Advantages: Powerful, excellent value Disadvantages: Only good at higher resolutions
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 ...
Advantages: cheaper than nvidia, full directx 10.1 support, DDR5 RAM, legendary 4870 platform Disadvantages: you'll not have even one game to challenge this card.
I always appreciated nvidia's graphics cards, because obviously they were always taking an upperhand over ATI. And when Nvidia released 200 series, I bought it as quickly as possible, the graphics I got with my games were stunning. I thought that I had the perfect graphics card on the planet as the other 280's users would also. But then, not quite late though, ATI came in the battle field, holding its newest monster, ATI 4870 X2, 2GB DDR5 graphics card, with the same price tag as of Nvidia 280 (which is only 1gb), ofcourse few companies were marketing it for lesser than that too. I thought twice but bought it, and as it was destined to be, my eyes were popped out, with full Directx 10.1 support (which ensures 25 - 30% boost in graphics and speed) and 2gb of discrete graphics memory and not to mention the DDR5 RAM, the games were in ...
Product Information for "Sapphire TOXIC HD 4870" »
Processor / memory
Graphics Processor / Vendor
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Clock Speed
780 MHz
RAMDAC Clock Speed
400 MHz
Video Memory Installed
512 MB
Technology
GDDR5 SDRAM 256-bit
Memory Clock Speed
1 GHz
Features
Dual Slot Fan Cooler, Avivo HD Technology, ATI CrossFireX Technology, ATI PowerPlay technology
Video output
Max Resolution (external)
2560 x 1600
API Supported
OpenGL 2.0, DirectX 10.1
Max Monitors Supported
2
TV Interface
HDTV out
Digital Video Standard
Digital Visual Interface (DVI), High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
HDCP compatible
Yes
Video Compression Standards
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264
Analogue Video Format
S-Video
Manufacturer warranty
Service & Support Details
Limited warranty - 2 years
Service & Support
2 years warranty
Manufacturer's product description
The Sapphire HD 4870 TOXIC Edition features the award winning - and Sapphire exclusive -Vapor-X cooler, Sapphire’s implementation of Vapor Chamber Technology (VCT). This advanced cooling solution is used for the core logic and together with three heat pipes and thermally controlled fan venting outside the case provides more efficient and quieter cooling than competing solutions for this generation of high performance graphics. The Sapphire HD 4870 TOXIC edition ships overclocked out of the box for an immediate high performance graphical or gaming experience, and the advanced hybrid cooling solution provides enthusiasts with further scope for performance tuning.
