The Card

Unlike the behemoth called Radeon X1950 XTX, the Sapphire X1950 GT is a relatively svelte graphics card. It has a single-slot cooler, with a blue semi-transparent shroud. The cooler is relatively large and covers about 75% of the card surface. Like most graphics cards, the back of the Sapphire X1950 GT is bereft of any significant components.

You will note that Sapphire chose to go with a green PCB. While some may like the red PCB favoured by ATI, others may prefer this cooler green colour. However, if you do not case mod, you really need not bother.

The Sapphire X1950 GT has two dual-linked DVI connectors. If you need to output to a monitor with a VGA cable, you can use the provided DVI-to-VGA converter to convert one of these DVI connectors into a VGA connector. Between the two DVI connectors is the video-out port.

The cooler is a fully-shrouded design which sucks in air from below the card (when installed in a vertical case) and exhausts the hot air out the end of the card (towards the front of the case). As a result, the hot air circulates within the case.

For a mid-range card, the Sapphire X1950 GT is a pretty long card. It actually measures 23.5 cm from the bracket to the end. That's long enough to pose a problem for smaller cases. To give you a better idea of how big this card is, we compared it against the ASUS EN7900GS TOP. This GeForce 7900 GS card is the same size as the GeForce 7600 GT and GeForce 7900 GT cards, all mid-range cards from NVIDIA.

As you can see, the Sapphire X1950 GT is much longer than the ASUS EN7900GS card. In our test system, we had to remove the hard drive cage to make it easier for us to install the card. While we could seat it with the hard drive cage in place, it was quite a tight fit. If you want to be sure of a comfortable fit, make sure your case has at least 25 cm of depth from the back. You have to allow some space for the power connector to fit in.

Connectors

The Sapphire X1950 GT comes with the new CrossFire connectors, just like what we saw with the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro. This allows for much easier pairing of cards, as well as the possibility of daisy-chaining multiple cards.

When it comes to power, the Sapphire X1950 GT only requires a single 6-pin power cable. The connector is placed at the far end of the card, pointing outwards. As the card is pretty long, this may pose a problem as the power cable will require some clearance between the power connector and obstacles in the case to fit.