Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 FleX Edition 2GB Graphics Card Review
Andy Ruffell / 13 years ago
Graphics cards are a funny thing, because we end up with AMD and Nvidia constantly competing and releasing new models of GPU’s left right and centre and then suddenly we see nothing. The only products that end up being released are revamped versions of older cards, but that’s not to say they aren’t any good, as that couldn’t be further from the truth.
This is where Sapphire enter the game as they are always keen on promoting their product ranges which are specific to different consumers and aimed at suitable markets. The FleX range of cards are aimed at users wanting the very best, for the very best price and with multiple screen configurations in mind. Now when we say multiple screen configurations, we’re well aware that AMD have that sown up with Eyefinity, but Sapphire have harnessed that technology and tweaked it slightly to offer a five screen setup using this one card and more importantly, without the need for expensive DisplayPort monitors that can cost an absolute fortune; especially when buying five of them.
This is where Eyefinity fails to be frank as a typical triple monitor Eyefinity arrangement generally requires one of the outputs to be a DisplayPort which leaves the user purchasing one of the expensive monitors or an active dongle which in its own right can be quite pricey. The FleX range of cards gets around that by changing things up, but it doesn’t just give you different display outputs, but offers so much more.
Being part of the FleX range also gives it the style treatment with a unique cooler and overall design on their range of cards and this can lead to added performance, quietness and of course thermal efficiency.
With the Radeon HD 6950 being one of the top cards at the moment considering its overall price vs performance outweighing any of the competition, Sapphire felt the need to give it the FleX treatment with a variety of display outputs and the sheer compute power that we’ve come to love from the 6950 based card, but how well does it work when it all comes together? We got hold of one of the cards so that we could find out first hand, for ourselves.
