Videocards are something that have always kind of annoyed me, it seems they're always releasing a new one, technology that was hot a few months ago is now obsolete. Then again, that's the way it is with most technology so I'm not sure why it surprises me, but it, the upgrades, just seems to go much faster with video cards.

Today for review I've got the Diamond ATI Radeon 4870 1gig video card. As you can see be the name it features 1 gig of ram, so I figured why not make this more of a comparison review as in how much performance do you gain when going from 512mb to 1gig of ram. So I put my Sapphire 4870 512mb card up against the Diamond, both are running the same core and memory speeds, so they're pretty much the same cards except for the on board ram they have. So read one to find out if it's worth it to grab the 1gig over the 512mb version card...

Product Name: DIAMOND ATI Radeon HD 4870 PCIE 1024MB GDDR5 Video Card 4870PE51G

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Sponsor: Diamond

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

DIAMOND ATI Radeon HD 4870 PCIE 1024MB GDDR5 Video Card 4870PE51G

[SKU : 4870PE51G]

The Diamond HD 4870 is a magnificent beast. A 956 million-transistor processing powerhouse, a technology statement and dream come true for enthusiast gamers hungry for the fastest GPU ever made. Featuring a 2nd generation unified shader architecture, massive processing power and an unprecedented 256-bit memory interface, HD 4870 will deliver astonishing performance and the richest feature-set yet for a big ultra-high definition gaming experience with all of the bells and whistles turned up to the max. The HD 4870 is quite simply a ticket to the future of PC gaming.

* Play the latest PC games supporting DirectX 10.1, the latest generation of gaming graphics.

* Work & Productivity Application

* Video playback and editing.

* HD video playback (Blu-ray and HD DVD) and editing.

* Everyday home computing applications (such as Vista, photos, standard videos, and games).

Performance:

GPU : HD 4870

ASIC Core : RV 770

Core Clock : 750 MHZ

BUS : PCI Express x16

Ports : 2 Dual-Link DVI,Video Out [S-Video, Composite, HDTV]

Cooling : Active - FanCooler

MFG Process : 55nm fabrication process

Transistor Count : 956 million

Stream Processors : 800

Memory:

Memory Clock : 900 MHz

Memory Configuration : 32Mx32

Memory Type : GDDR5

Memory Bandwidth : 160.9 GB/sec

Memory Size : 1024MB

Memory Interface : 256-Bit

RAMDAC : Dual 400Mhz

Video Quality:

CrossFire : CrossFire X

QuadFire Support : YES

Direct-X : 8.0,9.0,10.0-10.1

Open GL : OpenGL 2.0

Vide Acceleration : MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264

Max Resolution Analog : 2048 X 1536

Max Resolution Digital : 2560 x 1600

HDR F.Point Rendering : 128

HDR Integer : 16-bit integer or floating point

Standard Slot Solution : DOUBLE

Anti Aliasing Modes : Anti-aliasing features * Multi-sample anti-aliasing (2, 4, or 8 samples per pixel) * Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for

improved quality * Adaptive super-sampling and multi-sampling * Gamma correct * Super AA (ATI CrossFireX™ configurations only) * All anti-aliasing features

compatible with HDR rendering

Antisotropic Modes : 4x

Texture Support : Texture filtering features * 2x/4x/8x/16x high quality adaptive anisotropic filtering modes (up to 128 taps per pixel) * 128-bit floating point

HDR texture filtering * sRGB filtering (gamma/degamma) * Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF) * Depth & stencil texture (DST) format support * Shared exponent

HDR (RGBE 9:9:9:5) texture format support

Display Support:

HDTV : YES

HDMI : HDMI 1.2 / HDMI Ready

HDMI MODE : Dongle

Native Display Support : 18-, 24-, and 30-bit

3D Resolution : 2560x1600

TV-OUT Resolution : 720

Dual Display support : Hydravision 4

Holywood Q.VIDEO : YES

Package Content:

DIAMOND HD 4870 PCIE 1024MB GDDR5 VIDEO CARD

Quick Start Guide

INSTALL CD

Component HDTV ADAPTER

CROSSFIRE Bridge Interconnect

DVI-TO-VGA ADAPTER

DVI-TO-HDMI ADAPTER

General Product Information:

Form Factor (Profile) : Standard Profile Full-Height

Product Dimension : 11.75 X 9.5 X 3

Product Weight : 1.8 LBS

SKU : 4870PE51G

UPC : 757448006483