Sapphire TOXIC X1950 XT-X

Zitat

The packaging is almost identical to the previous TOXIC model with a large clear plastic box housing the card - this does very little better than a cardboard box would but it does look nice. The master card bundle includes DVI to VGA and DVI to component video adapters, a Molex to six-pin PCI-Express power adapter, and the CrossFire cable. The slave card bundle includes two DVI to VGA adapters, a six-pin PCI Express power adapter, composite and S-Video ViVo, and finally component and S-Video cables. Both versions include a "Getting Started" manual, driver disc, CyberLink PowerDVD, and a copy of The Da Vinci Code game. This is a little below par for a flagship card but wouldn't completely put me off.

[...]The TOXICs outperformed the 8800GTX by an average of 55 per cent in Call of Duty 2 and 18 per cent in Prey, which is much faster than I was expecting. Other results were more mixed but the TOXICs still held their own, even in Quake 4, which ATI cards have traditionally struggled with. What is particularly noticeable is how well CrossFire scaled, with the dual cards, in some cases showing close to 100 per cent improvement over a reference X1950 XT-X.

The X1950 XT-X is clearly a good performer and a pair of them leaves the 8800GTX for dead. However, with Windows Vista just around the corner it is hard to recommend buying any card that doesn't support DirectX 10. Ultimately though, it’s the 8800GTS that makes life difficult for these TOXICs – with DX10 support, a price tag £70 lighter than the TOXIC, and a fairly quiet cooler to boot.