Product Showcase

AMD allows you to opt for the multi-GPU road with Crossfire(X) as an option. You can pair two, three or even four cards in one PC and have them do a decent workout. By the way I get this question all the time, but Crossfire is setting the same cards up in multi-GPU mode, and CrossfireX is mixing different cards say 6950 and 7950 and set them up in Crossfire mode.

If you peek to the right of the PCB on the photo in-between the 1 and 2 position you'll notice a switch, it's actually a Dual BIOS toggle switch. Setting it to 2 returns the card to factory default, setting 1 is an unprotected mode which allows you to overclock and tweak while mode two is your failsafe BIOS.

The reference R7950 has a maximum power consumption of roughly 160 Watts, our measurements actually show that value up-top the Wattage precipice. The board's overall power consumption from idle to load is excellent really. Mind you that the maximum board power is 200W. At default AMD PowerTune settings you can deduct 20% from the maximum board power, and that results in a 160W TDP.

You will need to hook the card up to your power supply with two 6-pin PCIe PEG connectors. We recommend a 550W power supply to start with, with one card of course.

Connectivity wise the output connectors will vary per brand. But on this card we see four connectors supporting all high-resolution monitors. We get two display port connectors (mini), HDMI and a DVI connector. The cards will come with monitor connector dongles and adapters.

Overall the card remains cooled within very acceptable limits and it isn't too noisy either. But you'll learn all about that over the next few pages. The card uses two 6-pin PEG power connectors, each delivering 75 Watts + another 75W over the PCIe bus adding up to 225 Watts in total.