Sapphire 3870 toxic

[sdf]

I'm just guessing here but the toxic from sapphire is replacing the atomic version. Just noticed it at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102732

Are they really worth it? A single slot cooling solution will work for my setup but is the cooler that much better and the slight overclock going to make much of a difference?

 

[Evilonigiri]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sapphire_radeon_hd_3850_ultimate_3870_atomic/

Read this and decide yourself.

 

[Seraphic]

I'm in the market for a single slot card, but the price for the toxic is kind of too high if you ask me. $225 or less would be a better buy.

 

[Oh SoS]

just curious, why the single slot limitation?
if you need it, it means you're mounting it really close to another card, and are going to dramatically reduce your airflow and the 3870 has temp issues as it is.

 

[Mathos]

Toxic still comes with the 9ft hdmi cable, which more than makes up for the price difference between that and a regular 3870. As far as I can tell, the only different between the atomic and toxic is the lack of the briefcase, and the toxic I think is clocked 25Mhz lower. The cooler runs the gpu 10c cooler under load than the reference board does, and thats with the processor running 50mhz faster than the ref board.

 

[sailer]

I'm just guessing here but the toxic from sapphire is replacing the atomic version. Just noticed it at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102732

Are they really worth it? A single slot cooling solution will work for my setup but is the cooler that much better and the slight overclock going to make much of a difference?

Whether or not a card is worth its price is something on;y you can answer. I have a 1900 XTX Toxic, which is watercooled, and it was far and away better than the standard 1900 XTX, though it was only mildly overclocked. The big difference was in the lower temperature at which it ran. I think it was worth it. Other people may not think so.

The cooling, judging by the article to which Evilonigiri referred, shows that the vapor chilling works, so here, single slot cooling works very well. Another thing to consider is that with single slot usage, you can figure on a PCI slot becoming usable which would otherwise become useless with a dual slot card. But in the end, as I said before, only you can judge whether or not the card is worth the extra money.

 

[sdf]

just curious, why the single slot limitation?
if you need it, it means you're mounting it really close to another card, and are going to dramatically reduce your airflow and the 3870 has temp issues as it is.

My mobo chip set fan is positioned just below the only PCIe slot I have. Not normally an issue but this one is set in a diagonal position top to bottom that would interfere with a dual slot cooling card. I finally decided against the toxic card and went with the other single slot sapphire 3870 but will couple that with a zelman vf900 fan which will be a huge improvement over my aging 6800GS. Both with shipping it comes out to less than the the toxic and should keep temps down close to what the toxic would probably hover at. It should be here I'm hoping monday, tuesday at the latest.