Palit HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition 512 MB Review

Name: Palit HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition 512 MB
Brand: Palit

W1zzard

on Sep 1st, 2008,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: Palit

(32 Comments) »

Introduction

In the first months after the product release AMD has limited all HD 4870 cards to use the AMD reference design. Add in board partners could not change any component of the card and clocks had to be the same ones as the reference design.

Palit is one of the first AIBs to release a custom HD 4870 version: the Palit HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition. It uses a completely revamped cooling system that uses two fans to keep the card cool. Also included is a DisplayPort connector and a "Turbo" switch. The Turbo switch lets you select between two different operating frequencies. In normal mode the card will run at 750 MHz core and 900 MHz memory clock. In Turbo mode an additional overclock is enabled with 775 MHz / 1000 MHz.
Even though the changes are numerous Palit has managed to keep the retail price below $299.

	Radeon HD 3850	Radeon HD 3870	GeForce 9600 GT	GeForce 8800 GT	GeForce 9800 GT	Radeon HD 4850	GeForce 9800 GTX	GeForce 9800 GTX+	GeForce 8800 GTX	GeForce GTX 260	Radeon HD 4870	Palit HD 4870 Sonic	GeForce GTX 280	Radeon HD 4870 X2
Shader units	320	320	64	112	112	800	128	128	128	192	800	800	240	2x 800
ROPs	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	24	28	16	16	32	2x 16
GPU	RV670	RV670	G94	G92	G92	RV770	G92	G92	G80	GT200	RV770	RV770	GT200	2x RV770
Transistors	666M	666M	505M	754M	754M	956M	754M	754M	681M	1400M	956M	956M	1400M	2x 956M
Memory Size	256 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	768 MB	896 MB	512 MB	512 MB	1024 MB	2x 1024 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	384 bit	448 bit	256 bit	256 bit	512 bit	2x 256 bit
Core Clock	670 MHz	777 MHz	650 MHz	600 MHz	600 MHz	625 MHz	675 MHz	738 MHz	575 MHz	576 MHz	750 MHz	775 MHz	602 MHz	750 MHz
Memory Clock	828 MHz	1126 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	993 MHz	1100 MHz	1100 MHz	900 MHz	999 MHz	900 MHz	1000 MHz	1107 MHz	900 MHz
Price	$99	$125	$90	$140	$160	$170	$185	$200	$295	$270	$280	$299	$430	$550

Packaging & Contents

Palit's Green Frog dominates the front of the package which makes it extremely easy to identify this as a Palit product even though it comes in a more red package (symbolizing ATI Graphics). The back has some basic info in multiple languages, the sticker on the front even reveals the actual clock speeds.

You will receive:

Graphics card
Manual + Driver CD
DVI Adapter + HDMI Adapter
6-Pin PCI-E power adapter

The Card

Palit has stayed with the dual-slot cooling concept of the HD 4870 but completely revamped the cooling solution itself. The card is now cooled by two fans, one 80 mm and one 70 mm. Also the extra space on the slot cover has been used to add a DisplayPort connector and a turbo switch.

The card has two DVI ports and one DisplayPort connector. 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. All recent ATI Radeon cards have a Realtek HD Audio device integrated inside the GPU silicon. This means that you don't have to connect any additional cabling to the graphics card for HDMI Audio. A new feature of the HD 4xxx Series is support for 7.1 HDMI audio, the older HD 3xxx cards supported only 5.1. While the DisplayPort is certainly a nice addition it is still very new and supported only by a handful of displays.

On the bottom right corner of the slot cover you will find this little Turbo switch. The switch toggles between two BIOSes which are using different frequencies. Normal mode runs the card at 750/950 MHz and Turbo mode runs at 775 / 1000 MHz. Other than that the BIOSes seem to be identical, fan and voltage settings are the same.
Because the system switches access to the BIOS, the changes will only be applied when the BIOS is read from the card which is at reboot. A nicer (and much more complex) solution would be if the clocks would instantly change. An increase of 25 MHz on both clocks will not make that much of a difference, but having two BIOSes unlocks additional potential for tweakers. First it is a safeguard against a corrupted BIOS and second you could put your own customized BIOSes with tweaked settings on those cards.

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.

A Closer Look

Palit uses a two piece cooler. When the top cooling assembly with the fan is removed, one big heatsink remains which looks very much like a Thermalright product.

The aluminum cooler uses three heatpipes that move the heat away from the core quickly to be dissipated in the fins.

The fan assembly has two fans, one 70 mm and one 80 mm, that move heat away from the heatsink.

Palit has re-designed the voltage regulator and uses a different voltage regulator chip as well. They have chosen to go with four phases which definitely helps keep the voltage regulators cooler. A big black heatsink cools the chips which sit right in the airflow created by one of the fans.

Unfortunately the memory chips are not cooled at all, but still we could run the memory at 1100 MHz GDDR5.

Palit supports CrossFire and CrossFireX for up to four graphics card rendering together to improve framerate and quality.

A dual six pin power connector supplies the required juice for the card. Palit has changed its location in their board design. It is now located on the long side of the PCB which makes it easier to reach than the original location on the reference design.

Just like on the regular HD 4870, the GDDR5 memory chips are made by Qimonda - the X2 uses chips from Hynix. The 40X in the name stands for the data rate of 4.0 Gbps per pin. Effectively this means that chips are rated at 1000 MHz real clock. Please note that GDDR5 offers twice the bandwidth per pin at the same clock than GDDR3/4. So a 256-bit GDDR5 card has the same bandwidth as a 512-bit GDDR3 card at the same clock.