Home > Consumer Reviews > Diamond 4870X2PE52G ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 PCIE 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Video Card

This is the fastest single card you can buy. Period.

PROS:
The images will look great, just crank up all the graphic quality settings to their highest level. The differences are truly stunning. Set AA and AF in the drivers to 16x each, and enjoy your new toy.

By having 1GB of memory available (yes, only 1 per processor, so it can only use 1 at any given time) you are a bit more future proof. Games are starting to use the additional memory, so this card will last you more than those with less memory.


CONS (general)
- Runs very, very hot. AMD claims that these are made to run hot without issues. It idles at around 80 degrees C with the fan at the standard setting (27%).
Cranking the fan to 35% takes it down to about 68 degrees.
- Loud. At 27 it is quiet, at 35 it is audible but not bad. However, at 45% (if you want the card to stay south of 70 degrees while gaming, it is very very loud.
- Some games don't scale well with the 2 processors, so performance is virtually the same with it's little brother the 4870.
- Their phone support is a joke. 4 days a week from 10am - 4pm (when you are at work and can't call them with your problems, or near your hardware).

CONS (maybe just Diamond or my particular card and software?)
I have Windows Vista Business 64 bit Service Pack 1 (with all patches and updates as of Novemeber 5, 2008), and the latest 8.10 AMD/ATI (October 15 drivers). I read through the BETA drivers for 8.11, and they have nothing that addresses issues of overheating or artifacts. But I will give them a try when the official ones are released and updated this.

- When running a The Witcher Enhanced Edition (fans set at 45%) the game will start showing random artifacts when the card gets "too hot" which is around 75 degrees according to the Catalyst Control Center. The game will eventually lock up completely and force me to shut down the computer (keyboard dies, screen freezes). Windows Error Reports point to ATI drivers as the cause of the freeze)

- Running lower tier games hasn't caused any problems yet, but the graphic card isn't getting as much work there. I may need to get my hands on crysis or another demanding game to see if these crashes happen with those games as well.

- Catalyst Control Center shows the card stuck at 216% activity (red warning level) when resuming the computer from sleep. (It happens more than 70% of the time)

- I don't know what to say, or when I can call their phone support, I will try to email them and see if they respond and update the review as well. But just want to point out that you would have to take a day off work just to call them given their absurd hours of operation.

- My suggestion, get one that has enhanced cooling, which will likely be more quiet and more stable. I may try changing the heatsink/fan with a better one and see if it helps, but that voids the warranty, so we'll see.

Good about the card...
The HD4870x2 is a very powerful card. With a Q6600 processor and 4GB DDR3 I was getting over 200fps at 1920x1200 resolution in Day of Defeat and Team Fortress 2. Fallout 3 runs smooth as silk on the highest settings.

Now for the problems with the card...
The card runs way too hot. The fan rarely kicks in and when it does the air coming out of the back is too hot to keep your hand back there. I believe this is the reason my card is now dead after a little over a month of use. One of the DVI ports results in a blank screen and when I switch over to the other port I get a scrambled image.

Now the problems with Diamond Multimedia...
I have tried to contact Diamond Multimedia and have yet to get a response. It is January 15th and I submitted an RMA ticket on Dec 22nd and the ticket has yet to be read, let alone respond to it. The unit only has a 1 year warranty on it which is sad compared to ASUS's 3 year warranty and BFG and XFX's lifetime warranty. The video card did not come with a manual and to get your 1 year warranty YOU NEED TO REGISTER YOUR VIDEO CARD ONLINE WITHIN 30 DAYS OF PURCHASE! From all the comments I have read online Diamond MM has the worst tech support of any company ever.

again, TO GET THE 1 YEAR WARRANTY YOU NEED TO REGISTER THE VIDEOCARD ONLINE WITHIN 30 DAYS OF PURCHASE!

With great games such as Call of Duty 4 and 5, this card ran way hot. I cranked up my fan to 100% and not only was it noisy but the temp did not drop that much. The card ran so hot that you cannot put your hand in the path of the airflow with out burning it. I had major artifact problems and the images on the screen would seem to grow artifacts and large green triangles and bars that would cover most of the screen and you would be forced to shut down for a few hours, very upsetting. I called and E-mailed Diamond to figure out the problem but no one responded or answered the phone. So Tech support is non existent. Some games require you to manually configure screen sizes or the image will be stretched. When the card does work it is great, but the Con's out weigh the pro's by far. I heard that the 4870x2 saphire or other manufactures dont have this problem so I will be getting one of those or will go NVIDIA. Oh yeah the card is very big so you need a case that will fit the card. My case has 8 fans and the card still ran at 100 to 120 d. Steer clear of the diamond, its not worth the trouble.

This card runs very hot, in a cramped case it will most likely over heat and crash your pc.
I had to get a case that has a fan blowing directly onto the Vid card to keep it from crashing my pc, I also had to create a profile and edit that to increase the fan speed to 70%. When running Warhammer for a few hours I can feel the heat coming from my pc. I had to return the first card I bought as it was overheating all the time, the second one seems to be a little better.
As far as speed goes this card is very fast, I'm running Warhammer @highest setting and it's very nice.
System, Q9650 8Gig ddr3 ram, 2T hard drive, Coolmaster case Intel BOXDX48BT2

The first one I received would not power up and I returned it to Amazon for replacement. The second card was sent the next day (bravo Amazon!) and it worked very well for about 2 weeks. I then began having trouble loading games without getting artifacts. I discovered that if I didn't enable ATI Overdrive, that it would function properly, some of the time. Other times I needed to re-boot the computer, or on a few occasions, re-install the video drivers. When I requested a new RMA from Amazon I was informed that the problems with this card were so extensive, that they were no longer shipping replacements, but rather, crediting me with a full refund. I would suggest not purchasing this video card until Diamond resolves their problems. I commend Amazon for their fair and prompt response to the issues regarding this component.