nice computer part

Thanks. And behind it are my two previous Nvidia 7800GT card that I used to run in SLI mode. It simply dwarfs them completely.

Where do you put the rest of the computer? =P

Already assembled and heating up my bedroom this cold and very rainy October month. The thing (entire comp) draws over 250w just in idle doing nothing but surfing or downloading.

I meant space-wise in the case, seeing as that card's a ridiculous monster.

It is, had to remove an unused HDD carrier inside the P180 for it to fit. Its a full length card alright.

some1 going have a bad ass computer soon

Thanks. I prefer the more british "not bad at all" way of saying. :) But yeah its pretty much a power machine for gaming.

My 8800Ultra runs everything Maxed with a TINY bit of compromise, but it because it is 2 generations late now, i used to like ATI but i lost count with it models =/

That 8800Ultra was indeed a good purchase that lasted long and still does. Same with my Radeon 9700 which I later replaced with my 7800GT SLI setup. It took a while for ATI to get back to the top. I usually buy close to the top high end cards and then skip several generations. This is the first I´ve actually purchased the very top of the line card. The R9700 was a step below the 9700pro, same with the 7800GT and now there is nothing above the 4870x2 (actually had planned for the 4850x2 but its not available).

Got it at a good deal too. The Radeon 9700 cost 3300SEK back then, the first 7800GT about 3400SEK and I gave 3600SEK for the 4870x2. Still below my absolute limit (4000SEK).

Sweet Jesus!!!

DO WANT

To be fair, it doesn't cost any more than the 9800GX2 did when it first came out not long ago, and afaik still costs less than an 8800Ultra.

I'm not sure yet if the X2 would be worth it for me to buy, simply because most games don't even support the technology to make it perform better than the standard 4870.

I'm looking at the 4870 to upgrade from my current heavily overclocked 8800GTS320, mostly for the increase of VRAM that I need for games like Clear Sky, although I've been very pleased with the overall speed of my GPU, it simply lacks the texture memory.

I got it for two reasons. Its got a great card as a base with the 4870 and with two of em the entire upgrading with another 4870 is already settled. Its a complete and solid Crossfire solution already done. Se second was that it had 1GB of mem for each card. I mod games. Alot. So just having 512MB wasn´t good enough anymore. Add all texture packs to Oblivion and 512MB will not do. And what about future games? So any card with less then 1GB was out of the question. The 4870 was a choice... No it wasn´t since its not even out yet. The GTX280 would have cost more so the only option was the 4870x2 or a single 4870/50 with 1GB to Crossfire later on. And that would have cost more then to go with an all in one x2 solution now.

I know Im not gonna expand it with another x2 thats for sure.

(clear sky runs beautiful, except when it diskswaps. YES, even with 8GB ram and 2GB gfx mem the game laggs when swapping at max settings. So its not that its a slow card, its a shitty programmed game. Same with Crysis/Warhead)

I meant 4850x2 instead of 4870 as a choice.

by the way, I've been wondering on how it does for noise/heat... I've heard some people complain that it sounds like a jet engine, and given the overheating problems I've had with previous cards, that's a factor too... I want something I can overclock, or at least keep cool.

Its absolutely quiet in idle and doesn´t spin up much when in full use. The jet sound is when you force the fan to run at 100% which it should never do with normal usage. I even adjusted the speed in idle from 27% to 35% and its still quiet enough for average usage. Temps changed from 85C to 72 in idle so its a hot card alright and if you pu your hand close to the heat exhaust you´ll really feel the hot air being blown out. But it does not overheat or ever become unstable. I haven´t tried to overclock it yet though (And really, why should I?).

hmm, the 8800GTS320 I have was supposedly the same way, with the fan being wired to idle at like 25% speed, but it resulted in the card running too hot (75 idle, over 100 load), and causing artifacting, or even crashes when playing Crysis... to make matters worse, using a tuner driver to speed up the fan and keep it cool caused you to get permabanned from all the online game servers, because gamebuster classed all unofficial drivers as hacking tools. In the end I ended up having to drop $70 on an aftermarket copper GPU cooler to make it run stable, and it ended up running SO much cooler that I was able to overclock it by nearly 30% without the load temp ever going above what the idle had been with the stock heatsink.

Well the fan adjustment is by rewriting a config file for your costum profile so there is no driver adjustment done. This powercolor runs at 72-73 idle at 35% fanspeed which is acceptable but still hot. Then again it is 2 4870 with each having twice the normal amount of heat generating DDR5 mems. Its just not a power friendly device I figure. At least its fully stable at max load, no matter what game I´ve used.

Good thing that you got a better cooler for that 8800. It helps, but for me its not much of an option (not even with a 280GTX). Seems the 8800 series were the last power efficient cards that also were high powered. Both ATIs and Nvidias highend cards nowadays are powerhungry beyond norms.

How does that card measure up to today's ATI Radeon HD 5970.

Actually it stands pretty good on Dx9 and Dx10 games. Its faster then any HD5870 so you can use the difference from the 5870 to the 5970 to estimate roughly where it stands. Also the 5970 costs more then the 487x2 ever did. I consider it to be one of my best gfx purchases (next to my Radeon 9700). It still kick ass in games today without compromise so its a long lasting one for sure. No intent to replace it in the near future. Its gonna last at least a year more before I even begin to consider getting a new gfx card.