Only days ago we heard of an announcement by Palit that they will soon release their own Radeon HD 4870 X2 version. Today we bring you the full view. The Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe as it is called is the first graphics card to feature a triple slot cooling solution, at least as far as we know. Now Palit has also increased the clock speed on the memory to offset their new product even further from the competition's offerings. And another exclusive feature is the output configuration, which has a quite unique setup which can please each and every end-user. This is a very nice innovation which we certainly can appreciate. It is surely something to have a closer look at, and find out the difference. - techPowerUp

Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe Dual-GPU Design Review

The big package which features Palit's green frog mascot has the most important specs on the front in the red deluxe sticker area. Some more details in multiple languages can be found on the back. Palit's card is huge and weighs over one kilo, which is just a bit more than the regular Radeon HD 4870 X2 version. The card is dominated by the two big temperature controlled fans. And with a space requirement of three slots this is probably the biggest graphics card ever built, in terms of total volume occupied. The card has one DVI port, one HDMI port, one DisplayPort and analog output and certainly the most flexible output configs.

In the first step we removed the fan assembly which occupies the top most slot. You can clearly see these two fans which are controlled via a single fan output, which means that each fan's speed can not be optimized to its own GPU's temperature. After the removal of the fan assembly you can see the two heatsink modules. And each one has two heatpipes and is dedicated to cool one RV770 graphics processor. This metal plate came off the back and cools the eight memory chips on the back of the card. After removal of the two heatsink modules you can see the two cores and Palit uses some sort of thermal epoxy on them.

You may combine two of these cards in CrossFire for increased performance or better image quality. It is also possible to add a single Radeon HD 4870 for triple CrossFire. The graphics card has one 6-pin power connector and one 8-pin power connector. Both are required for correct operation. The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Qimonda and they carry a latency of 1.0ns, so they should be good for at least 4000MHz. Their PLX bridge chip is a full 3-way PCI Express 2.0 switch also offers new features like dual cast and read pacing. Two of these RV770 cores from AMD are working together on the Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card.

The final overclocks of our board are 822MHz core and 4564MHz memory. Both overclocks are considerable and these will help squeeze that last extra bit of performance out of the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe graphics card. Unfortunately the overclocking process is very complex, compared to other cards. First you need to find an overclocking program that works well with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and can overclock both cores. Next you need to find a stress test that properly loads the card so you can check if it's stable. Since CrossFire does not work in windowed 3D, you constantly have to switch between programs.

According to Palit the Revolution 700 Deluxe pricing of $540 will be competitive with other Radeon HD 4870 X2 designs. And the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe is certainly a very interesting graphics card. It is the first consumer graphics card to come with a triple slot cooling solution. This approach promises lower temps, less fan noise and potentially better overclocking potential. Palit's card can deliver in all those three points. Even though the card comes overclocked out of the box, some more could be squeezed out of it. This makes us believe that AMD had a say in what the maximum settings of the shipping product would be.

One major drawback of this graphics card is its huge power consumption in idle. Compared to the Radeon HD 4870 X2 reference design, the card draws an extra 80W in idle. With all the green computing efforts going on today, this could be a big issue for some users. Other than that Palit's implementation is flawless, the only other limitations are caused by AMD's dual GPU design. Their CrossFire performance depends largely on ATI's support to add the CrossFire profiles for existing games. If you want the latest and greatest in ATI graphics technology then the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe should be on your list to consider.