The logo on the VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 video card is a close-up of a gross, glowing Protoss. We are not sure what that says about VisionTek, maybe they're playful. We mean, if you need help, you can surely visit their website for a little technical support. Their video card, though is stock, like all of the Radeon HD 4870 cards manufactured by other brands. So why choose VisionTek over, say Sappire or Palit? Or for that matter any other company? Well VisionTek offers a lifetime warranty unlike the others. Long term support has been a big deal for many of NVIDIA's partners, but ATI not nearly to the same extent. At least, less visibly so that is certainly something that can be worked on. - TechLounge

VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 (RV770) Graphics Review

As far as the things you can and can't do with your lifetime limited warranty, it's a little vague. We've emailed them through their regular customer support service, and they didn't get back to us by the time this article ran. The warranty says this, damaged by tampering, user error, disaster, misuse, neglect, abuse, power supply, power application, alteration, repair, modification, a fix or replacement by an unauthorized technician that in any way affects its performance or reliability and we don't like it. But a lifetime warranty is still a lifetime warranty. Though the terms and conditions could be a bit better as such, less narrow minded.

Box art aside, this is a thoroughly stock product. VisionTek opted for a modified generic sticker, one with their branding with ATI roots. The card isn't full length which makes the heatsink look pretty hefty. The fan hulks in its end of the transparent shroud. At the front of the card are the two 6-pin power connectors. Heatsink bashing is no sport, and the card beneath it is very elegant. Like most high-end ATI cards, the power regulation hardware is all solid state, and both the front and the back sides of the card shimmer from the blanket of transistors. The included accessories are having an HDMI adapter and a CrossFire bridge.

There's a picture on the back of the box of Mass Effect but it's not tossed in. It's just a suggestion, like, hey check this out. We received two boxes from VisionTek, one retail looking box with just a card and one blank box with a card and accessories. Neither came with a manual or even a driver CD, but there's no mention of Mass Effect as listed content, and we wouldn't get our hopes up. This card has full open and closed source Linux drivers, so you can get your Wine on. So far, all of our Radeon HD 4870's have maxed out the Catalyst center's overclocking ceiling of 790MHz core and 2200MHz memory speed.

Video playback is really perfect. We don't expect this to falter with video cards of the future, but until we see perfect video acceleration on both sides at all price points, this test still has merit with the Radeon HD 4800 series firmly at the top. The heatsink is loud because the card has to deal with a lot of electricity, it's not like it turns into bits. We say a lot relative to ATI's cards, but it's still efficient compared to high-end NVIDIA hardware. The fan bugs us, we think that's clear. It's not the volume of the thing, that part's tolerable. It's that the fan speed varies wildly once the chip hits 80°C and keeps spinning louder.

Unfortunately for now, the available Radeon HD 4870's are all stock. Performance and profiles being identical, you gotta check out boring stuff like warranties. VisionTek goes farther than other ATI partners with a limited lifetime warranty, but they really like the limited section. This card is a fine deal, handles any game you throw at it, uses a lot less power than it could, and does that beautiful video acceleration. ATI's Vista and Linux support is unmatched. This is a perfectly well rounded high performance video card, even if it's the same as all the others.