It was only a few short weeks ago when we got to took the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Toxic out for a spin. There was no doubt in our mind that it was a great card, it offered great performance at a very good price. In these harsh economic times, value is king. Sapphire just introduced the Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic edition and we hear it packs a mighty punch on the streets. We have got the pleasure of putting this video card up against several other Sapphire bad boys, including the Radeon HD 4850 X2. New with this board is the Vapor-X, or also known as the vapor chamber technology. An efficient cooling solution that uses three heatpipes to vent heat without increasing noise. - Overclockers Online

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB Vapor Cooling Review

Christmas came early for us as Sapphire shipped the Toxic HD 4870 to us overnight so it would arrive on the 24th of December. The packaging is almost identical to the Toxic HD 4850 card version. The large silver man makes up the background with the company name and product taking the front stage. Along the perimeter of the box are some included features when you purchase the card. On the back we have some more product highlights, included technology and past awards won. On one of the open sides, we have the product label providing the product and various other serial numbers, with also the system requirements.

The card uses three heatpipes in the Vapor-X cooling system and these are visible on onside of the card. The side that slides towards your motherboard is completely bare. While the card uses Vapor-X technology which claims to be a slim profile, it still remains a double slot board. Facing the card we see the two DVI outputs and video output. At the back end of the card we see the two 6-pin auxiliary power connectors, and both are required in order for the card to fully function. The remainder of the graphics card is just like any regular Radeon HD 4870, though it is fitted with 1GB of GDDR5 memory which is very interesting.

Sapphire continues to be innovative and brings new cards to the open market for consumers to pick. Now expanding the Toxic family is the Radeon HD 4870 1GB card, utilizing three heatpipes as part of the advanced Vapor-X cooler. The card from factory overclocked to 780/4000MHz, which is about 30MHz faster for the core and 400MHz faster on the memory. With recent price drop announcement on the Radeon HD 4870 family by ATI, it becomes very attractive. The card is priced well under the Radeon HD 4850 X2 but the real world performance shows that it is just as good as one. It's pretty easy to recommend this card to friends.