Hexus

"ATI knows that the ultra-high-end segment, characterised by graphics cards selling for £300+, is a minute portion of the market, but such is the halo-esque effect of having the top-dog card that it's worth pursuing.

Released later on this month in retail form from a range of partners, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 will become the fastest graphics card of all, but that's a statement laden with pragmatic provisos.

The method by which ATI empowers the HD 4870 X2 is by stitching two Radeon HD 4870s together, complete with per-GPU 512MiB frame-buffers composed of super-fast GDDR5 memory. This twin-GPU recipe, used recently on the Radeon HD 3870 X2, is the only method of overhauling single-GPU GeForce GTX 280 dominance, as evinced in our suite of benchmarks.

Using twin GPUs leads to various foibles: overall performance is predicated on just how good the drivers are able to leverage rendering on GPUs in turn, and this runs from anywhere between 30 per cent to 95 per cent above a single-GPU's. The potential scaling problem can be exacerbated if CrossFire profiles don't exist for certain games, leading to derisory performance. Then there's the power-draw figure, which is some 100W higher than any other card's, and keeping both GPUs cool requires a huge heatsink with a loud fan.

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is as inelgant as it is powerful. Yes, it's the fastest board of them all, but such is the base performance of the £179 Radeon HD 4870 and £219 GeForce GTX 260, that X2 only comes into its own if you're consistently playing at resolutions of 1,920x1,200 and above.

At an educated guess, £299-£349 is going to buy you frame-rate heaven in the form of the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and, of course, it's a fundamentally niche product, populating the £300+ market. We're just nonplussed by the obvious way it goes about it, via internal CrossFire and a loud cooler. We'd rather opt for two Radeon HD 4870s and place them on an Intel or AMD chipset - they'll give you the same performance, for similar money, but offer quieter cooling and a wider range of display options. CrossFire is CrossFire, after all."

Read the full review here