Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 TOXIC 4GB preview

[Skurge]

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3230/sapphire_radeon_hd_5970_toxic_4gb_video_card/index.html

I guess they weren't kidding when they said the fastest graphics card in the world.

 

[Borealis7]

arrrgh you beat me by 3 minutes!

yes, this card really wanted 4GB of VRam and now it got it. but 100W more in load?? that's HAWT.

and just 2 small questions...why weren't they using the 10.3a drivers instead of 10.3 ones?
i'm sure they wont re-bench this card when 10.4 drivers are released so why not use the best drivers available?
and why no temperature tests?

nice card, Sapphire.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Great, as if it wasn't hard enough trying to decide between the Asus ROG ARES &ore i7 980X this is starting to show now as well.

I'm going to have to make more money.

 

[Apocalypse23]

Hmmm, nice.

 

[Skurge]

arrrgh you beat me by 3 minutes!

yes, this card really wanted 4GB of VRam and now it got it. but 100W more in load?? that's HAWT.

and just 2 small questions...why weren't they using the 10.3a drivers instead of 10.3 ones?
i'm sure they wont re-bench this card when 10.4 drivers are released so why not use the best drivers available?
and why no temperature tests?

nice card, Sapphire.

lol,

I'll ask Shane about the drivers.

At the end he did say the temp and noise would be coming in the final review.
At least it makes good use of the extra power it uses.
I also wouldv liked to see eyefinity resolutions

 

[Attic]

holy friggen awsome performance

 

[MagickMan]

AC Accelero Xtreme HSF, no doubt it'll be rather quiet and effective. I just hate that it dumps the heat into the case. Great numbers though, really kicks the 480's ass.

 

[Apocalypse23]

I'm wondering at this point, how much of a difference we can see at clock for clock settings when compared to a regular 1GB 5970, surely the 1 gig edition is capable of a mild 900/1200 OC I believe. I'm growing impatient awaiting to build my i7 setup to test this out. The real advantage in the 4GB version would be at Eyefinity resolutions I know for sure. I'm also curious to see what this card wil be priced at, the downside is that it is still not voltage moddable being non-referenced.

 

[3DVagabond]

Wow!!!

 

[SolMiester]

Would have liked to see a SLI GTX4xx series in there..they said its triple slot so you would only run 1 card & the GTX scales better...
However is the improvement due to more memory or faster dual GPUs?

 

[Skurge]

Would have liked to see a SLI GTX4xx series in there..they said its triple slot so you would only run 1 card & the GTX scales better...
However is the improvement due to more memory or faster dual GPUs?

I think it mainly the faster gpus, the extra ram would come into its own when using eyefinity.
I thinks its pretty fair to compare single cards, even if one of them is dual gpu.

 

[BD231]

Powerrrrrrrrrrrrr! Like honestly, it's just disturbing what the HD 5970 TOXIC from Sapphire can do to one of the most intensive games on the market. It's sooooo fast; we love it

Creepy writer .... I want that card though.

 

[Borealis7]

Powerrrrrrrrrrrrr! Like honestly, it's just disturbing what the HD 5970 TOXIC from Sapphire can do to one of the most intensive games on the market. It's sooooo fast; we love it

Creepy writer .... I want that card though.

i think he was referencing Jeremy Clarkson.

 

[allthatisman]

i think he was referencing Jeremy Clarkson.

This.

 

[Ares202]

That thing is a beast

 

[Borealis7]

this thing requires its own PSU! 500 W load is ridonkulous. and its not even furmark, meaning this can go higher (until the card throttles itself)

 

[MrRamon]

this thing requires its own PSU! 500 W load is ridonkulous. and its not even furmark, meaning this can go higher (until the card throttles itself)

You do know that is the total system draw including an overclocked I7...

 

[HurleyBird]

The power draw is huge, but it's only (heh, 'only') drawing 50w more than GTX 480 under load, and a lot less in idle. For the performance it gives, the power draw is worth it, at least vs. Nvidia's best.

 

[3DVagabond]

The power draw is huge, but it's only (heh, 'only') drawing 50w more than GTX 480 under load, and a lot less in idle. For the performance it gives, the power draw is worth it, at least vs. Nvidia's best.

Personally, while the card is a gorilla, ~400W power draw is a bit excessive, IMO. I think the manufacturers and board partners should be strictly held to the 300W pcie standard. Forget about raising it, too. These guys want to come out with "new and improved" to sell us, let them do it with better tech at 300W. I'm willing to allow for brief peak draws above that, but with a constant 100% CPU load the draw shouldn't exceed a "continuous" 300W. The test needs to be a cerified and accepted/agreed upon load. The card should have to be able to run this load for a predetermined period (say 20min) without overheating, throttling, shutting down, artifacts, etc...

Needing 3 slots to cool a card is a bit over the top too. Call me a Republican if you want.

 

[Madcatatlas]

Republican!

 

[3DVagabond]

Republican!

Hey! I was kiddin' about that part.

 

[Madcatatlas]

anyway:
1) this card is produced in very limited numbers, much like the 480
2) I doubt the entusiasts will worry about this card handling that much heat/power consumption, since we do know it was designed to handle it.

 

[Janooo]

Nice card and very nice Vantage scores.

But, why to use dual gpu when single 5870 can do it as well?

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18462/1/

 

[MrK6]

Wow, those results a pretty damn ridiculous, I must say. I would have liked to see some Crysis or STALKER to let that 4GB of VRAM stretch it's legs . I"m very impressed with the power consumption numbers considering the performance. It would have been nice to hear a sound comparison too; I imagine the fans are relatively quiet.

 

[Madcatatlas]

I want a REview of this card ASAP.... Hoping Anandtech and Hardocp will give us a treat!