Last week saw the introduction of the Radeon HD 4800 series from AMD, and the reverberations from that release are still resounding across the wide web. Reviewing the Radeon HD 4850 surprised everybody out there. Everyone had heard it was going to be fast, and offer great value, but the extent of both these claims weren't really properly quantified until we ran through the benchmarks, and saw that it kept up even the fastest of video cards in our current testing arsenal. The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 is certainly going to be fast. Retailing for $299, this reference board design Radeon should be propelled to great speeds, thanks in large part to 512MB's of zipping fast GDDR5 memory. - NeoSeeker

Diamond Radeon HD 4870 GDDR5 Video Card Review

Judging from the Radeon HD 4850's great performance, we are guessing the only cards that should be able to keep up are the much more expensive GeForce 9800 GX2, and the also recently released king daddy next generation card from NVIDIA, the monstrous GeForce GTX 280. The Radeon HD 4850's release was definitely an important milestone in the history of ATI. Foregoing the strategy of starting a new generation off with big, bad, and expensive bang, the Radeon HD 4850 was aimed right at the jugular of the market place. Most gamers would consider buying a $199 card, but not so many would buy something over $400.

The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 is a big card, with a double slot cooler, but not as big to the same extent that the recent high-end cards from NVIDIA have been. The Radeon HD 4870 is about a half an inch longer than the Radeon HD 3870, and a bit heavier in comparison as well. The Radeon HD 4870 has very similar dimensions to the Radeon HD 2900 XT, and it seems the Radeon HD 4870 has a bit more in common than size alone, as they share the exact same cooler, although this cooler is encased in a different plastic shell. Whether or not is a matter of extreme foresight, or sticking with a design that worked.

Not deviating from the Diamond usual, this box is all black, but this time, it features an eye-catching, silver colored Ruby standing on the right. The color contrasts of the box probably help it stand out from some of the often garish boxes you find other cards in. The Radeon HD 4870 seems to run a bit cooler than the temperatures we were hitting with the Radeon HD 4850 last week, so we were eager to see how far this card could be pushed. In the end, we were very happy running without problems at 780MHz for the core, and a very impressive 2180MHz for the memory, and look forward to some pre-overclocked versions.

Usually, when each team releases a new generation of graphics cards, fans from either side can argue that one or the other is the better bet to go with. This time around though, this might be a much harder proposition. While the GeForce GTX 280 is an engineering marvel, and offers substantial performance, in almost every respect the Radeon HD 4870 comes out ahead. Just judging from a value perspective alone, there is no contest, the Radeon HD 4870 by offers more for your money than does the GeForce GTX 280. Perhaps the earlier switch to 55nm paid off, and this time around, ATI just delivered a thunderous one-two punch.

We fully expect that NVIDIA will adjust and react accordingly, and will offer high-end cards at more competitive prices, but at these early stages of the game, it will be very difficult to top the performance offered by the Radeon HD 4870, for around the $300 mark. The Radeon HD 4870 is cheaper to produce, and seemingly more efficient than the GeForce GTX 280 currently, and really, after looking at these benchmarks results, there seems to be very few reasons to recommend a GeForce GTX 280 over a Radeon HD 4870. ATI just bust down the door and stole the show this time around and it has been a long time indeed.

Beside the actual Radeon HD 4800 series cards themselves, perhaps the best thing about this new generation's launch is that the level of competition between the red team and the green team just shot way up. Who knows, perhaps NVIDIA even decided to throw this round because they have something explosive coming up in the pipes. But for now, there really isn't much beating the value and gaming goodness offered by the Radeon HD 4870. The Radeon HD 4850 represents a better deal at $199, when it comes to down to the bang for buck, at the next step up the Radeon HD 4870 stands pretty much alone.

Sure, the GeForce GTX 280 card can beat it sometimes but not as much as you would expect for something that costs more than twice as much. With the complete bundle, a fair price, and a helpful technical support line offered by Diamond, if you are looking for a super charged upgrade to your gaming rig, it would be hard to do much better this summer than picking up a Diamond Radeon HD 4870.