Board analysis (cont’d)

Connector for TMR

Looking more closely at the TOXIC card itself, you’ll notice a small 2-pin connector that pokes out the edge of the VGA Silencer 4. This connector is for Sapphire’s temperature monitoring ready (TMR) technology.

TMR is meant to provide quick and easy access to hardware monitoring information to end-users. It will be a 5.25” or 3.5” drive bay that you can mount in the front of your case. TMR will include an LED readout and other accessories, Sapphire has mentioned S-Video, DVI, and composite ports in the past to us, as well as a knob for manually adjusting the speed of the card’s fan, so TMR will probably be a popular accessory with enthusiasts looking for a simple way to tweak their card.

Sapphire adds a small thermal diode to their TOXIC line of X800 cards. This diode sits near the VPU, recording temperatures. Sapphire eventually plans to tie this with TMR.

Hopefully Sapphire can get TMR up and running soon, as the TOXIC X800 PRO doesn’t support ATI’s OVERDRIVE dynamic overclocking utility. This may come as a disappointment to some users, the addition of TMR may subdue this somewhat.

Another shot of the TOXIC card

Sapphire also makes an X800 PRO card based on the ATI reference design

The TOXIC board design itself looks indistinguishable from ATI’s reference X800 PRO. For added styling, Sapphire uses an an aqua blue PCB for the TOXIC X800 PRO, but other than this change Sapphire carries over everything else from the reference X800 PRO board design, including the yellow connector for analog video capture.

With previous ULTIMATE Edition cards Sapphire stuck with the same fire engine red PCB as the other ATI board partners, so at least it is nice to see Sapphire doing something a bit different for their TOXIC X800 PRO.

Getting to the power connector is more difficult

Rage Theater chip provides VIVO

On the underside of the card you’ll notice the presence of ATI’s Rage Theater chip. This gives the TOXIC X800 PRO VIVO (video-in/video-out) capability. Rather than borrow the purple breakout box that ATI has used in the past for its ALL-IN-WONDER cards (as ASUS does), Sapphire includes their own video input/output cable with composite and S-Video connections inside the TOXIC X800 PRO’s packaging.

Accessories and software bundle

Speaking of the TOXIC packaging, besides the video input/output cable Sapphire also includes a composite video cable for hooking the TOXIC X800 PRO to an HDTV, S-Video and RCA cables, a DVI adapter, and a power connector. On the software side, Sapphire includes full copies of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Price of Persia: The Sands of Time, as well as copies of PowerDVD 5 and PowerDirector 2.55 VE.

The software that’s really turning heads though is Automated Performance Enhancement (APE). Once installed, APE increases the speed of the TOXIC X800 PRO’s memory to 520MHz (1040MHz effective). This is an increase of 70MHz over the stock X800 PRO’s speed of 450MHz on the memory. Installation of APE is a snap, just run the program and your memory is automatically clocked to 520MHz! There are no sliders to toggle or registry settings to hack, APE does everything for you seamlessly.

Installing APE doesn’t void your warranty, Sapphire wanted to provide higher clocks on their TOXIC boards out of the box, but ATI wouldn’t certify their board if they chose to do so. APE gets around ATI’s certification process as it’s a software-based solution. For overclocking the TOXIC X800 PRO even further, Sapphire’s Redline utility can be used on top of APE as well.