I then ran a few benchmarks at these new speeds. Below are the results.
3DMark Vantage shows a nominal gain of 79 points in the overall score.
3DMark 2006 shows an additional 209 points when running at the overclocked setting.
Far Cry 2 was really a mixed bag in terms of overclocking. The results were pretty inconsistent, as you can see here. The non-overclocked card took two spots while the overclocked card won the two other spots.
Using the Auto-Tune setting, it was determined that the highest and safest overclock for the card was 780 MHz core / 1005 MHz memory. I didn't bother re-benching with these settings as the changes were so minor.
Next I measured operating temperatures. All tests were conducted with a constant room temperature of 70 F.
I measured the temps in "turbo" mode and found an idle of 46 C with a load of 62 C. It was interesting to note that the fan speed only reached 60% during full load. This, of course, was with the fan speed set to auto. You can manually adjust the fan speed from 20% to 100%. At 20%, the fans were still audible over the other fans in my system (4x 120mm, 2x 80mm - all running at 7v) but not what I would consider loud. At 60%, you could definitely hear the fans and at 100%, they were just flat out loud. I would only reserve 100% for heavy overclocking or maybe at a LAN party where fan noise wouldn't be an issue. But either way, this is an extremely cool running GPU and I was surprised at these temperatures.
The Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition is a really nice card and has proven itself in a number of categories here today. It won out here today in our performance tests, but of course we were only testing it against a 9800GT so that was to be expected. I really wish I could have tested with a GTX 260, as things would have been much closer. But, if you frequent hardware sites, you already know the outcome of that match up.
This particular card has a relatively limited software bundle, but that only helps to keep costs down. There are a few display adapters included however, that allow you to connect your PC to a high-def TV using HDMI and also connect older monitors using VGA. A DisplayPort is also provided, should you happen to own a device that uses that interface.
The card itself looks really nice, with its red heatpipe cooler and matching PCB. Speaking of the cooler, the dual fan configuration does a great job of keeping the card nice and chilly at a reasonable noise level.
Our test sample never peaked above 62 C and the thermally-controlled fan never hit full throttle. In fact, the highest I saw was only 60% utilization. Of course, you can manually control the fan as well, should you be interested in doing some serious overclocking on the high end or lowering the fan speed to 20% for a more quiet overall system.
I really liked the inclusion of the Smart Switch on the back of the card. This makes mild overclocking a breeze and thus, most users won't even have to worry with "manual" overclocking. Those that want to push the envelope more are certainly welcomed to do so via the Overdrive software feature or another 3rd party overclocking utility.
If you are in the market for a high-end video card but can't afford the elite, $500+ cards, yet still want great performance, this is certainly a viable option. The price of nVidia's GTX 260 has come down a good bit lately so the price advantage of the HD 4870 over the GTX 260 isn't what it once was, but don't let that deter you from a really nice card.
As of writing, the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition retails for $264.99 at a popular online retailer.
OCIA.net has awarded the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition our Seal of Approval.
