The bionic frog is back again, only this time with a few tricks up his metallic sleeve. This new version of our frobot commando features dual BIOS, which enables the smart switch to shift between stock and turbo speeds. Also onboard are dual DVI heads, HDMI and a DisplayPort. This video card is actually based upon the reference Radeon HD 4870 reference design though features a different cooling solution. We take not one, but two of these bad boys out for a spin in a CrossFireX setup and tell you whether or not the smart switch is worth your time. Find out with us whether or not this card has just what it takes to leap forward to crush the competition, or will just run at a cooler pace. - Techware Labs

Palit Radeon 4870 Sonic Dual CrossFire Card Review

These Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual edition equipped with GDDR5 industry lead memory is a revolutionary graphics solution with dual BIOS and dual fans. This Palit own design graphics solution with world's first smart switch technology making overclocking an easy thing. It is further equipped with the one and only dual fan cooling system allowing users to turbo charge their speed with no worries about noise and heat. The Palit Radeon 4870 Sonic Dual edition comes packaged in a nice eye catching box featuring their bionic frog, or frobot as they like to call it. They only have a few logos and show a nice visual of their mascot.

Inside the box is a cardboard compartment that flips open to reveal the prize. The card comes wrapped in a nice bubble wrap pouch. Although in this instance, an anti-static bag would have been preferable. Taking a closer look, we see that it has a few features that set it apart from the rest. This card is a beast, taking up two slots. This is to accommodate the large heatsink, dual fans and heatpipes that this card has attached to it. The color that they used on the card would not be our first design choice. The solid orange color makes it look kind of cheap and plastic like. You will notice that the faceplate does not have any vents on it.

We felt this was a rather poor engineering decision, as the fans are forced to blow the hot air back into the case. This means you need to make sure you have a good cooling system before you invest in one of these monsters, as they do put out a bit of heat. The smart switch brings back nostalgy. In this instance, the switch allows the card to switch between BIOS's to safely overclock the card. In the normal position, the card has a core clock of 750MHz and a memory clock of 1900MHz. When in the turbo mode the card switches to the other BIOS and has a core clock of 775MHz and memory clock of 2000MHz effective.

This is one of those instances of, if you got it flaunt it. And the turbo switch isn't really necessary, when they could just as easily clock the card at the turbo specs. The only real reason you could need it is if you are super eco conscious and want to save a watt or two by leaving it downclocked whenever you're not gaming. The nice thing is that the specs on this card beat out the other cards in the same price range. For only about $265 you are getting a very good deal. The cooling system could have been engineered a bit better. The main boost we found from the turbo switch was in synthetic benchmarks.

We were able to play Crysis on max settings as long as we didn't go crazy on the anti-aliasing. With two of these babies you're just over the cost of a lower end GeForce GTX 280, for a setup that can beat it in some tests. It all comes down to how much you want to spend on your graphics setup. ATI's current strategy of not aiming for the stars in performance, but instead shooting for the atmosphere seems to be working for them so far. By aiming for the mid-range market, they are able to cash in on a larger user base, as opposed to the enthusiast market, which NVIDIA has always succeeded at.