Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/21/sapphire_renames_blizzard/
Sapphire is to rename its water-cooled ATI Radeon X1900 XTX-based video cards. Out goes the 'Blizzard' moniker, replaced by the less appropriate 'Toxic', the graphics card company announced this week. Britney Spears may like it, we guess...
How come? Sapphire isn't saying, but it's being whispered that games developer Blizzard Software may have had something to do with it, possibly fearing the Sapphire card might be a little too closely associated in the minds of buyers with its own brandname. Maybe - Blizzard hasn't commented on the matter either.
Sapphire has been touting the Blizzard Toxic card for a few months now, but expects to make the product available to gamers early in May, it said this week. It has also tweaked elements of the design in response to some early reviews, such as Reg Hardware's own (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/27/review_sapphire_blizzard/).
The card's GPU is clocked to 675MHz while the 512MB of on-board GDDR 3 SDRAM runs at an effective speed of 1.6GHz. The board has twin DVI ports, and video in and out connectors. ®
Sapphire Blizzard X1900 XTX water-cooled graphics card (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/27/review_sapphire_blizzard/)
Asus EAX1600XT SILENT passively-cooled graphics card (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/13/reviews_asus_eax1600xt_silent/)
Asus EN7600GT graphics card (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/03/review_asus_en7600gt/)
PowerColor X1900 XT 512MB (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/31/review_powercolor_x1900xt/)
Samsung ships GDDR 4 chip (5 July 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07/05/samsung_ships_gddr4/
Sapphire unleashes the Ultimate (8 June 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/06/08/sapphire_ultimate_x1600_graphics/
MacBook Pro GPU underclocked, report claims (19 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/19/apple_macbook_pro_gpu_speed/
Dell unveils 'fastest' consumer laptop (18 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/18/dell_unveils_xps_m1710/
Nvidia touts 'flagship' GeForce Go 7900 GPUs (18 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/18/nvidia_geforce_go_7900_launch/
ATI rebuts 80nm GPU slip claim (18 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/18/ati_denies_80nm_slip/
Nvidia preps single-chip integrated chipsets (17 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/17/nvidia_readies_mcp61_chipsets/
ATI readies Radeon X1900 GT (11 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/11/ati_readies_radeon_gt/
ATI next-gen Theater Pro chip wins PCI-E SIG approval (3 April 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/03/ati_theatre_650_pro_rs_600/
ATI reports record quarter (31 March 2006)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/03/31/ati_results_q2_06/