Sapphire Technology Limited, the leading supplier of ATI-powered graphics accelerators, has just announced a brand new software overclocking tool developed exclusively for Sapphire to allow users to optimize performance of any of the company’s current graphics accelerators.

TRIXX allows users to choose between several levels of performance optimization, taking in to account environmental conditions and system demands. The software analyses information about thermal conditions in the system, and can control the fan speed on the graphics accelerator. Now, for the first time, the user can elect to optimize for standard settings, low noise (low fan speed), maximum performance with normal fan speeds, and right up to Extreme performance when both core and memory clock speeds will be run at the maximum safe levels with maximum fan speed for the specific card in the system.

TRIXX establishes its settings by increasing memory clock speeds incrementally, whilst at the same time checking a rendered image for artifacts. When artifacts are found, the clock speed is reduced to a safe percentage of the maximum. This process is then repeated for core clock speeds. The user is able to name and save settings obtained under different conditions in order to use the same settings again – for example if a particular game is known to be memory or graphics processing intensive, appropriate settings can be used.

A simple graphical user interface allows the various options to be chosen as well as settings saved, retrieved and applied. In addition, if the system is on line, TRIXX can check for updates of its own modules as well as for versions of the ATI graphics drivers in the system.

TRIXX will be bundled with all new Sapphire cards from May this year. It can be used only with Sapphire branded graphics cards with ATI 9xxx or Xxxx series processors.