Introduction

Recently AMD introduced their latest graphics card, the Radeon HD 4870. It is based on the same RV770 GPU that is present on the HD 4850, too. The major difference is that the HD 4870 uses GDDR5 while the HD 4850 uses GDDR3. Certainly the biggest benefit of GDDR5 is that is offers twice the memory bandwidth than GDDR3 at the same clock. As a result the HD 4870 has almost double the memory bandwidth available, even though its memory clock is slightly lower than the HD 4850. Another difference to the HD 4850 is that the HD 4870 uses a dual-slot cooling solution allowing AMD to increase the core clock by 125 MHz to 750 MHz.
Diamond's HD 4870 is fully based on the AMD reference design, but Diamond has already announced a special Black Edition card that allows much higher clock speeds.

Packaging & Contents

Diamond uses a sleek black package with Ruby printed on both sides. The back goes into some more detail about the product.



You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Quick Install Guide + Driver CD
• 50 Free Songs with emusic.com (only for new signups)
• Some kind of winning coupon
• DVI Adapter + HDMI Adapter + Video Out Adapter + Video Out cable
• CrossFire Bridge

30% off isn't too bad, especially when you plan on going CrossFire, or have a friend who's also looking for a new card. Other prices include a TV Tuner card, a Phenom CPU or a prebuilt computer system.

The Card

The Diamond HD 4870 looks exactly the same as the AMD reference design card, except for the sticker on the fan hub. Like the HD 3870, the 4870 uses a dual slot cooler design.


The card has two DVI ports, basically the most common output configuration these days. In case you need an analog VGA port you can use the included DVI adapter. When using an HDMI adapter (also included), you will also have access to HDMI+HDCP+Audio, which allows easy setup of a media PC. A new feature of the Radeon HD 4xxx Series is that 7.1 audio is now supported, the previous cards supported only 5.1 audio with HDMI.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.