For those who missed it, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is essentially two Radeon HD 4870's operating in CrossFire mode, albeit on a single card. And as if the original wasn't already huge enough, Palit has super sized their Radeon HD 4870 X2. What they call the Revolution 700 Deluxe takes up a grand total of three slots. With the super sizing, one might assume that their Revolution 700 Deluxe is heavily overclocked out of the box by the factory. That is not the case with the Revolution 700 Deluxe. Strangely enough, Palit has chosen not to overclock the core even the slightest. Even the ASUS video card fitted with a stock cooler is overclocked, and as such looking faster towards gaming performance. - VR-Zone

Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe Graphics Version Review

We were expecting a more significant memory overclock instead of the anemic 50MHz factory setup. And regardless, the lack of a significant factory overclock means more headroom for overclocking or the cores and memory are not up to the task. We hoped for the former given the super sized cooling. We find out if it is headroom and if the cooling is upto the task. The included accessories are pretty standard, a quick installation guide, driver CD, 6-pin to 8-pin PCI Express power adapter and a single HDMI to DVI adapter are included. The accessories provided is enough for most given the variety of display outputs present.

Do take note that there isn't a game bundle or software included to show off the card capabilities. The packaging is not as fancy other brands, but if it makes the price lower and helps save the earth too, we are all for it. And the wide variety of outputs is good but we felt that Palit should have put in just a second DVI port instead of the analog display port. The position of the GPU cores is the same as that of the reference card, as can be seen from the location of the mounting backplates. The heatsink uses four copper heatpipes, two for each core to move heat to the fins that are cooled by two 80mm fans, one per graphics core.

The fans are the main reason the R700 takes up an extra slot. The heatsink is so large that mounting backplates were necessary to prevent the card from warping. Besides the large main heatsink there are also smaller heatsinks mounted on the power circuitry. It looks like ATI has already pushed the Radeon HD 4870 X2 close to its limits, because there was little headroom for overclocking. Leaving the fan speed under automatic control, we only managed to push the core clock to 800MHz speed. Though the memory overclock was marginally better, going to 4400MHz effective, which as such boost the general bandwidth.

Forcing the fan speed up to 100% manually, we were able to extract just 10MHz more from the core and 80MHz more from the memory even though temperatures decreased. The fan is quite noisy now so it is unlikely anyone but the extreme overclocker or hardcore gamer would do for extended periods. Palit has designed a system that far exceeds the capabilities of the reference design, one that operates with a low noise level. Nevermind that the performance gains are marginal, the serious issues that we encountered with the ASUS card using the woefully inadequate design makes the Revolution 700 that much more appealing.

If your application or environment demands additional display outputs included on the R700, this card may suit your requirements. Do take note of some limitations highlighted earlier when trying to use multiple outputs. Ultimately, when deciding whether to get the Revolution 700 Deluxe or a run of the mill Radeon HD 4870 X2, one has to examine the big picture. The large card design may pose problems with your motherboard. The triple slot design offers superior cooling capability and quieter fan operation. Otherwise, the extra premium you pay for the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe is well worth it, surely for those who decided already.

Now regardless, it's always nice to see manufacturers innovate rather than just churning out the same tired old reference design and slapping on a generic heatsink fan. Palit sat up and took note of the problems at hand, set out to create a solution, and we are happy to say that they have succeeded in doing so. And they have as such succeeded at the task at hand.