SAPPHIRE TOXIC HD6950 Video Card Review @ [H]

motha fucka is back in stock!
and if you want deus ex free, scroll to the bottom of the screen and you gotta click a different link (buy together and save!) to add deux ex coupon lol. it's stupid, i know, but I guess that's how they still have some leftover. I was gonna order 3, one for myself and one for two of my friends whom I'm building comps for, but MiR is one per household :(
 
I hope they stay in stock until next week. Hey no one buy any or buy two and next Friday if they're out of stock put them up in the for sale section so I can buy them. :D
 
I'm so upset right now lol. I missed it by a few minutes. I was up at 5:15 and didn't check :( By the time I checked at 6:30 it was long gone.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Note when flipping the switch you must flip it with the computer completely turned off, power supply off, everything. Flip it, wait a few seconds, then boot up. We also re-installed our drivers once we bios flipped it.
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I'm in the same boat - flipped the bios switch to position 1 and GPU-Z still reported 1408 shaders. However, I didn't flip off the power on my Corsair TX750 PS, so I'll give this a try when I get home. If that doesn't work, I'll reinstall the drivers, too.

Thanks, Brent, and thanks HardOCP for such a great website. I bought this card on the strength of your review, and as always, I trusted you to deliver the straight goods on this card. That's exactly what you did.

Also, could you guys maybe add an update to the original article with a link to the updated bios fix once Sappphire releases it? That would be amazing.

Thanks again.
 
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anubis44 said:
Also, could you guys maybe add an update to the original article with a link to the updated bios fix once Sappphire releases it? That would be amazing.

Thanks again.
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+1. I'm hoping Sapphire issues a formal BIOS update before I even get my card. I wasn't planning on buying a vid card for my build before everything else is bought, but this card looks like its worth the effort to find one.
 
Anyone find one of these for sale at any other sites? I'm ready to pull the trigger on my new system but this seems like the 6950 to get.
 
Since Newegg here in Canada seems to have even more trouble stocking 6950s than Newegg US, i finally caved and bought it from a local Canada Computers here in Ottawa.

The card was $319.99 and no Deus Ex coupon, but what the hell: just gave my trusty old Sapphire 4850 to a friend and didn't want to wait to get my eyefinity setup running finally! Also, in Canada Newegg charges $12.99 for shipping, and the rebates are often a credit rather than actual money, plus i can easily go right back to the store if the card is defective and exchange it for another one on the spot rather than paying $20 shipping and waiting for a week or more.
 
wow it is oos again lol. I only got one card, guess I'll just give it to my buddy. I'm building my pc in october hoping for price drops and whatnot. This should be able to run the shit out of battlefield 3 at 1920x1080, yeah? Cooling system on this sounds so...cool.
 
sethmo said:
So some testing:

Flipped switched to the left: GPU-Z shows 1408 shaders, BIOS in RBE shows the 6950 shaders box checked.
Flipped the switch to the right: GPU-Z shows 1408 shaders, BIOS in RBE shows the 6970 shaders box checked.
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I'm in the same boat, did you make any progress from there? Or are we in the unlucky 10-20%.

Not sure if I should accept defeat yet or try to flash bios. I'm wearing out that little switch.
 
Are the new toxics already coming with the fixed BIOS? So no need for setting power settings to 50?
 
Is it correct to assume that setting the card power draw to +25~ will not damage the card in anyway after prolonged use?
 
Just walked into Canada Computers' Whitby location and walked out with a 6950 Toxic + DeusEx and Dirt 3 coupons.

Will be installing it in a bit and placing a FS ad for an Asus 4890TOP+DeusEx+Dirt 3 combo. :D

Looks like I'll be pushing my Corsair HX520 pretty close to its limit now...
 
your psu will be fine, unless you have 20 hard drives and and 40 fans or something.

A normalish i5/i7 overclocked rig and that card will only use about 2/3 of that PSU.
 
Just looking at the full load numbers from the shader unlocked/overclocked section and comparing them to my Q6600 @ 3.6, fully populated RAM slots with 8GB and then thinking about the 80%ish efficiency rating of the PSU itself.

I know it will work but I think I'm going to be closer to the pop point than you think. :D

I'm going to stop thinking about it now though and will post an 'OMG SAPPHIRE KILLED MY COMPUTER' thread in the PSU section if necessary.

