Back in August, ATI released the Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card. The original reference version, built by a contractor for ATI, and sold to the various ATI partners. Though a quite wicked graphics card, did have some opportunities for improvement, mainly in the cooling system. The two massive copper heatsinks just weren't getting enough airflow from the single fan, making the card's temps little on the scary side, with up to 90°C load temps. Our friends at Palit, who usually aren't happy with the reference design of video cards anyway, have come up with a new version of the Radeon HD 4870 X2, with two fans blowing on a pair of heatpipe coolers to cool off those cookin' GPU's. - ThinkComputers

Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe 2GB Video Card Review

Taking up three expansion slots, this may be the largest gaming video card ever built. Billed by Palit as the first custom designed Radeon HD 4870 X2, the card not only sports custom cooling, but also a Palit designed PCB, and four different output interfaces. In addition, they have overclocked the 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe comes in a large box, reddish in color to depict its ATI innards, with Frobot the frog proudly displayed on the front. There are a few specs, features, and the system requirements, but mainly the graphics leave you without a doubt that a Revolution 700 Deluxe is hidden within.

The card is protected inside by thick foam on all sides. It is in a static-free sleeve. Briefly, for those that may not know, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is basically a pair of 1GB strong Radeon HD 4870's hardwired in CrossFire, with additional 2-way data flow via a sideport in each GPU. The bandwidth between the GPU's is an incredible 21GB/sec, as opposed to 10GB/sec with a typical CrossFire setup. The GPU's are clocked at 750MHz, and the GDDR5 memory at 3600MHz. The Revolution 700 Deluxe card is the same configuration, except with the memory clocked at 3800MHz. The first glance at the card says only one thing, massive.

This is by far the largest gaming video card we've seen, and for good reason it has to be the largest gaming card in the world. And a pair of 80mm fans is probably the most noticeable thing about the card. If nothing else, it should be capable of some serious airflow. The fans blow on twin heatpipe coolers, which comprise much of the weight of the card. The coolers have copper bases and heatpipes, and aluminum radiators. We suppose that Zalman or someone could design a more elaborate cooling system, but this one should have the potential to eliminate the cooling problems plaguing the reference model.

So as we expected, there wasn't any significant differences between the gaming performance. Remember it is basically the same card, with only a 200MHz memory overclock. Our GPU overclock of 50MHz did make a little difference. So what's the big deal with the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe? The cooling on the reference Radeon HD 4870 X2 left much to be desired. Honestly, load temps of over 90°C are pretty scary. The highest load temp we saw with the Revolution 700 Deluxe was a momentary 77°C, all the rest of the time the temperature was around 74°C only. An average drop of 25°C on idle temp is just as impressive.

The twin heatpipe coolers do make the card huge. It might prevent being able to use CrossFire on some motherboards, or take up needed expansion slots for someone that uses a lot of PCI card devices. Finally, the bundle. It seems a very lackluster bundle for such an expensive video card, but to be honest, we seldom use anything included with a video card. And there is no need to include a game to increase the selling price of the card. So we guess that the bundle contains everything you need as such. We don't have an official price on the Revolution 700 Deluxe, but we have seen a price of around $540 circulating.

As the reference Radeon HD 4870 X2's run from $480 to $550, and as far as we know there is no aftermarket cooler for them, the $540 is definitely a good price for this card. No, a +$500 video card isn't for everyone. But for someone in the market for a new Radeon HD 4870 X2, we see no need to purchase a reference one over the Revolution 700 Deluxe, unless you need to heat a small home with it at that point the reference version will do best.