The ATI dual-GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2 edition was released back in January to a very enthusiastic reception. Unfortunately, driver issues and a less than efficient reference design cooler kept the Radeon HD 3870 X2 from any real fame at that time. Fast forward four months to the present day. Driver issues are worked out and individual ATI partners have had time to work on their own variants to the less than stellar reference design to offer the card that many people originally had hoped for. VisionTek is a well known and respected manufacturer with a history of innovation and forward thinking. As such, they have released their version of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 with a factory overclock. - Overclocker Cafe

VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB OC Board Review

But let's not forget the native qualities of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 that got everyone jazzed to begin with, such as DirectX 10.1 compatibility, over a teraflop of GPU power with dual processors, CrossFireX dual card ready, not to mention Blu-ray playback and fully integrated HD audio capacity and HDMI connectivity. The standard Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards come with a reference core and memory clock of 825/1800MHz. So the VisionTek takes this up a notch to 840/1920MHz. Not a huge overclock but remember this is something that sets the VisionTek apart from the crowd and at the $450 price point, that is all important.

The VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 card certainly is a big boy. The massive dual fan cooler that looks remarkably like the Thermaltake DuOrb brings the size up to the point we even put the card on the scale. We say remarkably like but not exactly as the VisionTek card is a much more robust cooler that is clearly geared to trump the venerable Thermaltake DuOrb. As you know, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 card comes packed with two processors and double memory. The first 512MB of GDDR3 memory are under the massive cooler on the face of the card with the second half gigabyte being out back with no cooling at all.

The reference design calls for 825MHz on the core and 1800MHz on the memory clock. The VisionTek card is already overclocked but let's see how much more is left. Using the latest Catalyst drivers we hemmed and hawed until we tapped the VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 out at 860MHz on the core and 1980MHz on the memory. VisionTek has done a wonderful job with their Radeon HD 3870 X2 card. They have taken the base of what ATI put out and improved it significantly. VisionTek has shown that their engineers clearly are able to think outside the box and come up with some real innovation.

We would have liked to see more raw performance out of the Radeon HD 3870 X2. At the end of the day, the VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 OverClocked edition gets the job done nicely. The image quality and game play was excellent and will give the end user a quality experience with enough lifetime that their next upgrade could be far down the road. For the multiple monitor folks, quad DVI outputs will certainly draw a crowd and make this Radeon HD 3870 X2 card clearly ahead of their crowd of competitors. This on top of the killer cooling solution and factory overclock VisionTek instilled already.