By releasing its Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card, AMD managed to get on top of things once again and Sapphire decided it is the right time and chip to be featured in its newest Toxic Edition graphics card, the HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition.
Judging by the specs it is quite clear that Sapphire's newest Toxic Edition graphics card will easily end up the fastest single GPU graphics card that money can buy. The new Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition is based on AMD's Tahiti XT2 GPU that has been pushed even further as it works at 1050MHz base and 1100MHz Powertune Boost clock while those 6GB of GDDR5 memory is set to work at 6000MHz.
To spice things up and make the Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition really special, Sapphire has integrated the new Sapphire Lethal Boost Button, that pushes the base clock to 1100MHz and boost clock to 1200MHz while memory is set to work at 6400MHz. The Lethal Boost Button also changes the fan profile and Powertune limit.
Since this is its cream of the crop, Sapphire deicded to use a premium set of components and VRM design named Lethal Power Suite. The new graphics card is equipped with 8-phase power design for the GPU VDDC with two additional phase for VDDCI and MVDD. The entire card is made on a 12-layer PCB and paired up with double sided Black Diamond Chokes.
In order to keep this beast well cooled, Sapphire paired it up with its Vapor-X cooler that features a new vapor chamber designed especially for this graphics card. The cooler features four heatpipes (2x6mm and 2x8mm), and cooled by two 90mm fans. Sapphire also incorporated the PCB Temperature LED feature, a built in onboard LED that monitors the PCB temperature.
These features come with at a price and while a standard Sapphire HD 7970 3GB graphics card is currently selling in Europe at around €400-450, the Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition is currently listed with a lowest price set at €624,89. Unfortunately, it is still not available but according to Sapphire, it should appear on retail/e-tail shelves pretty soon.
You can find it listed here.
