The Radeon HD 4870 has been quite the performer from the word go, but it's in our blood that we have the need for even more power. This is where overclocking comes into play. Today Palit has placed the Radeon HD 4870 under their Sonic naming scheme, which means we get a nice little out of the box overclock. Palit hasn't just bumped the clock speeds up though, they've also decided to change it by removing the boring reference cooler that we've been seeing for so long and adding their own design. Before we check out the cooler and the clocks the new Radeon HD 4870 Sonic from Palit offers, we'll quickly take the time to have a look at the package to see if there's anything to get excited about. - TweakTown

Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Graphics Version Review

The new Radeon HD 4870 Sonic uses the same box that we saw the other day on the Radeon HD 4850 Sonic. It's slightly bigger than the older boxes, though offers all the standard information. Down the side we have the Palit, ATI and Windows logo while the middle of the box is taken up with a picture of our old friend, FroBot. Towards the bottom right corner of the box we have a sticker that states the model, clock speeds, some of the main specifications like 512MB of GDDR5 memory, dual DVI along with some of the main features like PCI Express 2.0 and the fact that it's overclocked out of the box from factory.

Pulling the card out of the box, it's refreshing to see that Palit have opted to use a new style of cooler. While the reference cooler does a good job of keeping the card at a bearable temperature, it's always nice to see something a bit different. The Palit uses a dual fan design that helps cool the giant heatsink which has three heatpipes coming out of the top. The card actually uses two different sized fans. The left one that sits closer to the core is slightly larger than the one that sits towards the back of the card. Looking around the card, apart from the cooler there isn't really anything out of the ordinary and rather standard.

While you might think normal is default, but it's not. The normal refers to the standard Sonic clocks which give us the default core speed of 750MHz, but an overclocked memory clock of 3800MHz data rate, which is up from the 3600MHz data rate of the reference clocks. If you want to up the ante though, and quite honestly who doesn't? Switching to turbo will boost the core to 775MHz and the memory clock to 4000MHz data rate. These clocks are mighty impressive and should give quite a boost. We really like this card, but before we get too much into it we have to say the whole turbo switch thing does seem a bit pointless.

Honestly, why wouldn't you want to run your card at full tilt all the time? And considering you have to shut down to switch between the clocks, it makes it a bit of a pain. We're also not sure about your setup, but if this was in my main PC, getting to the back of the card to switch from normal to turbo would be even more of a pain. In turbo mode the card didn't hiccup once, it ran like an absolute dream which again kind of puzzles me as to why one would opt for normal mode. The thing is the card ultimately performs great. It runs cooler than the stock Radeon HD 4870, performs slightly better and costs only slightly more.

If you find yourself wanting something a bit different while also running a little bit faster, the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic is a great option. As far as the Radeon HD 4870's go, there isn't a whole lot more you could ask for. Throw in the fact that Palit have also added DisplayPort and the card is pretty feature packed.