OCLab's Quick Look at Sapphire HD7970 Toxic 6GB - The Best Air Cooled 7970

[RussianSensation]

OCLab.ru - Air Champion or review Sapphire HD 7970 Toxic

Looks like a real monster overclocker on air, with none of the marketing hype of the MSI Lightning model.

At 1.27V, with stock heatsink, the Sapphire HD 7970 Toxic managed to get stable operation at frequencies of 1300/1900 MHz. Impressive!

More pics in the article.

 

[Stuka87]

6GB of RAM is just asking for doing eyefinity with some 27" displays. But otherwise 6GB is way overkill.

 

[JAG87]

Hmm, isn't this the phantom card that was supposed to be clocked at 1335 Mhz... that all the AMD cheerleaders were quoting and trying to reference when mentioning 7970 overclocking? 1150 Mhz stock is not quite 1335 now is it... And 1300 at 1.27V is not quite stock either...

 

[Elfear]

That is very impressive for the stock heatsink. Site looks to be down or I would see how quiet it is. Thanks for sharing RS.

 

[Silverforce11]

6gb vram... might be good for professional HPC stuff.. but games? Really?! What a waste.

 

[Elfear]

Hmm, isn't this the phantom card that was supposed to be clocked at 1335 Mhz... that all the AMD cheerleaders were quoting and trying to reference when mentioning 7970 overclocking? 1150 Mhz stock is not quite 1335 now is it... And 1300 at 1.27V is not quite stock either...

I believe that was the rumored "Atomic" model. The "Toxic" model referenced here actually came in at higher clocks than the picture floating around.

 

[Grooveriding]

@russian

Beast card, what is the premium ?

Hmm, isn't this the phantom card that was supposed to be clocked at 1335 Mhz... that all the AMD cheerleaders were quoting and trying to reference when mentioning 7970 overclocking? 1150 Mhz stock is not quite 1335 now is it... And 1300 at 1.27V is not quite stock either...

At least you can adjust the voltage.....

 

[blackened23]

6gb vram... might be good for professional HPC stuff.. but games? Really?! What a waste.

Its for eyefinity 6.

 

[RussianSensation]

That is very impressive for the stock heatsink. Site looks to be down or I would see how quiet it is. Thanks for sharing RS.

It's more like a quick look. They didn't do a review with games, power consumption or noise level testing. Just a look at the card, overclocking and 3Dmark11 score.

@russian

Beast card, what is the premium ?

No info on the price right now. I am guessing at least $649 due to 6GB of VRAM. They better hurry if they want to milk it. They probably have 6 months before GK110 is out with 4GB of VRAM and 512-bit memory bandwidth.

I am more impressed that finally there is an HD7970 that can do 1300mhz on air. I wonder how long AMD will hold out before doing an HD4870--> HD4890 style clock bump. HD7970 should be for "re-launched" at 1150mhz speeds. That would allow them to maintain their $500+ price levels until the fall.

6gb vram... might be good for professional HPC stuff.. but games? Really?! What a waste.

6GB is excessive but if these cards can regularly hit 1300mhz on air, that's a 40% overclock from stock. There was so much hype behind MSI Lightning and that card totally didn't live up to the hype. Here is a 7970 that will ship with 1150mhz stock speeds and hit 1300mhz on air. That sounds good to me, assuming it doesn't have a stratospheric price.

 

[Grooveriding]

It's more like a quick look. They didn't do a review with games, power consumption or noise level testing. Just a look at the card, overclocking and 3Dmark11 score.



No info on the price right now. I am guessing at least $649 due to 6GB of VRAM. They better hurry if they want to milk it. At best they probably have 6 months before GK110 is out with 4GB of VRAM and 512-bit memory bandwidth.

I am more impressed that finally there is an HD7970 that can do 1300mhz on air. I wonder how long AMD will hold out before doing an HD4870--> HD4890 style clock bump. HD7970 should be for "re-launched" at 1150mhz speeds. That would allow them to maintain their $500+ price levels until the fall.

