Sapphire HD 7970 Toxic 6 GB

[Nihilus]

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

Tweaktown did one on the vapor-x 7950 today. It traded blows with the HD 7970. Fantastic bang for the buck.

 

[KainXS]

:shadedshu

for what you can get for the price of this, still whoever buys it(not me), have fun with that money sapphire

 

[commander calamitous]

Is that a typo I see on the box. "Out best" ever

 

[eidairaman1]

Honestly this is a nice card, but in reality, you can spend 200 dollars less for a GHz edition which is not very far behind in the Frame Game and even put a better cooler on it for less than this card.

 

[INSTG8R]

Is that a typo I see on the box. "Out best" ever

Good catch! Indeed that looks like a typo to me

 

[eidairaman1]

Good catch! Indeed that looks like a typo to me

This is known as Fat Fingering

 

[dj-electric]

At least this cooler is unmachable in performance, 256W @ 69C, that is nuts.

 

[N3M3515]

Well people what did you expect?? $600? 550?
We're talking about the king of the hill here, the world's fastest single gpu card.
Of course it commands a price premiun.

 

[EarthDog]

Well people what did you expect?? $600? 550?
We're talking about the king of the hill here, the world's fastest single gpu card.
Of course it commands a price premiun.

Ehhh, there is another card with the same specs, minus the memory (which doesnt matter ONE bit), for $250 less.

I could see this coming in at $550 or $600 at the most, but $700 is off the chain for something that can be accomplished with a reference card. I mean hell, you can get a card WITH a waterblock on it for less and it would has a decent chance at out overclocking it due to the cooler. Even arguably the best 7970's for overclocking, the MSI Lightning and Asus DCUII are $180 or more less.

 

[N3M3515]

Ehhh, there is another card with the same specs, minus the memory (which doesnt matter ONE bit), for $250 less.

I could see this coming in at $550 or $600 at the most, but $700 is off the chain for something that can be accomplished with a reference card. I mean hell, you can get a card WITH a waterblock on it for less and it would has a decent chance at out overclocking it due to the cooler. Even arguably the best 7970's for overclocking, the MSI Lightning and Asus DCUII are $180 or more less.

1200 core, memory oc for $450! wow!
Link?

PD: For the record, i wouldn't buy this card of course, but still it's the fastest single gpu card on the planet so it will be sold at a huge premiun, that's just how things are, and they are going to sell them all.

 

[dj-electric]

No 1200Mhz man but as long as your arms work you should use an overclocking software

 

[EarthDog]

but still it's the fastest single gpu card on the planet

But its not... I just said that. There are others just as fast out of the box that arent fetching near the premium. Sure, it doesnt have 6GB of vRAM, but its not needed. I just cant wrap my head around its place in the market for those in the know.

LIke this one: GIGABYTE GV-R797TO-3GD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition ...

That card doesnt have the 1200Mhz speeds, but hey, thats overclocking to me as its not the stock clock for the card. And if you want to do it via the bios instead of software on another card... flash it. Now, I understand people dont want to mess with that stuff but still, the premium is off the chain for what the card really is (IMO).

 

[N3M3515]

But its not... I just said that. There are others just as fast out of the box that arent fetching near the premium. Sure, it doesnt have 6GB of vRAM, but its not needed. I just cant wrap my head around its place in the market for those in the know.

LIke this one: GIGABYTE GV-R797TO-3GD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition ...

That card doesnt have the 1200Mhz speeds, but hey, thats overclocking to me as its not the stock clock for the card. And if you want to do it via the bios instead of software on another card... flash it. Now, I understand people dont want to mess with that stuff but still, the premium is off the chain for what the card really is (IMO).

Overcloking of the sapphire is done and guaranteed by sapphire, so i can safely say it's 1200 out of the box.
And hey i also think it's overpriced, but then again what other card can do that without losing the warranty.
E-pen lol, braggin stuff.

Btw, it's already out of stock.

 

[EarthDog]

Its 1100Mhz out of the box. You need to make an adjustment(bios switch) to get it to 1200Mhz. BUT that is just nitpicking.

None, but as we agree, its not remotely worth the price as is the general sentiment of people...

 

[Mindweaver]

One of my toxic 5850's is messed up do to heat.. The top card in my crossfire setup is creating artifacts.. This is not the first Sapphire card to do this because of heat. It's going to take a lot for me to ever buy another sapphire product. They screwed me out of voltage control on the 5850 as well.. [/rant] Sorry, I just took a deep breath.. lol Honestly, I would just buy a stock card and overclock it. Oh and Sapphire's Warranty is shitty with only a 2 year warranty.. If my card had a 3 year warranty.. I could send it back for a replacement.

 

[m1dg3t]

Asus did the same to me on my 5870 mindweaver, what made it even worse was the card was advertised/marketed as being capable of this! It was actually the main selling point of that card.

Just another example of a big company using false advertising to make $$$ off of people and another reason why I will never purchase/reccomend any Asus products

Owned quite a few Sapphire cards over the years and would gladly use them again

@ W1zz Nice review as always

 

[leopr]

At least this cooler is unmachable in performance, 256W @ 69C, that is nuts.

I agree its a great cooler but the Accelero 7970 is better.

 

[eidairaman1]

I agree its a great cooler but the Accelero 7970 is better.

proof please

 

[leopr]

proof please

My results after running Heaven benchmark @ 8x MSAA / 16x AF / Tess @ Extreme:



Highest temp: 63 degrees with the card OCed to 1225/1650 (29 degrees ambient temp). Check out the Toxic temps @ 1200/1600 and i am not even considering noise.

So...thats enough for you ? As i said the Toxic cooler is pretty amazing but the Accelero 7970 is way better and quieter.

 

[xplodpb]

Hey, guys, with the price drop, which card do you recommend, a GTX 670 or a HD 7970? Thanks!

 

[eidairaman1]

Hey, guys, with the price drop, which card do you recommend, a GTX 670 or a HD 7970? Thanks!

start a new topic on this, this is a review here

 

[Morgoth]

i was hooping for a 2x solution from sapphire..

 

[buildzoid]

There is a reason for all that VRAM and Noise ain't that big a deal

when you CF your cards the VRAM doesn't stack so you technically still have 3GB of VRAM because both cards are storing basically the same information in the VRAM so lets say you go for 5 monitors with 3 3GB cards sure you have a physical capacity of 9GB but the cards don't share the vram so you still have 3GB to run 5 monitors and thats when you really start needing 6GB as five landscape 1080p will give you 10 megapixels the same amount can be achieved using 3 1440p monitors and if you get 3 1600p monitors you have 12 megapixels six times the amount of 1080p. 1080p needs 1-2GB to run fine so 6GB cards do make sense for people with 10+ megapixels. As for noise just put a universal WB on it and use a side fan for the ram and VRMs. I actually own a regular Vapor-x and have the fans set to even more agressive settings hitting 90% speed at 68C resulting noise is not that bad much better then my RMAed 590 which was rather high pitched when it hit over 80% fan speed. The Vapor-x cooler is loud but doesn't give of an annoying noise that you can't hear over music and definitely not over the sounds of destruction in video games as it has a very similar frequency to the sound of collapsing buildings and lighter automatic weapons.

 

[eidairaman1]

i seen no point of bringing a month old topic back, especially when most know about the SLI and CrossFire Limitations.