[W1zzard]

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.


The RV770 graphics processor is made by TSMC Taiwan in a 55 nm process.

Test System

Test System
CPU:	Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (Wolfdale, 6144 KB Cache)
Motherboard:	Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Intel P35
Memory:	2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4
Harddisk:	WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB
Power Supply:	OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software:	Windows XP SP2
Drivers:	NVIDIA: 175.19, GTX 260 & 280: 177.41, 9500 GT & 9800 GT: 177.72 ATI: Catalyst 8.7, HD 4850, HD 4870, Palit 4870, 3870 X2 & 4870 X2: 8.8

• All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
• All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

• 1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
• 1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
• 1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
• 1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Call of Duty 4

Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter that is built on the award winning Call of Duty Series. It is the first version to play in modern times. In a near-future conflict between the United States, Europe and Russia you get to play as a United States Marine and a British SAS operative. The engine is Infinity Ward's own creation and has true dynamic lighting, depth of field, dynamic shadows and HDR. Even though the game plot is scripted you will find yourself in intense battles, often working together with computer controlled team mates.

Call of Juarez

Call of Juarez was one of the first DX10 titles available on the market, that's why it was heavily used to demonstrate the benefits of DirectX 10. It runs on the Chrome Engine created by the polish game studio Techland. This first-person shooter game is set in a Wild West theme with the plot unfolding from the perspective of two characters: Billy and Reverend Ray. Each offers a different play style to keep the game interesting. Also included in the game is a "Concentration Mode" which slows down time in hectic situations - a feature first pioneered by the Max Payne Series.

Company Of Heroes

The real-time strategy game Company of Heroes is set during World War II where you take two American companies through several fights all over France to liberate the country from German occupation. Company of Heroes is the first game to use Relic's next-generation engine "Essence Engine" which includes support for HDR lighting, Shader Model 3.0, normal mapping, dynamic lighting and shadows. You are able to zoom in from the tactical view of the battle field to see the individual units fighting. Often you catch yourself admiring the detailed animations of the soldiers while the fight around you is raging. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.

Crysis

After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers. We tested the DX9 version with graphics set to "High", the highest non-DX10 setting in the game.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

The first-person shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is set in the science-fiction universe of Quake and requires several classes to work together to achieve certain goals on a map. In the campaign mode you gain experience which you can use to buy upgrades for your class. The player gets to pick from five classes of either the Global Defense Force or the Strogg faction. As underlying game engine, the successful id Software Doom 3 engine has been licensed, but several features like MegaTextures have been added, giving the outdoor world a much more detailed appearance. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.

Far Cry

Far Cry was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.

FEAR

The first person shooter F.E.A.R, developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.

Prey

Prey is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.

Quake 4

The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a sci-fi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.

Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory

The Splinter Cell Series is endorsed by popular book author Tom Clancy. In the 2005 title Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory you play the NSA agent Sam Fisher who has to use stealth and finesse to make his way through a number of levels mainly set in eastern Asia. The game is based on a modified Unreal 2 engine with support for HDR, normal mapping, parallax mapping and soft shadows. A patch added Shader Model 2.0 support for ATI in addition to the Shader Model 3.0 support which was already part of the original shipping game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Before its release in 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was one of the most hyped games of the last years. This RPG/FPS hybrid game is set a few years in the future, after a nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The release of radiation causes strange things like mutations in the nearby area. You take the role of a Stalker who seeks fame and riches in the contaminated area around Chernobyl. The game engine features all the latest buzzwords like HDR, bullet physics, skeletal animation, soft shadows and weather effects. Stalker's vast outside world is richly modeled, you can interact with a large number of objects in the game thanks to the physics engine.

Supreme Commander

If you hear people talk about a real-time strategy game with "massive numbers of units fighting" you can be sure they are talking about Supreme Commander. The unofficial successor to the Total Annihilation Series completely redefined some aspects of the RTS genre. In Supreme Commander you can zoom out so far that you can see the whole map on your screen and units are just little blips. This is much needed in fights when several hundred units go at each other. Supreme Commander is also one of the most demanding RTS games with support for up to four CPU cores - a dual-core system with high-end graphics is recommended for optimum game play.

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 by the famous people from Valve software builds on an improved Half-Life 2 engine to deliver an action packed, team oriented, comic graphics first person shooter game. Even though the game features nice graphics, it tends to be very CPU limited, especially on lower resolutions. Players get to team up being either RED or BLU with a selection of nine classes. Each class offers a different play style, just like in the original Team Fortress games.