Lol, not OBR links ?! That guy is worthless.

This card will be at least $600 for sure. Yeah a high clocked 7970 or a price drop is in order to make the card worth it again.

 

[IlllI]

anyone besides me wonder what that transparent blue plastic thingy is?
or maybe I should say wonder about it's function?

 

[badb0y]

anyone besides me wonder what that transparent blue plastic thingy is?
or maybe I should say wonder about it's function?

I think they are LEDs for the VRMs.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Wow that is a sweet looking card. 6gb of vram is insane, but this is the extreme top end.

 

[RussianSensation]

anyone besides me wonder what that transparent blue plastic thingy is?
or maybe I should say wonder about it's function?

This card has 8+3 power phases. The VRM controller features multiple software configurations. The blue LEDs on the card will indicate actual vGPU Phase loading (or something like that).

 

[SlowSpyder]

At least you can adjust the voltage.....

Didn't you learn anything from the GTX590 launch? No one adjusts the voltage on these expensive enthusiast cards. I remember a few members here chanting that after GTX590's were failing with voltage increases.

This card has 8+3 power phases. The VRM controller features multiple software configurations. The blue LEDs on the card will indicate actual vGPU Phase loading (or something like that).

Sapphire makes some incredible cards. Before my current 7970 I had two Sapphire Vapor-X 5870's and before that a Sapphire Toxic 4870. I really liked those cards, they were fantastic. This card looks like a monster as well.

In the MSI Lightning thread I mentioned that they tend to get the hype, but it seems like they're cards are typically not fantastic overclockers... you'll get reference-capable overclocks out of them, though I'm sure the Lightning is quiet vs. the reference.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Hmm, isn't this the phantom card that was supposed to be clocked at 1335 Mhz... that all the AMD cheerleaders were quoting and trying to reference when mentioning 7970 overclocking? 1150 Mhz stock is not quite 1335 now is it... And 1300 at 1.27V is not quite stock either...

Vapor-X is not Sapphire's highest end enthusiast cards. They typically also make a Toxic and Atomic model that are more extreme. The Vapor-X is a 'small' overclock with a very quiet cooler, at least that has what they have been in the past. This looks more or less the same with a bit larger percentage overclock then I would expect for a Vapor-X card.

 

[Zanovar]

saxy looking card,when are you gonna buy it for me russian?

 

[Lepton87]

This is indisputably the fastest stock clocked single GPU card out there, at least at 2560x1600(1440). 1080p doesn't matter for a card with 6GB of RAM. nvidia fanboys will probably say that GTX680 is still faster though. Look at that memory frequency, just awesome. This higher density RAM is also faster than standard 7970 RAM. GTX680 would have benefited from 1900MHz much more, maybe those 4GB versions will use that very same RAM.

 

[Lyfer]

That thing is a beast. 6GB of RAM!

 

[wand3r3r]

Nice card, too bad they seem to have a crappy warranty!

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/support/support_index.aspx?cid=3&psn=000203&lid=1

 

[superjim]

I always thought the Lightning models were nice but over-hyped. I love Sapphire. They're the sleeper AIB for AMD that doesn't get the respect they deserve from the mainstream consumer. They make fantastic heatsink/fan solutions, this being an obvious case of that.

 

[RussianSensation]

saxy looking card,when are you gonna buy it for me russian?

As soon as they release the "Russian" edition with a real nuclear reactor core and when you can crossfire 7 of them under 1 roof, just like the good old days. I'll buy 8 and give you 1. :biggrin:

 

[Zanovar]

As soon as they release the "Russian" edition with a real nuclear reactor core and when you can crossfire 7 of them under 1 roof. I'll buy 8 and give you 1.

heheh.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

365GB/s of Memory bandwidth overclocked. That's insane!!!

 

[chimaxi83]

I agree, I think Sapphire is top one or two AIB for AMD, along with MSI. They even added heat sinks to the VRM's on this card, my Gigabyte 7950 left them naked lol :'(