Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 FleX Edition 2GB Graphics Card Review

The first thing that stands out with this card is the cooler as it literally takes up the whole of the card and is something we’ve seen before as it uses the type of cooler from the Sapphire FleX range. It’s mainly made from plastic and includes a large fan and has always been a good cooler as it sufficiently cools the card whilst maintaining a low acoustic noise.

In typical 6950 fashion, two 6-pin PCI-Express connectors are situated along the top edge of the card.

Moving towards the rear of the card, we find two CrossFireX connectors allowing us to use this card along with other similar cards to gain maximum performance.

Also, just next to the CrossFireX connectors is a hidden switch for changing between the two BIOS versions. This is especially handy for those who are keen on flashing the BIOS with a 6970 BIOS as they can simply switch back if things go wrong.

Taking a look at the rear I/O on this card is where things really start to get interesting as it differs slightly from a non-FleX card. Generally a card like this would feature at least a DisplayPort connection, but this has nothing of the sort. Instead we find a DVI-D port, DVI-I port, HDMI and two Mini DisplayPort ports. With the use of the HDMI and two DVI ports, a user can easily and simply set up a triple monitor Eyefinity display.

In terms of the specification of this card, we find the stock HD 6950 default core clock of 800MHz and 1250MHz on the memory, though we’ve seen the same memory used on other cards at a slightly faster speed. Though the speeds may not seem that impressive, this card is focussed in other areas and if you are a user wanting more, Sapphire allow you to do so through the use of CrossFireX functionality.