Sapphire RADEON HD 4870 X2

The 4870 x2 has been here for a few years now, and has certainly made a place for itself among the graphics card market, rivalled only by possibly-over-the-top cards such as Nvidia's GTX 295, and recently, ATi's own HD 5870 (which is also the first DirectX 11 card on the market).

=== Setting up ===
The card is huge, taking up the space of two slots (which is to be expected of current cards) but also being long. I found that it ...
...detemine the size of their case before buying the X2. In my opinion, if you are buying the 4870 X2, you should get a full tower anyway, as the cooling requirements must be considered as well. The card requires two PCI-E power connections- so be sure that your Power Supply is 'compatible' with the X2. The card uses the PCI-E 2.0 interface, which boasts higher bandwith, among other features- so be sure that you get a suitable motherboard aswell. Driver ... more

The 4870 x2 has been here for a few years now, and has certainly made a place for itself among the graphics card market, rivalled only by possibly-over-the-top cards such as Nvidia's GTX 295, and recently, ATi's own HD 5870 (which is also the first DirectX 11 card on the market).

Setting up

The card is huge, taking up the space of two slots (which is to be expected of current cards) but also being long. I found that it fitted nicely in my Full tower case, though one should detemine the size of their case before buying the X2. In my opinion, if you are buying the 4870 X2, you should get a full tower anyway, as the cooling requirements must be considered as well. The card requires two PCI-E power connections- so be sure that your Power Supply is 'compatible' with the X2. The card uses the PCI-E 2.0 interface, which boasts higher bandwith, among other features- so be sure that you get a suitable motherboard aswell. Driver installation is easy- drivers are provided on-disk, though the latest online drivers are optimal.

Performance

In-game, the 4870 x2 performs very well- always being not far behind the GTX 295 (which is £100 dearer), and in certain games, it will beat the 295, namely games such as GRID and Fallout 3. At the highest resolutions, the X2 will get a high fps in most games. The difference between the 295 and the X2 is often a matter of a couple of frames per second. On the more demanding games, I used ATi Catalyst Control Centre to increase the fan speeds, as ATi are infamous for the heat that their cards can reach.

Conclusion

The 4870 X2 is indeed an excellent card. It beats the 'DX11-capable' 5870, in terms of power and price, and rivals the GTX 295 in terms of performance, for £100 less.

In terms of Direct X 11, the fact that the 4870 X2 isn't capable of the full benefits of DX11 wouldn't drive me to buy a HD 5800 series card, as DX11 wouldn't be integrated into games for some time, and by that time, neither the 4870 X2, or the 5870 would be the powerhouses that they are right now.

Therefore, out of the Nvidia GTX 295, the ATi HD 4870 X2 and the HD 5870, I would definitely go for the 4870 X2. HOWEVER, the 4870 X2 needs to be used at higher resolutions on a decent sized monitor. For resolutions below 1680 x 1080, you would be better off going for a Nvidia GTX 260, or an ATi HD 4870.  

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