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VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 512MB Video Card
Introduction
The logo on the VisionTek's Radeon HD 4870 is a close-up of a gross, glowing Protoss. I'm not sure what that says about VisionTek; maybe they're playful. I mean, if you need help, you can visit their website for a little Tek Support. Their card, though, it's stock. So why choose VisionTek over, say, Sapphire? Any other company? Lifetime warranty. Long-term support's been a big deal for many NVIDIA partners, but ATI, less so. At least, less visibly so. As far as the things you can and can't do with your lifetime limited warranty, it's a little vague. I've emailed them through their regular customer support service, and they didn't get back to me by the time this article ran. Really, there are two things you want your warranty to allow: overclocking and changing the stupid heatsink. The more time I spend with the 4870's stock heatsink the less I like it. The warranty says this: "Damaged by tampering, user error, disaster, misuse, neglect, abuse, power supply, power application, alteration, repair, modification, a fix or replacement by an unauthorized technician that in any way affects its performance or reliability," and I don't like it. The last part, about affecting performance or reliability, that's ominous. By the way, I bet VisionTek even considers me to be an unauthorized technician. But a lifetime warranty, even one that excludes routine tweaking, is still a lifetime warranty: and with a card this powerful, you're sure to use it for a good long time. First Looks Box art aside, this is a thoroughly stock product. VisionTek opted for a modified generic sticker, one with their branding with ATI roots. The card isn't full-length (9.5") which makes the heatsink look pretty hefty. The fan hulks in its end of the transparent shroud. At the front of the card are the two 6-pin power connectors. Heatsink bashing's no sport, and the card beneath it is very elegant. Like most high-end ATI cards, the power regulation hardware's all solid-state, and front and back shimmer from the blanket of transistors. The included accessories are a component-out cable, a single VGA adapter, an HDMI adapter, and a CrossFire bridge. There's a picture on the back of the box of Mass Effect, a perfect example of a game this card will play well, but it's not tossed in. It's just a suggestion, like, "Hey, check this out." At least they picked a good game, there could be a photo of Incredible Hulk. I could be wrong, though. I received two boxes from VisionTek, one retail-looking box with just a card and one blank box with a card and accessories. Neither came with a manual or even a driver CD; but there's no mention of Mass Effect as listed content, and I wouldn't get my hopes up. I suspect one bought from a vendor will have, you know, drivers. By the way, this card has full open- and closed-source Linux drivers, so you can get your WINE on.            Specifications Manufacturer's Website: Key Features - 512MB GDDR5 memory - 256-bit memory interface - DirectX� 10.1 - 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering - ATI CrossFireX� multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance (Use up to four discrete cards with an AMD 790FX based motherboard) - PCI Express� 2.0 support - Dynamic geometry acceleration - Game physics processing capability - ATI Avivo�HD video and display technology - Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD) for Blu-ray� - HD VideoBuilt-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound support On-chip HDCP - ATI PowerPlay� technology Supported Operating Systems - Windows Vista (all versions) - Windows XP - Windows XP Media Center Edition Box Contents - ATI Radeon� HD 4870 graphics card - ATI CrossFireX� Bridge Interconnect - DVI to HDMI adapter - DVI to VGA adapter - HDTV Component out adapter - Set-up CD - Manuals System Requirements - PCI Express� based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard - 500 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express� power connector recommended (600 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX� technology in dual mode) - Certified power supplies are eecommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products - 1GB of system memory - Installation software requires CD-ROM drive - DVD playback requires DVD drive - Blu-ray� / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive - For a complete ATI CrossFireX� system, a second ATI Radeon� HD 4850 graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per board (included) are required Test Setup 
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Page 1: Introduction, First Looks, Specifications & Test Setup
Page 2: DirectX 10 Titles Page 3: DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics Page 4: Video Quality, Power Usage & Noise, and Overclocking Page 5: Conclusion 
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Add Comment
4 User Comments 1 - Posted by
aireiq
on July 22, 2008 - 5:22 pm > So why choose VisionTek over, say, Sappire? Because 'Sappire' doesn't appear to sell computer hardware? 2 - Posted by
Kurtis
on July 22, 2008 - 7:50 pm Nice catch. Annnnd fixed.
3 - Posted by
Brian
on August 7, 2008 - 4:45 pm Testing new spam defense system!
4 - Posted by
Brian
on August 7, 2008 - 4:47 pm Testing again
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