Diamond 4870X2PE52G ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 PCIE 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Video Card

by Diamond

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 3 x 11.8 inches ; 2.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001E1BP80
• Item model number: 4870X2PE52G
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 2, 2004

Product Description

The ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series of GPUs bring the power of graphics supercomputing to gaming. Advance to the next generation of HD game performance and life-like realism thanks to DirectX 10.1 capabilities and plug-and-play ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU upgradeability. Watch the latest Blu-ray and HD-DVD videos in full 1080p HD ¿ and upscale beyond - without placing huge demands on your CPU. Technical Specs: 2GB Memory, 750Mhz Core Clock x2, 990Mhz Memory Clock x2, GDDR5 Memory Configuration, 256-bit Memory Interface x2, Display Formats: Hydravision 4 Dual Link DVI, Superscale unified shader architecture, PCI Express x 16 2.0 support, 800 Stream Processing units x2, 180.6 GB per second memory bandwidth, Direct X 10.1 / Shader Model 4.1, ATI Crossfire X Multi-GPU Support for highly scalable performance (Up to four GPU support with an AMD 790FX based motherboard), High-speed 128-bit-HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering, Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing, 55nm process technology, ATI Avivo HD Video and Display Technology, Game Physics processing capability, Built-in HDMI with Multi-channel 7.1 surround audio, Support for the ATI Radeon DVI to HDMI adapter, Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray and HD DVD, ATI PowerPlay energy conserving technology, Built-in DisplayPort technology, OpenGL 2.0 Support System Requirements: AMD Athlon or Intel Pentium 4, PCI Express based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard, 250 Watt or greater power supply (450 Watt for ATI CrossFireX with two 6-pin connectors) , 1GB of system memory, Installation software requires CD-ROM drive, DVD playback requires DVD drive, Blu-ray / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Performance, loud, driver issues, November 5, 2008

By 

M. Cordoba "mxc" (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Diamond 4870X2PE52G ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 PCIE 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Video Card (Personal Computers)

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Diamond Multimedia HD4870x2, January 15, 2009

By 

C. Wallpe "not a fan" (Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diamond 4870X2PE52G ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 PCIE 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Video Card (Personal Computers)

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!

2.0 out of 5 stars Diamond 4870x2, February 22, 2009

By 

David Litton "Jester_587" (Colorado Springs, Co) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diamond 4870X2PE52G ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 PCIE 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Video Card (Personal Computers)

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.