Sapphire 4870 x2

Sapphire 4870 x2

The card itself is typical of high end GPUs of the last couple of years, a big, blocky, cooler dominated, shroud covered bugger.

It must be said before we get too deep into this, that this is the heaviest card I have ever held. It’s at least twice the weight of a GTX 280.

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The front plastic circle houses the fan, and like many models before it, it’s a coaxial model with a centralised ATI logo and model number. This draws air from underneath the card (when mounted) and blows it across the internal heatsink before exhausting it out the rear mounted grill.

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The heatsink is invisible from the outside as it’s covered with the air-directing shroud, which is dominated by the Lara Croft-esque chick, alongside a Sapphire logo and some Radeon HD 4870 x2 text.

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Above the shroud are a few extended heatsink sections to aid in cooling the card a little more. However, this will of course increase temperature inside the case, which is counter to the exhausted hot air which actually aids in cooling the system.

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At the rear of the card are two DVI ports, an SVideo port and the exhausted air grill. This is of course a double slot card so make sure you have the space.

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At the front of the 4870 X2 you have the power connectors, one 8pin and one 6pin.

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The fan controller is a 4pin job, and sits on the board nicely so there’s no problem with trying to find a connector on your motherboard.

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The back of the 4870 x2 is completely taken over with the back plate and two mounting brackets showing how heavy the cooler is that it requires a huge mounting platform just to hold it on.

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There’s also a myriad of screws holding the plate and bracket in place, so if you want to fit an aftermarket cooler to this, it’s going to take a while.

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Graphics Cards