Introduction

It's not an easy job trying to review video card after video card. In all honesty, most are exactly the same. Many manufacturers only take the reference models from AMD or Nvidia and throw their branding on it, while others do something more. This is why some manufacturers are more successful than others. The added bonus that a manufacturer can offer over the competitors is what gives them the edge in the market. This is why we see overclocked models, cards redesigned with higher quality components, and more efficient coolers. Sure, they come at a higher price, but you run the risk of spotty components and horrible customer service from the lesser manufactured card. I can tell you from personal experience, you get what you pay for. Some deals are too good to be true.

Sapphire has come out with a branding called FleX. When purchasing a FleX Edition card, there are 2 main features behind the label. The first being its Eyefinity capabilities. Using an onboard chip, users could easily connect 3 monitors without any extra hassles. At the time of the 5770 FleX's release, adapters ran as much as $100 more. DisplayPort monitors are relatively new as well, so unless you purposefully sought them out, most users wouldn't have one. The second feature to the FleX label was the increased cooling capability. Sapphire has put special coolers on the FleX versions that far surpass the stock model coolers.

Sapphire is back on the scene with the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 FleX Edition. The Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 FleX comes with the onboard ability to use Eyefinity without the need of a DisplayPort monitor or Active DP adapter. The underlying 6950 is still the original stock model. This sports a 800MHz core clock and 1250MHz (5 Gb/s effective) memory speed. The HD 6950 has 2 DVI, 2 mini Display Port, and a single HDMI 1.4a slot. There is also advanced technology with the HD 6950, including dual graphics engines, 22 SIMD engines, and 88 texture units. Sapphire has also included TriXX utility support and their Vapor-X cooling solution.