Sapphire HD6850 TOXIC Edition Review
Introduction
Specialist versions of graphics cards have been a little hit and miss over the years. Sometimes huge coolers and tiny overclocks have created over-priced cards with barely any performance improvement over their stock brethren. Others though, such as the TOXIC Editions from Sapphire that we’re looking at today, have been consistently impressive.
The last couple of HD6850s that we have reviewed have been good performers in stock trim, but rather disappointing when it came to either their ability to overclock, or the benfits that are to be gained from doing so.
Rather than focus on producing a non-reference cooling solution bristling with heat-pipes and the like, Sapphire have focussed on improving an already good value product with increases to GPU Core speed and Memory.
Given how minimal the gains from overclocking a stock HD6850 are, we’re very interested to see if a manufacturer overclock can lead to any worthwhile improvements or if this is a possibly an upgrade too far.
Technical Specifications
Popping over to the excellent Sapphire website we find the technical specs for the HD6850 TOXIC Edition as follows.
| Output | 1 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI 1.4a 2 x Mini-DisplayPort 1 x Single-Link DVI-D DisplayPort 1.2 |
| GPU | 820 MHz Core Clock 40 nm Chip 960 x Stream Processors |
| Memory | 1024 MB Size 256 -bit GDDR5 4400 MHz Effective |
| Software | Driver CD SAPPHIRE TriXX Utility |
| Accessory | CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect Cable D-Sub Adapter Mini-DP to DP Cable 6 PIN to 4 PIN Power Cable HDMI 1.4a high speed 1.8 meter cable |
The main improvement is an upgrade of the GPU Core speed from the default of 775MHz to 820MHz. Memory also sees a significant boost from the 4000MHz of the original HD6850 to a monster 4400MHz on the TOXIC. Sapphire have also greatly increased the output options available.
