Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 DiRT 3 Edition Review - PAGE 1

The Sapphire HD 6950 DiRT 3 Edition is essentially a standard Cayman Pro based graphics card with key features that separate it from the rest of the herd. The first "feature" is, as the name suggests, a free code good for downloading a copy of DiRT 3, the third iteration in Codemasters' celebrating off-road racing game series and one of the hottest titles released this summer. Sapphire has also improved the on-board thermal solution by increasing the size of the cooling surface area and adding five copper heatpipes. By including a $50 game and improving the GPU cooling of the HD 6950 alone, Sapphire has effectively increased the overall value of their HD 6950 model.

Along with the free code for DiRT 3 and the improved thermal performance, the HD 6950 DiRT 3 Edition graphics card also includes all the key features supported by AMD's Northern Islands architecture. These consist of support for DirectX 11, Eyefinity Multi-Dispaly technology, AMD HD3D, High-Speed HDMI 1.4a and Accelerated Parallel Processing. This model also utilizes a large 2GB GDDR5 memory buffer that makes it ideal for gaming at high resolutions and settings.

Perhaps the best aspect of the Sapphire HD 6950 DiRT 3 edition graphics card is that it includes the bundled software and improved thermal solution without increasing the premium of the graphics card. In fact, a quick online retailer search actually shows that the DiRT 3 edition graphics card is currently retailing for $5 lower than the reference board. Already this model looks to be an excellent solution for anyone looking for a new graphics card and wanting to add a copy of DiRT 3 to their gaming library.