Board analysis

Top of the card

The back of the card

The Sapphire TOXIC X700 PRO begins life just like a normal Sapphire HYBRID X700 PRO board. You’ve got the same distinctive aqua blue PCB that has become Sapphire’s trademark, as well as the same board layout. Board circuitry and component selection is largely unchanged. Sapphire also includes RAMsinks on the TOXIC X700 PRO’s GDDR3 memory, just like the Hybrid X700 PRO. These small heatsinks are composed of aluminum, and do a good job of keeping the board’s memory cool.

The TOXIC board’s most distinctive feature is its massive VPU cooler, Sapphire refers to it as “Lethal” cooling. This cooler, manufactured by Arctic Cooling under their “VGA Silencer” line is massive, encompassing the entire X700 PRO board and then some, as the fan extends an additional two inches beyond the edge of the board. The cooler is also quite tall, and will occupy the entire PCI slot beneath the Sapphire TOXIC graphics card, just like a two-slot GeForce 6800 Ultra.

Underside of the card - only 128MB of memory on the board

One DVI and one VGA connector w/S-Video

Arctic Cooling starts with a copper base plate, which is responsible for drawing heat off of the X700 PRO VPU. This heat is then transferred to the aluminum heatsink, which is soldered directly to the copper base plate. The heatsink is composed of multiple long, tall fins allowing it to absorb more heat.

Paired alongside the heatsink is an equally daunting blue fan. The fan consists of eleven plastic blades and is quite large. By using a larger fan design, the fan itself can spin at lower RPMs, resulting in less noise than a smaller fan like you’d see on most graphics cards, which must spin at higher RPMs in order to be effective. The fan is encircled by a large plastic shroud. The shroud acts as a channel, helping the fan draw in more air. This air is then passed across the aluminum heatsink, and then directed outside the system case.

The fan up close

TOXIC card is longer than the Hybrid

RAMsinks on memory

As a result, this system effectively lowers the temperature within your case, as the heat generated from one of the system’s hottest components (the graphics card’s core) is carried directly outside of the case.

In operation, the fan is practically silent, you literally have to place your ear directly next to the card’s fan in order to hear anything, and even then the fan is barely audible!

Automated Performance Enhancement

Besides the TOXIC X700 PRO’s Lethal Cooling, the second most distinctive feature this card supports is known as A.P.E. which is short for automated performance enhancement. APE works by overclocking your X700 PRO graphics card.

Since ATI won’t let their board partners overclock their cards by default out-of-the-box, Sapphire provides A.P.E. on the TOXIC X700 PRO’s driver CD. Simply pop the CD in your CD-ROM drive, click on Automated Performance Enhancement, and voila, your TOXIC X700 PRO board is automatically overclocked to 472MHz core/500MHz memory, an improvement of 52MHz on the graphics core and 68MHz on the memory subsystem. This nearly matches the now defunct X700 XT’s clock speeds of 475MHz core/525MHz memory, and is fully backed by Sapphire’s 3-year warranty.

In addition to APE, Sapphire bundles the TOXIC X700 PRO with copies of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (DVD-ROM) and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a Sapphire case badge, PowerDVD 5 (2-channel version), composite and S-Video cables, a DVI adapter, a metal grille for the exhaust end of the fan, and finally, a Sharkoon blue fluorescent lamp for lighting up the interior of your system case.