[TT] Sapphire TOXIC 6GB 7970 GHz Edition Review - Page 16

this card has terrible video out choice. anybody buying a card for this much and using it on a tv should consider maybe a reular 7970 perhaps? lol there's no real justification for the repeated failed execution on these high end 7970's with single link dvi and hdmi ports.

@lacrossewascker: avoid that auria monitor in microcenter. it's build quality is crappy.

Just responding to your advise to avoid the auria monitors at microcenter. To my knowledge, they're just like any other hp/dell monitor, however, they're the ones that didn't quite make the quality control cut.

So rather than trashing it, they sell to lower binned companies like Auria. So going into the purchase, I'd expect possible light bleeding or a dead pixel here or there.

Other than that, is there something else i am missing?

I figured I could try one, then return it within 30 days, or exchange for another if the model i bought was quite faulty.


let me know!

you can go for one and see if it works out. I bought one a couple of months back before I got my 670. mine had an uneven stand and something seemed off about the backlight, but maybe I wasn't used to it. the fourth day I had it I went out for about 6 hours and when I came back the spot where my core temp was open it retained a slight imprint on the screen. the colors weren't bad, they reminded me of this glossy HP monitor I was going to get instead (but that was 1080p) and response time seemed ok. I took it back after a week because I wasn't sure if it would work well or for how long. there was actually a couple of threads on here about it a few months back.

3 screen review:
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/42577-sapphires-monster-hd-7970-toxic-6gb-three-screens/

Dodgy results imo.

Not very surprising results. More vram does not equal more performance. More gpu power equals more performance. Unless you are running like 3 1600p monitors with 32xMSAA or 5 monitors or somthing, the extra vram just doesn't do anything. But many people still like to believe vram is everything, when it is not.

Unless you have a 5 monitor setup and are trying to go crazy with AA, this card is essentially useless. A regular 3gb 7970 is more than enough.

I have no clue why so many people think of vram as horsepower. You should think of vram as regular ram. If you have enough everything is fast, but if you run out and have to use virtual memory from your hard drive then you will get slow downs. But having excess doesn't do anything for you performance wise.
Edited by icehotshot - 7/18/12 at 7:49am

The reason I said dodgy results is because Radeon beat GeForce in AC at 1080p.

Nothing dodgy about. Extra vram doesn't equal extra fps. The vram will only come in handy when gpu usage drops due to running out of memory.

Think of vram as fuel for your car . Gas gives you the means to keep going, but doesn't add any horse power or extra speed to the vehicle.

I was talking about the AC results at 1080p.

You should make a new news post with that. Or I can.
Edited by icehotshot - 7/18/12 at 8:29am

I must point out the sad fact that this pointless card cant actually do 5 screens. For 3x 1600p 3 Gb is enough even if you sit so close to the screen that having 2x or even 4x AA makes sense. 3x 1600p is approx 12 megapixels. I'm running 5x 1080p (approx 10 megapixels) with 1 Gb (that is not enough) but up to approx 6 megapixels (3x 1080p) the 1 Gb of vRAM is not limiting (unless you go nuts with AA or something else particularly memory intensive), so for 12 megapixels (3x1600p) approx 2 Gb is adequate and 3 Gb is the "sweet spot" as you have enough to spare to not have to think about it even if you dial up the AA by a notch or two.

So I must strongly agree with the statement that regular 7970 is actually better card than this particular one when clocked to the same level. If you want to do Eyefinity then the best bet atm is the get Asus DCU2 or MSI Lighting over this one as those, while having their limitations and issues can at least do 5 and 6 screens, respectively.

Edit: As far as Hexus three screen review goes at 3x 1080p the difference between 2 Gb, 3 Gb and 6 Gb framebuffers does not exist at all as for that resolution approx 1 Gb gets the job done. So they have evaluated the card performance in there not if the larger frame buffer has any effect as it does not. They do apply 4x..8x AA levels though so 1 Gb might be limiting with that amount of AA (in combination of extra large texture packs) but then again in reality 3 screen array is unusable if you sit so close that having more than 2x AA makes any sense.
Edited by Carniflex - 7/18/12 at 8:57am