We checked an unique card coming from ASUS called the Extreme AH3870 X2 graphics card. Compared to stock Radeon HD 3870 X2 card with two DVI outs and a one fan cooler, the Extreme AH3870 X2 1GB TOP edition packs four DVI outs and a dual fan cooling solution. It is nice seeing innovations, and ASUS although mostly famous for their motherboards, surprises us every once in a while with a specially designed graphics cards with interesting capabilities. The first thing you will notice on the ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 board is the non reference cooling. Just like the reference design, the cooler hides the entire card, but although it looks bigger than reference cooling, it's still a bit lighter. - FudZilla

ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 1GB TOP Graphics Review

We see that the front of the card houses two fans, so each RV670 core has its own cooling system made up of one fan and a heatsink with a heatpipe. The cooler fans alter their speed dynamically, and although they're not too loud, they have shifted gears quite often, and it bothered us on a couple of occasions. The Radeon HD 3870 X2 is a card based on two RV670 cores printed on one board and running in CrossFire mode, made possible by a PCI Express bridge chip that enables internal communication between the cores. This large chip, which needs no cooling, fits strategically in between the two RV670 graphics cores.

The reference Radeon HD 3870 X2 card runs at 825MHz, with memory speed of 1800MHz. For those of us that always crave more, ASUS overclocked their card to 851MHz, and that resulted in memory speed of 1908MHz. The boost isn't that significant, and the performance is just slightly better than reference cards, but ASUS gives you an option to simultaneously use up to four monitors. Thanks to its two GPU's, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 offers four DVI's with HDCP outs. Three out of four DVI's are dual link capable, whereas the fourth can be used only as a single link DVI, or as an HDMI out, with a little help from an HDMI adapter.

The ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 video card features one CrossFire connector for connecting another Radeon HD 3870 X2 card and thus getting a quad-GPU system. This combination is made possible by the CrossFireX drivers, that enable four cores simultaneously. This driver also enables mixing different cards, for instance the Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850 versions. ASUS offers one of the best ATI based graphics cards we seen so far, and with four DVI's, this card will definitely attract fans of multi monitor setups. Two strong RV670 cores make the Extreme AH3870 X2 1GB edition a good performer.

The core runs at 851MHz clock speed, which is not a significant overclock compared to reference 825MHz, but it's still enough for a couple of frames more during gaming. Also, thanks to special cooling, this card will run a couple of degrees cooler compared to reference card. It's priced at around $400, which is some $50 more than reference, and ultra gamers will find this to be money well spent. Still, if you have no need for four DVI outputs and a fancy cooler, then ASUS' reference Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card edition will probably prove to be a better choice.