Board analysis

If you recall our review of Sapphire’s Radeon X1900 XTX Blizzard (which was renamed to the TOXIC after we published our review), you’ll see that today’s TOXIC X1950 XTX board looks awfully similar to its predecessor based on the X1900 XTX GPU. Unless you look really close, you’d be hard-pressed to see any differences.

It looks like Sapphire is using the exact same liquid cooler that was previously used on the TOXIC X1900 XTX. In fact, the sticker on our X1950 XTX review sample clearly read “TOXIC Liquid Cooled X1900 XTX”.

If you recall, the cooler itself is manufactured by the cooling aficionados at Thermaltake and it’s loosely based on Thermaltake’s retail liquid cooling solution for VGA cards, the Tide Water. The cooling system Thermaltake has developed for Sapphire is composed of two pieces, a water block which keeps the GPU cool, and a second external cooling unit which feeds the water block with fresh coolant. Inside the cooling unit rests an all-copper radiator, a 12V pump, water reservoir, and finally a fan which is responsible for supplying cool air to the entire unit. The cooling unit used on the Sapphire board is a little thinner than Thermaltake’s Tide Water, occupying only a single slot in comparison to the Tide Water’s two slots, and a slightly different fan is used on the Sapphire TOXIC, but overall the concept and design is quite similar. So how does it all work?

Oops. X1900 XTX labeled on a X1950 card

Water block covers the GPU

Opposite angle

A water block sits atop the X1950 XTX GPU for cooling, which is connected to two rubber hoses. One hose is responsible for feeding fresh, cold coolant to the water block, while the second hose takes the coolant that’s been used to cool the GPU back to the external cooling unit, where it can be cooled once again for use on the GPU.

This cycle is constantly running in motion, working to keep the graphics core cool. The 12V pump at the back of the Blizzard unit is responsible for keeping the water in motion, while the radiator works to keep the coolant cool. The coolant itself is cooled by the radiator at the back of the cooling unit. The radiator is a large, all-copper unit, with heat pipes for greater cooling, and is composed of numerous thin fins to increase its surface area. Finally, to help keep everything cool, a fan is used to pass fresh cool air from within your PC’s case over the radiator and its fins before the air exhausts outside your system’s case at the end of the cooler. At the center of the fan lies a blue LED for added flair.

The top of the Sapphire cooling unit with sticker

Cooling unit undressed

Hot air exits here

The fan’s RPMs can be adjusted via a switch on the cooling unit; two different modes are provided a “High” setting, and a “Low” setting.

Here you can see the pump and reservoir

Copper radiator

Lots of copper

Thermaltake and Sapphire’s liquid cooler is completely self-contained, you won’t need any additional parts to get everything up and running, and installation is pretty similar to a regular graphics card, only you’ve got to find a place to locate the card’s external liquid cooling unit. The cooler can be located practically anywhere within your system’s case. The hoses Sapphire uses on their TOXIC board are about 13” long, so you could place the liquid cooling unit on the opposite end of your system’s motherboard if you wanted to and probably still have a little bit of room to work with, or you could place the two components next to each other if you’d like.

Another shot of the cooling unit undressed

Fill port