Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Dirt 3 Edition Graphics Card Review

Final ThoughtsWhen we received this card, its assumption was that a bog-standard 6950 was inside with a Dirt 3 voucher, but it was a pleasant surprise to see an after-market cooler with a twin-fan setup, which will look stylish with any setup due to the black plastic cooler. The cooler is good, and offers some reasonable temperatures and quiet noise ouput, but other similar after-market cards offer a bit more including pre-overclocked speeds, which sadly this card doesn’t offer and doesn’t have any other unique features compared to stock, which is quite upsetting.

The inclusion of Dirt 3 is a nice touch, and something that it seems Sapphire have been keen to push as a key partner for AMD and Codemasters in the completely Dirt 3 franchise. Another nice included extra is the HDMI cable, which we very rarely see with AMD based graphics cards, and is generally left up to Nvidia to cater for.

Performance wise it’s a bit hit and miss. It’s stock speeds provide a reasonable set of results, and the extra memory comes in handy in certain applications and games, but the majority are happy with 1GB of graphics memory, which also obviously cuts down on costs too.

The card does include the Dual BIOS switch, which albeit is hidden quite well, it does open up the doorway for unlocking your card into 6970 territory. Obviously this is dependant on the card you have, and isn’t something that can be guaranteed.

Being a hit and miss kind of card, we feel that the only redemption it may have is the price, but sadly it’s priced quite high in the UK at £207 from Pixmania but is a bit more reasonably priced at $264.99 at Newegg, but for the hardcore racing game fans, this may be a two birds in one stone.​