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Summary

The following is a summary of the more detailed analysis of the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB graphics card. For all the in-depth analysis and testing you'd expect from us, be sure to click this link to get all the details!

No, you aren't seeing things; this is indeed our second "review" of the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB graphics card.  The first iterationwas officially coined a "preview" of the card since it didn't have a final BIOS, final drivers and AMD asked us to limit our testing to just a handful (three) of games.  Since then we have been given more information on the card, how it differs from the HD 3870 X2 technology and were able to spend a bit longer with the product.

For those of you that didn't read up on the initial preview of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GBthese slides should provide a good overview of what we are getting into.  The HD 4870 X2 will be the new flagship card from AMD under the ATI Graphics brand and continues in the tradition of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 by combining a pair of current generation GPUs in permanent CrossFire mode on a single PCB.  The GPUs on this card are identical to those found on the single-GPU based HD 4870 512MB cards - if you haven't read our detailed analysis of this technology you should check out my review of that product for a technical background.


Our testing sample was provided by Sapphire, one of AMD's biggest and most popular partners.  Other than a sticker change the card is identical.

You can see that the core clock is running at 750 MHz while the GDDR5 memory is running at 900 MHz- the same speeds the single GPU HD 4870 512MB card runs at.  AMD is obviously serious about getting as much performance out of their GPUs as possible and would we would likely see an HD 4850 X2 card at some point too - much like we saw the HD 3850 X2 1GB card from ASUS this year. 

Let's see some performance numbers:

Pricing and Availability

We already mentioned the prices of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and the upcoming HD 4850 X2 but let's compare those prices to the NVIDIA competition.  The GeForce GTX 280 1GB card is currently selling for $430 and up in our pricing engine.  This is a HUGE price drop from the original $649 that it launched at, a change brought about mainly because of the power or the RV770 GPU and the fear of the R700 card we reviewed today.  At $549 (lower according to some partners we talked to), the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB is the most expensive single card on the market, but it is also by far the fastest as our benchmarks and testing clearly showed. 

We did compare the HD 4870 X2 to a pair of GTX 260s in SLI mode since those NVIDIA cards sell for about half of the HD 4870 X2 and the performance of NVIDIA's parts was very good.  If NVIDIA can get a pair of these GPUs on a single graphics card (and I have my doubts) then they have a chance of re-taking the performance crown. 

Oh, and these HD 4870 X2 cards were already showing up for sale this weekend so I would guess you'll find them at your favorite e-tailer this week. 

UPDATE: These cards are finally showing up online at Newegg.com:

• Sapphire - $559
• Diamond - $559
• HIS - $579

Final Thoughts

Just like we concluded in our preview last month, the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB graphics card is incredibly impressive and easily takes the performance lead for a single graphics away from NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280.  The power consumption is pretty high, on par with a pair of GTX 260s and we were let down by the performance of CrossFireX but neither of these factors over-shadow the power the card provided for high-resolution and high image quality gaming.  If you need an enthusiast-class graphics card for your next gaming system then AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB is your ticket to gaming nirvana.


Be sure to use our pricing engine to find the best prices on NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and anything else you might need:

Click here for the Detailed Review