Today we are back with another high-end system build, this time featuring a very special new graphics card. AMD launched the flagship Radeon RX 6950 XT just a few weeks ago and it will be the centrepiece of this build. But this is not just any RX 6950 XT, this one is seriously Toxic…
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:20 Introduction
00:43 Sapphire RX 6950 XT (and range of cards)
02:36 Building a complimentary system!
03:22 Toxic card up close
04:37 Hardware for the build – James’ thoughts
08:48 Timelapse build
19:02 Finished build showcase!
20:28 James thoughts on the build
22:19 Trixx software
22:33 Checking performance
23:15 Buying the Sapphire 6950 XT Toxic card
As you might have guessed yes we are talking about the Sapphire Toxic Radeon RX 6950 XT, we have been lucky enough to get our hands on possibly the best RX 6950 XT on the market for this build, in terms of raw out of the box performance at least. Generally speaking throughout the range Sapphire cards are very well put together, offer solid performance and usually look good too, there should be a card in the Sapphire stack to suit the needs of gamers with any budget level, so you could say that Sapphire caters for everyone.
Sapphire Pulse is the entry-level for gamers who are on a modest budget but still demand the best quality, cooling and value for money. If you feel a little more flush in the wallet you can step up to Nitro+, which offers increased performance, some might say improved aesthetics and potential overclocking headroom for the extra few bucks. But for those who want the absolute top performance for the money, then Toxic is where it's at for you.
The Sapphire Toxic 6950 XT comes out of the box with extreme cooling in the shape of an Asetek all-in-one liquid cooler featuring a 360mm (triple fan) radiator, giving the user the best possible results when overclocking and pushing the card to its limits. On the radiator are three 120mm RGB fans as well as various other RGB zones giving the card plenty of illumination to complement the back, grey and brushed aluminium design. this will be the base for our system theme.
System Specification:
- CPU – AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
- Motherboard – Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master
- Memory – 32 GB (4 x 8GB Modules) G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3600 C16
- Graphics Card – Sapphire Toxic Radeon RX 6950 XT
- Storage – 2TB WD_Black SN850 PCIe Gen4 NVME M.2 SSD
- CPU Cooler – EKWB Custom Loop
- Case – Geometric Future Model 8 CowBoy
- Power Supply – Seasonic Prime TX-1000 850W 80+ Titanium
- Fans – 4 x Corsair LL120 RGB
- Operating System – Windows 10
CPU Cooling Hardware:
- Pump/Res Combo – EK-Quantum Kinetic TBE 300 D5 PWM D-RGB
- CPU Block – EK-Quantum Magnitude D-RGB
- Fittings – EK-Quantum Torque HDC 14 – Satin Titanium
- Radiator – EK-CoolStream PE 360 (Triple)
- Tubing – Corsair Hydro X Series XT Hardline 14mm Tubing (Satin transparent)
- Coolant – EK-CryoFuel Solid Laguna Yellow
With the graphics card being the centrepiece of the build, we chose the rest of the system components with the Toxic theme in mind. The graphics card sports a mixture of black, grey and brushed aluminium with yellow Toxic illuminated highlights. CPU cooling is provided by an EKWB custom loop with Corsair XT Hardline satin transparent tubing and EK-CryoFuel Laguna Yellow Solid coolant.
A couple of small compromises had to be made during the build. We originally planned to mount the pump/res horizontally on top of the floor-mounted radiator but space constraints meant that the pump res ended up vertical. Fans for the CPU radiator had to be closely matched to the graphics card fans but were installed in a pull orientation, so being identical wasn’t critical.
RGB illumination worked well throughout the various components of the system, happily the yellow colour tone used in the system illumination is a very close match between parts from different vendors which isn’t always the case, connecting all the RGB lighting directly to the motherboard as we did in this build solves a lot of potential RGB headaches too.
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KitGuru says: The Sapphire Toxic 6950 XT build turned out very well indeed, we are delighted with the overall look, what do you guys think of it?