Unreal Tournament 3

The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3. It is based on the all-new Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. As you would expect from a new 2007 title, the graphics are top notch, with large and detailed textures. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing. While video card vendors like ATI have found ways to force this in their drivers we did all our testing with AA disabled in DX9 at maximum settings.

World In Conflict

The realtime strategy game World In Conflict by Massive Entertainment is set in 1989 taking the player through a fictional conflict during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unlike other RTS games, World in Conflict is not centered around building a base, you command units on the battlefield with a number of reinforcement points available to replace lost troops.
Massive's Masstech Game Engine makes heavy use of level-of-detail techniques which allow you to zoom in closely on the action displaying fights in high-fidelity with a large number of effects.

3DMark03

Futuremark Corporation is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.

3DMark05

Another benchmark from Futuremark is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.

3DMark06

Even though it's based on Futuremark's 3DMark05, the new 3DMark06 adds new tests for Shader Model 3.0 and HDR rendering. It is also the first 3DMark to incorporate a CPU score into the final 3DMark score. All tests have received an overhaul, for example in the Canyon Flight test you can now see beautiful sun glare effects with the help of High Dynamic Range rendering.

Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.

Test System
CPU:	Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (Wolfdale, 6144 KB Cache)
Motherboard:	Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Intel P35
Memory:	2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4
Harddisk:	WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB
Power Supply:	OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software:	Windows XP SP2

In order to characterize a video card's power consumption, the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.

The three result values are as following:

• Idle: Windows sitting at the desktop (1024x768 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed.
• Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (two per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
• Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Highest single reading

The power consumption of the Palit HD 4870 Sonic is slightly higher than that of the reference design card, which is caused by the higher clock speeds and second fan.
Palit has set the 2D/3D low power clocks (when the card is idle) to 500 MHz core clock and the normal 3D high clock memory frequency. Unfortunately ATI has still not figured out yet how to switch memory clocks seamlessly without flickering, this could allow an additional power saving by reducing memory clock as well when idle.

Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level.

When we first saw the dual fan design of the Palit HD 4870 Sonic we hoped for some kind of intelligent fan management. For example when the card is idle only one fan will run and the fan speeds will be adjusted to guarantee optimal noise levels while still keeping load temps down. Unfortunately the result is somewhat different. In idle the card is very noisy - the BIOS keeps the fan running at above 50% all the time. Under load the card is still noisy, but the difference to the other cards is smaller.

Performance Summary

To create this graph we took all performance results of the four resolutions we tested, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample. In a fifth graph we also combined all tests in all resolutions to calculate the total relative performance of the review sample.

Performance per Watt

This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results. To offset power consumption of the rest of the system we subtracted 50W from the average consumption.

Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the popular online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index.

Overclocking

To find the maximum overclock of our card we used a combination of AMD internal overclocking software, ATITool and our benchmarking suite.



The final overclocks of our card are 793 MHz core (2% overclock) and 1097 MHz Memory (10% overclock). The core overclock is limited, but you also have to see it in relation to the reference clock of the RV770 core which is 750 MHz (6% in that case).

Temperatures

The temperatures of the Palit HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition are very low, but the fan is noisy as well. I would have preferred some kind of compromise between fan noise and low temperatures.

Value and Conclusion

	The Palit HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition costs around $299, which is a reasonable price for the added features and new cooler.
	Overclocked out of the box High Performance Turbo switch Dual fan cooler DisplayPort Low temperatures idle and load HDMI+HDCP+Audio via adapter 7.1 HDMI Audio integrated in GPU PCI-Express 2.0 support Dual slot cooler Supports CrossFireX DirectX 10.1 support
	Very noisy Only one fan temperature controlled Turbo switch has limited use and requires reboot Limited additional overclocking potential Does not support CUDA/PhysX Dual slot cooler No native HDMI output
9.1	Palit has shown lots of creativity when releasing their first custom HD 4870 card. The HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition offers interesting new features like the turbo switch and a dual-fan cooling solution. Also the clock speeds are increased while still keeping full warranty. Unfortunately the cooling design can only achieve low operating temperatures, but not reduce the fan noise. Actually the card is very noisy, especially in idle, because the second smaller fan is always running at a high speed and is not temperature controlled. While the turbo switch is a nice gimmick I don't see any reason why someone would run the card at the "normal" setting. The temperatures are within 1°C compared to the turbo mode, and a reboot is required to apply the change. Having a DisplayPort connector is certainly a good innovation but given the low market share these displays have today I can't imagine that many people will base their buying decision on just that feature. However, I must say I am impressed by the changes Palit made to the AMD reference design without raising cost too much. A mere $20 price increase is very reasonable and shows that there is still a lot of potential in these cards.