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Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition

23 Sep 2008

Palit's latest offering, the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition is a more overclocked variants of ATI's formidable Radeon HD 4870.

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HWZ's Overall Rating: 9.0

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			<h2 class="header-green">Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition - Overclocked Goodness</h2>
		<span class="byline">Reviewed by Kenny Yeo on Tuesday, 23 Sep 2008</span>
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		 		<h2 class="page-title">Turbo-charged for Greater Performance</h2>
		 		<h4 class="page_sub_title">Turbo-charged for Greater Performance</h4>
<p>As soon as we received our first overclocked Radeon HD 4870, the recently reviewed PowerColor PCS+ HD 4870 1GB Radeon, we knew that it was always going to be a matter of time before more overclocked variants started popping up. Fresh in our labs then is the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition (quite a mouthful, we know). Boasting a cooler that can only be described as monstrous, the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition claims, like such cards usually do, to offer improved performance and cooler, quieter operation.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img src="http://images.hardwarezone.com/upload/files/2010/04/2e90d9963f.jpg" title="The Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition comes in a large dark red box, featuring Palit's mascot, Frobo the frog. It's almost impossible to miss." alt="" /></p>
<p class="rteleft">Now Palit is not trying to sound flashy with the card's long name. It does mean something, so allow us to explain. &quot;Sonic&quot; indicates that this particular card belongs to Palit's rather popular series of overclocked cards, while &quot;Dual Edition&quot;, on the other hand, refers to the card's dual bios, which allows it to either boot in &quot;Sonic&quot; or &quot;Turbo&quot; mode (more on this Dual Bios later).</p>
<p>So before we get into details about this card, let us first take a look at how the card stacks up against other comparable cards.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img src="http://images.hardwarezone.com/upload/files/2010/04/61c8f81d47.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<table width="95%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="1" align="center" style="table-layout: auto;">
    <caption>Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition and comparable competitive cards</caption>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th>Model</th>
            <th>Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition 512MB</th>
            <th>Radeon HD 4870 512MB</th>
            <th>Radeon HD 4850 512MB</th>
            <th>NVIDIA GTX 280 1GB</th>
            <th>NVIDIA GTX 260 896MB</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Core Code</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">RV700</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">RV770</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">RV770</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">GT200</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">GT200</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Transistor Count</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">956 million</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">956 million</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">956 million</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">1400 million</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">1400 million</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Manufacturing Process</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">55nm</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">55nm</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">55nm</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">65nm</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">65nm</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Core Clock</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">750/775 MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">750MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">625MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">602MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">576MHz</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Stream Processors</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">160 Processors (800 Stream processing units)</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">160 Processors (800 Stream processing units)</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">160 Processors (800 Stream processing units)</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">240 Stream Processors</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">192 Stream Processors</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Stream Processor Clock</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">750/775MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">750MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">625MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">1296MHz</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">1242MHz</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Texture Mapping Units (TMU) or Texture Filtering (TF) units</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">40</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">40</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">40</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">80</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">64</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Raster Operator units (ROP)</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">32</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">28</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Memory Clock</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">3800/4000 MHz GDDR5</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">3600MHz GDDR5</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2000MHz GDDR3</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2214MHz GDDR3</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">1998MHz GDDR3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>DDR Memory Bus Width</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">256-bit</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">256-bit</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">256-bit</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">512-bit</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">448-bit</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Memory Bandwidth</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">121.6/128 GB/s</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">115.2GB/s</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">64GB/s</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">141.7GB/s</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">111.9GB/s</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>PCI Express Interface</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">PCIe ver 2.0 x16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">PCIe ver 2.0 x16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">PCIe ver 2.0 x16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">PCIe ver 2.0 x16</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">PCIe ver 2.0 x16</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Molex Power Connectors</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x 6-pin</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x 6-pin</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">6-pin</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">6-pin, 8-pin</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x 6-pin</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Multi GPU Technology</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">CrossFireX</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">CrossFireX</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">CrossFireX</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">SLI</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">SLI</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>DVI Output Support</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x Dual-Link, 1 x DisplayPort</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x Dual-Link</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x Dual-Link</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x Dual-Link</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">2 x Dual-Link</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>HDCP Output Support</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">Yes</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">Yes</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">Yes</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">Yes</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">Yes</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Street Price</th>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">US$269</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">US$299</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">US$199</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">US$499</td>
            <td valign="middle" align="center">US$299</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>			</div>
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