Palit Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB Video Card Review

A Closer Look at the Palit Radeon HD4870 X2

The Palit HD4870 X2 completely breaks with past ATI card which have traditionally had red PCBs and fans by replacing all those red bits with sinister-looking black. Without a doubt, it looks great and having ATI’s high-end card being differentiated from the rest of its lineup like this has been something we have all been waiting for.

The heatsink runs the entire length of the card with being covered with a Palit sticker which really does well to carry on the overall feel of the card while inserting a few more colorful elements.


As with all recent ATI graphics cards, the HD4870 X2 carries the AMD logo silkscreened onto the PCI-E connector. Meanwhile, the other side of the heatsink has several rows of aluminum “rods” which are used to further dissipate any excess heat which cannot be taken care of by the rest of the heatsink. This same design was used on the HD3870 X2 as well.


Even though the X2 has a pair of GPU cores on it along with 2GB of memory, its length is exactly the same as a GTX 280. This means that most standard ATX cases on the market should have no trouble fitting this 10.5” card into their interiors. As long as there is more than 1 ½” between the edge of your ATX motherboard your case, you will have enough space for this card.


As we already mentioned in the Accessories section, the HD4870 X2 requires a fair amount of power to run and thus uses a single 8-pin PCI-E connector along with a 6-pin connector. Unlike the HD3870 X2, the 8-pin is no longer only needed for overclocking and needs to be attached at all times if you want the card to work.

The backplate of this card holds the usual assortment of outputs with a pair of DVI connectors and the single TV-out connector.


There is a single Crossfire bridge connector on the HD4870 X2 so it can be hooked up to another X2 or any other card in the ATI lineup for (hopefully) increased performance.


The backside of the HD4870 X2 shows us a mostly continuous piece of black aluminum which is used to disperse heat from the memory modules installed on the underside of the card. The backside of the card also holds a quartet of red diagnostic LEDs.