Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 FleX Review - PAGE 20

Temperature:

To measure core GPU temperature, MSI's Kombustor was used. The idle temperature was taken after leaving nothing running for up to 15 minutes. The load temperature was taken 15 minutes after starting Kombuster for Multi-Core graphics cards

The thermal solution used on the FleX is very efficient and quiet. In our testing the FleX only reached 66°C at load, which is very impressive for a high-end graphics card. With the large centralized fan, the noise is greatly reduced in comparison to other cards in the 6900 series.

Power Usage:

To measure power usage, a Kill A Watt P4400 power meter was used. Note that the above numbers represent the power drain for the entire benchmarking system, not just the video cards themselves. For the 'idle' readings we measured the power drain from the desktop, with no applications running; for the 'load' situation, we took the sustained peak power drain readings at the end of a 15 minute run of Unigine 2.1.

The power usage of the FleX edition graphics card was also very good. After running Ungine 2.1 for 15 minutes the peak power rating was 326 Watts, which places it right between the HD 6870 and GTX 460.

Conclusion:

Eyefinity is a technology that fits into a niche segment of the market. This is due to most gamers preferring a single monitor solution, but regardless of the demand, there is a group of consumers that are either utilizing the technology or looking to utilize it. For this group, Sapphire has created their FleX series, which offers enhanced Eyefinity support via added on-board circuitry and included display adapters. This makes the setup easier and reduces the overall cost by eliminating the need to buy expensive adapters. In addition, the Sapphire HD 6970 FleX is currently the highest performing single GPU solution to feature enhanced Eyefinity support. All of this makes the HD 6950 FleX a ideal solution for anyone on a budget, yet still looking to utilize Eyefinity without sacrificing performance.

Still, the support can be somewhat limited, as the FleX edition graphics card is mostly beneficial to gamers using three monitor configurations. This is due to the fact that it can easily support three low cost DVI monitors, but needs expensive DisplayPort monitors to utilize four or five displays. So, while the Eyefinity support is a step above most current graphics cards on the market, it will still cost top dollar to expand beyond three monitors.

Beyond the Eyefinity support, the Sapphire FleX features excellent performance and also includes a very robust cooling solution. This is due to FleX edition graphics card using the Cayman Pro graphics processor, and having a large 2GB frame buffer. With these specifications the Sapphire HD 6950 FleX was able to achieve excellent frame rates with resolutions up to 2560x1600 and even did very well in our Eyefinity testing. So, if you’re looking to utilize Eyefinity on a budget, this card is the best option available under $300.