LATELY, GRAPHICS CARD manufacturers have become less willing—or perhaps less capable—of deviating from the reference designs provided by ATI and NVIDIA. This trend is especially apparent at the high end of the market, where often little more than a sticker and a couple of MHz differentiates one manufacturer's card from another. There's not really anything wrong with reference designs; it's just disappointing to see card makers settling for the status quo rather than pushing the envelope with tweaked board designs or innovative cooling solutions.

Fortunately, there are a few pockets of originality in a landscape of cookie-cutter reference designs. One such beacon of hope is Sapphire's Toxic X1900 XTX, a hot rod rendition of ATI's Radeon X1900 XTX that boasts higher clock speeds and an integrated liquid cooler. That's right: this card comes with liquid cooling in the box, and there's no extra assembly required.

Can the Toxic's liquid cooler help to set a new performance standard for the Radeon X1900 XTX? What about its impact on noise levels and overclocking? Read on to find out.