Come to think of something else, I shouldn't even be buying Sapphire products, what with my 'boycott Saphhire' thread from back 5 years or so. ha ha
 
so im testing my friends toxic he got a week ago (dirt 3 coupon only) bios 2 is a 6950 with 1408. Bios 1 is also 1408 but i pulled the bios off and looked at it in RBE and it had the 6950 -> 6970 box checked, Bios 2 doesnt. So my card didnt unlock and yes i did reinstall the drivers after changing the switch.
 
snaggletooth said:
Just looking at the full load numbers from the shader unlocked/overclocked section and comparing them to my Q6600 @ 3.6, fully populated RAM slots with 8GB and then thinking about the 80%ish efficiency rating of the PSU itself.

I know it will work but I think I'm going to be closer to the pop point than you think. :D

I'm going to stop thinking about it now though and will post an 'OMG SAPPHIRE KILLED MY COMPUTER' thread in the PSU section if necessary.

Come to think of something else, I shouldn't even be buying Sapphire products, what with my 'boycott Saphhire' thread from back 5 years or so. ha ha
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I highly doubt it.
I ran a overclocked i5 rig at 4.0 with 4 HDD and 2x470 overclocked on a 750watt corsair for 6 months straight without issue and that unit has been running for another year since then without issue. I figure I was using about 425watts gaming.
 
I'll bet I'm close... like, within 20% of my cap for this PSU. But the shaders unlocked and I'm pouring the power to it anyways. ha ha

Pretty sweet card.
 
Darn, the moment I thought I could convince myself to buy a GTX 560ti/OCed HD6870 - [H] came-up with this review! I'll have to do start from the scratch once again. I've not seen many HD6950 OCing like that, that's just awesome.
 
Takeda Kenshi said:
AVAILABLE NOW

(Just bought one.)
Click to expand...

Ha, yup, just came here to post the same. Finally got my second card...yay!

Added 99 to my card and found that they currently have 85 in stock. GO GO GO!

Also, make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page and get the combo with the free Deus Ex card!!!!
 
Dammit dammit dammit ..... what do I do .... been reading some awesome stuff about the 7xxx series, but I want one of these bad.
 
That's_Corporate said:
wait, bro!

when the 7000 series comes out, you can either get one of those, or a 6000 series on the cheap
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I had made up my mind to wait for 7xxx until I read the reviews on this card. Had it been in stock, I would've pulled the trigger right then. The 2 games, the potential for the 6970 unlock, and the rebate are just calling my name.

I think what I need to do is cool off, go play STALKER, and if this is still in stock I may very well order it later. I want it bad.
 
Has any tried flipping the switch before installing the card to see if they get 1508 shaders
 
Nice, was waiting for this to come back in stock. Just ordered one. Now to wait for another rebate offer to appear for it so I can order another for crossfire :)
 
Just pulled the trigger on one. Will be interested in seeing if it can unlock to a 6970, but sounds like it will be pretty awesome even if it doesn't.
 
infospace said:
Has any tried flipping the switch before installing the card to see if they get 1508 shaders
Click to expand...

Well, 1536 shaders, but yeah, that's what I did. Took it out of the box, flipped the switch, slapped 'er in, 1536 shaders. Bam!
 
Parja said:
Ha, yup, just came here to post the same. Finally got my second card...yay!

Added 99 to my card and found that they currently have 85 in stock. GO GO GO!

Also, make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page and get the combo with the free Deus Ex card!!!!
Click to expand...

@#$#@$@#! I ordered it last night and didn't see that. I'd hate to cancel and order another.
 
Call Newegg and ask them, they are pretty reasonable about this kind of thing.... usually.
 
I've never built a pc before and was contemplating getting this card but the bios thing has me wondering. Is it much of a pain to fix for the computer illiterate?
 
I'd be interested to hear anyone's subjective experience of the fan noise on their Toxic. Mine has a very noticeable buzz/whine, even at low speeds. As noted in the review, I can't really hear the air being moved until around 40-50% fan speed, but this other noise cuts through the rest of the system noise. I'm wondering if it's atypical or not.
 
snaggletooth said:
Just looking at the full load numbers from the shader unlocked/overclocked section and comparing them to my Q6600 @ 3.6, fully populated RAM slots with 8GB and then thinking about the 80%ish efficiency rating of the PSU itself.

I know it will work but I think I'm going to be closer to the pop point than you think. :D

I'm going to stop thinking about it now though and will post an 'OMG SAPPHIRE KILLED MY COMPUTER' thread in the PSU section if necessary.

Come to think of something else, I shouldn't even be buying Sapphire products, what with my 'boycott Saphhire' thread from back 5 years or so. ha ha
Click to expand...

I have tried running dual 5870s and dual 6950s with the same setup (Q6600 @ 3.6GHz and 8GB ram w/ 700W PSU) and it's fine. That eats twice the power that this toxic card will. An HX520 will be fine.
 
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