140mv at stock clocks reliably and yet? It clocks pretty high for just going +10mv. Knowing I did not have the power of undervolting at my side? 2753MHZ @ 1150mv. Rock solid. Anything higher and it crashes. At 1.2v I can go as high as 2770MHZ, but even with just the 1150mv @ 2753 MHZ we were often riding into 98c, junction. In Cyberpunk? Sometimes as high as 105c. The 6950 XT, having higher thermals, brute forces and accomplishes the same as its 6900 XT cousin does with its 2685MHZ/ 1085mv combo, while running at 2753MHZ/ 1150mv, but the 6900 XT keeps it below 78c, junction the entire time. Which would you play?
6950 XT Formula OC
Perhaps the most underwhelming, on air and an even worse undervolter. It was clearly designed to be pushed on LN2, or at least water, making the thick ass cooler pointless because:
It does not run anything above 2500MHZ at 1150mv. I suspect even then it may crash if I ran that test enough. Pumping the voltage up to 1200mv still doesn’t get you reliably into the upper 2600s. The card has another issue: where the Sapphire cards throttle at 110c junction? This card was throttling at about 89 or 90c, resulting in running well below my set minimum frequency. This made it impossible for even Rage mode to shine, and auto-OC NEVER got anywhere near the peak frequency of 2764MHZ, only seeing highs of 2534MHZ and maybe 2599MHZ on a rare occasion. Stupid!
Continued
I disabled this throttling behavior in MPT (Throttler settings), by only leaving throttling set to Junction. After that the card throttled identically. The weird thing with this card was adding +25mv allowed you to run 2770MHZ (highest tested), consistently. I didn’t go higher because temperatures were already not looking good at just 1225mv alone. Since now we’re running at +25mv and the temps are in range with the 6950 XT Sapphire Nitro+ (non-Pure), which has a weak heatsink. This makes the nice cooler this card comes with pointless. Benchmark temps averaging 97c, with spikes to 103c, all just to bust into the 2700 range, which almost every other 6950 will do, out of the box, just by dragging the frequency slider to the right and touching nothing else… Even the barebones Nitro+ and to a slightly lesser extent, the 6900 XT. I think ASRock crammed so much damn circuitry into the card that work/ voltage is getting soaked up by the card, or something. It is the least efficient to date.
My highest TimeSpy was done by the base Sapphire Nitro+ 6950 XT at 23311, but admittingly I used an unstable 1040mv @ 2753MHZ to accomplish that. I was lucky not to crash because crashing was 50-50 at that spec. The most I could muster with the Formula, on air, was 22857, which was about the same as the 6900 XT.
6900 XT Sapphire Nitro+
Most efficient clock/ voltage: 2685MHZ @ 1085mv (it will go as low as 1040mv with no crashing, but times were actually slower with too little juice, and periodic micro-stutter in some games, like the Witcher 3 (non-next gen upgrade). Temps were already really low at 1085mv, so I left it there.
6950 XT Sapphire Nitro+ (non-Pure)
First impression: Terrible undervolter. It crashed at almost any frequency under 1140mv. Even just 2600MHZ. It would not go below 1140mv at stock clocks reliably and yet? It clocks pretty high for just going +10mv. Knowing I did not have the power of undervolting at my side? 2753MHZ @ 1150mv. Rock solid. Anything higher and it crashes. At 1.2v I can go as high as 2770MHZ, but even with just the 1150mv @ 2753 MHZ we were often riding into 98c, junction. In Cyberpunk? Sometimes as high as 105c. The 6950 XT, having higher thermals, brute forces and accomplishes the same as its 6900 XT cousin does with its 2685MHZ/ 1085mv combo, while running at 2753MHZ/ 1150mv, but the 6900 XT keeps it below 78c, junction the entire time. Which would you play?
6950 XT Formula OC
Perhaps the most underwhelming, on air and an even worse undervolter. It was clearly designed to be pushed on LN2, or at least water, making the thick ass cooler pointless because:
It does not run anything above 2500MHZ at 1150mv. I suspect even then it may crash if I ran that test enough. Pumping the voltage up to 1200mv still doesn’t get you reliably into the upper 2600s. The card has another issue: where the Sapphire cards throttle at 110c junction? This card was throttling at about 89 or 90c, resulting in running well below my set minimum frequency. This made it impossible for even Rage mode to shine, and auto-OC NEVER got anywhere near the peak frequency of 2764MHZ, only seeing highs of 2534MHZ and maybe 2599MHZ on a rare occasion. Stupid!
Continued
I disabled this throttling behavior in MPT (Throttler settings), by only leaving throttling set to Junction. After that the card throttled identically. The weird thing with this card was adding +25mv allowed you to run 2770MHZ (highest tested), consistently. I didn’t go higher because temperatures were already not looking good at just 1225mv alone. Since now we’re running at +25mv and the temps are in range with the 6950 XT Sapphire Nitro+ (non-Pure), which has a weak heatsink. This makes the nice cooler this card comes with pointless. Benchmark temps averaging 97c, with spikes to 103c, all just to bust into the 2700 range, which almost every other 6950 will do, out of the box, just by dragging the frequency slider to the right and touching nothing else… Even the barebones Nitro+ and to a slightly lesser extent, the 6900 XT. I think ASRock crammed so much damn circuitry into the card that work/ voltage is getting soaked up by the card, or something. It is the least efficient to date.
My highest TimeSpy was done by the base Sapphire Nitro+ 6950 XT at 23311, but admittingly I used an unstable 1040mv @ 2753MHZ to accomplish that. I was lucky not to crash because crashing was 50-50 at that spec. The most I could muster with the Formula, on air, was 22857, which was about the same as the 6900 XT.
Last edited: