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Diamond Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Conclusion
Sporting the extra-large framebuffer erases the niggling doubts I had concerning the 4870 I played with at its release. This is an excellent single-GPU card and it's priced very well. If you're an AMD or ATI fan, this is the card to get--assuming you've only got this much money and a single PCI-Express slot. Ironically, It doesn't present the same value as other ATI cards, and its greatest competition comes not from NVIDIA but actually other 4800-series hardware. It's not hard or even much more expensive to get a motherboard that supports CrossFire, and for the same number of dollars (or whatever rainbow-colored currency you may be saddled with) you can get two 4830s and, pending a good deal, two 4850s, both of which will outperform. Granted, two cards are not as power-friendly, and if you're looking to get aftermarket cooling, twice as expensive in that regard. NVIDIA, on the other hand, is competing here, and hard, from a price/ performance perspective. If you’re only interested in one GPU and you’re not affiliated with AMD or ATI, even the GTX 260 is a better deal. But there's one really stellar application of gigabyte 4870s: getting mated with a 4870 X2. CrossFire is a beautiful thing, and three of these GPUs is the configuration to covet. It's been a long wait, but it's clear that multi-GPU is viable, appreciable, and accessible. I can't wait to test this card along side an X2. It's gonna be sweet.  Pros  Great price Well-rounded performance CrossFireX potentialCons  GTX 260 and up are still very competitive Slightly less power-efficient than NVIDIA contemporaries
Page 1: The Card, Bundle & Test Setup
Page 2: Specifications and Setup Page 3: DirectX 10 Titles Page 4: DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics Page 5: Video, Power, and Overclocking Page 6: Conclusion 
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