Hardware Palit Revolution 700 (Radeon HD 4870 X2)

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2009/01/13/palit-revolution-700-deluxe-4870-x2-review/1

ATI's dual slot 4870 X2 cooler not big enough for you? Then meet the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe, a factory overclocked 4870 X2 sporting a massive triple slot, dual fan cooler. Can it tame the twin RV770 cores? Read on to find out!

 

Its not exactly the most sensible deign, most motherboards are now designed to accomodate 2-slot coolers, using the 3rd slot means that there is a limited number of motherboards that would be capable of running two of these together. Then there is the d-sub connection on the rear, who would spend £370.00 on a graphics card and not purchase a decent monitor with DVI.

I think this is a great example of the underdogs proving that sometimes they should just leave it to the market leaders, and thats before you get onto the minimal performance benefits and the huge power consumption.

 

I think this card is massively confused. It feels like someone mixed three design teams together and forgot to tell them they were not working on different products.

On the one hand you've got the epic cooling team, the other you've got the compatability team, and rolling around on the floor is the performance team.

I have no doubt that if Palit cleaned their evidently sloppy card design up, they could well produce a decent card worthy of the price point they've gone for.

As for the bundle, I think it's refreshing to see one not concerned with which free games it can add to its product as a selling point. People buying cards of this ilk usually already have the games in question. T-shirts are a no-no, too, as you're then left with sizing. Personally, I love t-shirts, but I'll be damned if I've ever had a free t-shirt that's actually fitted me. That doesn't leave much for a bundle. In my opinion, of course.

Side note: Harry, have you fallen in love with your 'e' key?

 

I'm no friend of D-sub connections either, but there are still people out there who refuse to use TFT's and want to stick to their CRT's.

 

wah?

 

Why on earth did you guys waste all the time putting this card through your whole benchmarking suite when it's only got a tiny bump to the memory? Normally the graphs are really interesting, but this time i skipped the lot and went right to the conclusion.

It would have been better to run al your tests, including the power consumption, at a safe 800/1000 overclock, i think that's the sweetspot for most potential buyers anyway.

Otherwise good article, and good find on that power consumption!

 

"around [eurl=http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148274 ]£340 [/eurl]following " :B

 

aha! Fixed.

 

Did i miss it or u didn't put some test results with the overclocked card? If i were to buy it, i would take it just for the overclock.

Too bad they didn't bundle a t-shirt! liratheal

 

This makes me curious if there are any third party vga coolers that would fit on a 4870 X2 - it seems like most are only designed to fit single-gpu cards.

 

7 for performance? come on, bit tech.....

 

it deservs a 7

no single card should be above 8 anyway.

383 watts idle. Is just way way way exesive.

520 watt in usage. OMG. From a single card. Whoever created this is out of there mined

 

hold it right there rollo, the quoted usage is SYSTEM usage, and not the card alone! And that's an overclocked i7 system, not known for it's low power draw

And what do you mean by "no single card should be above 8"? The performance rating there is not an absolute number, it is a number based on how well the card should perform versus how well it does perform.

I think Palit are lucky to get a 7 out of this, a card with a cooling and price premium like this should perform a lot better then a stock card, but it's nearly identical unless you start overclocking.

 

That's "at the wall" - so including Core i7 system + PSU inefficiency, which for the Galaxy DXX is about 80%

Exactly

 

It's been mentioned above, but I thought I'd reiterate: pages 3-14 are one of the most thorough and comprehensive proofs of the-bleedin-obvious I have ever seen.

I admire your benchmarking professionalism though

I wonder if, with some decent case airflow, you could rip the shroud and the fans off and have a passive card that doesn't burst into flames. Not sure I'd like to try it myself however

 

Sometimes a custom power circuit throws up a quirky which is why we have to test it all. In addition - if we didnt post it all, other people would get fussy

 

lol the VGA port is funny, why even bother, they should have just dropped that and opened up that portion for more ventilation.

 

the vga is there for 2 reasons:
1: CRT-zealots
2: benchmarkers that are using cheap generic 19" screens from the office.

 

I have medium knowledge of hardware, meaning I understand most of what is said, but some things still elude me and I have to ask.

I understand the derision the inclusion of a VGA port on the card deserves when they could have added a £2.50 DVI to VGA converter to the bundle, but why would you need more than one DVI port unless you are running a multi-monitor set up? I can see the extra ports usefulness if that is what you want to do, but in my experience the common gamer would rather have one very good large monitor, and very rarely has more than one.

So while the option would be nice, it is hardly a point that deserves a huge amount of attention. A mention for those who want to run more than one monitor, yes, but a lot of complaining? Or am I missing something here?

 

A gamer yes, but photo editing, 3d design, and many other uses that require some graphics power could make use of many monitors, especially with a card this powerful.