ATI did a nice comeback last year and managed to dethrone the competition, but NVIDIA doesn't plan on sulking as they are planning a comeback of their own. Their new GeForce GTX 295 card that will be showcased on the first day of the CES show. Until then, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 will keep its rightful title of the fastest card. Among the Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards, Sapphire's Atomic model with water cooling definitely stands out. We must say that in the sea of reference high-end cards, seeing the Atomic HD 4870 X2 is quite refreshing. And thanks to Asetek's non retail water cooling that does a great job of cooling both the GPU and CPU, Sapphire lets you enjoy their full water cooled package. - FudZilla

Sapphire Atomic HD 4870 X2 Graphics Edition Review

It's simple to mount, as it's a closed system and there's no need for filling it up or assembling parts. The water pump is built into the CPU block, so all you have to do is find the right spot for the radiator. So, the whole thing is made of only three components. The Atomic HD 4870 X2 is a single slot graphics card that, thanks to internal CrossFire, runs two Radeon HD 4870 boards, each packing 1GB of GDDR5 memory. Unlike the reference, dual slot design where temperatures soar over 90°C and noise levels are quite high when doing 3D, Sapphire's exclusive Atomic treatment paints a totally different picture of AMD's high-end champ.

The back of the video card is identical to the reference design, where you have the memory covered with a large black heatspreader. Each of the two graphics processors on the board has 1GB of memory at its disposal, where 512MB is placed on the back and another 512MB at the opposite side of the PCB. The CPU block with a water pump is the central component that handles the water circulation and graphics card and CPU cooling. The Atomic sticker looks nice, but we would prefer if the card's back panel was painted black since the PCB panel is already black and we think the card would look much better this way.

As you somehow expected the Atomic HD 4870 X2 runs at higher than reference speeds, but its owners might want even more. Now we played around a bit and managed to overclock the core from 800MHz to 850MHz and the memory from 4000MHz to 4200MHz. The Sapphire Atomic HD 4870 X2 costs saucy $750, but we must admit that this is a unique graphics card in many respects. Apart from the GPU's water block, Asetek's cooling provides CPU cooling at the same time. The entire water cooling system, graphics card included, is a pre-assembled and closed circuit, with makes it an easy installation without much effort.

Their Atomic HD 4870 X2 is a limited edition that comes in packaging you don't see every day, a nice large case with a lot of goodies. Temperatures are much lower than on the dual slot reference card and it runs quiet in 3D mode. The core is overclocked to 800MHz and the card packs 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at 4000MHz. The Atomic edition takes up only one slot, which is not the case with the reference card. When overclocking the GPU by it results in up to ten percent better gaming results. The GeForce GTX 280 loses by quite a margin, but note that the GeForce GTX 295 will be priced lower and will be faster as well.

However, if you are looking for the fastest single slot card around, then look no further than the Sapphire Atomic HD 4870 X2, as it will probably keep that title for some time. Once again, Sapphire showed that it is an innovative company that always manages to surprise us with their unique solutions, and their Atomic HD 4870 X2 graphics card is no exception.