With the introduction of the Radeon HD 4800 series, manufacturers have taking a twist and adding features to make them stand out among the crowd. Sapphire has been known for taking its graphics cards to the next level. One series that Sapphire created is Toxic. The Toxic series allows for high overclocks and faster stock speeds using new technology cooling. Now couple this excellent cooling solution with a fast card like the Radeon HD 4870 and you have a winner with the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic edition. And Sapphire has taken this card and overclocked it out of the box so you are sure to win some late night gaming frag fests without having to do anything else with it as such. - Overclockers Club

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic 1GB Version Review

Also, since it has better cooling, you don't have to worry about it overheating like some of the first Radeon HD 4870's did when they hit the market. The Saphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic sports a GPU clock speed of 780MHz and a memory clock speed of 4000MHz. This card also has a total 1GB of memory instead of the 512MB that the standard Radeon HD 4870 cards come with. If that doesn't have your eyes open we don't know what will. The Vapor-X is actually a vapor chamber that transfers heat away from the GPU and will keep the card running cool and stable even at the already higher overclocked setting and even more.

When the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic card arrived the box got our mouth watering. The front of the box highlights features, including being overclocked and having the Vapor-X cooling solution. On the back of the box, Sapphire highlights more of the features and highights. Sapphire also includes a wealth of software and utilities with its card, so on the front are some of the sneak peaks of what you can expect with your card when you purchase it. Opening the box lets you get down to the nitty gritty. The video card is well protected by a thick layer of foam and anti-static wrapping and the cardboard box is quite sturdy.

So when you first lay eyes on the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic it looks next generation compared to the stock version, due to the massive Vapor-X cooler. Sapphire has chosen to use a blue colored PCB instead of the traditional red used on ATI based cards. The Vapor-X heatsink covers the full extent of the card and uses a unique method for keeping the card cool. On the underside of the card is the bracket that holds the heatsink in place and prevents damage to the card by the weight of the heatsink. On the top of the housing there is the Toxic and the Vapor-X logos to show off your somehow special looking graphics card.

The cooler on the Radeon HD 4870 Toxic is a dual slot cooling solution with an exhaust vent that allows the hot air to be expelled out of the case instead of inside creating more internal heat. Turning the card on its side you can see the copper heatpipes that extend out of the side to aid in the cooling. On the top spine are the two notches to be used for running this video card in multi GPU CrossFire solution. During the overclocking the walls we hit was at 845MHz core and 4264MHz memory speed. For a graphics card that was already overclocked, the additional speed gained was very nice and gave a nice boost in performance.

The biggest beef we have had with these ATI Radeon HD 4800 series cards has been the temperatures. Moving all the way into the 90°C range is not what we would consider optimal. This is something that Sapphire has taken care of with the Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic thanks to their vapor chamber cooling. When manually controlled and overclocked, the temperatures we were able to achieve were in the mid-50°C temp range. This does come with a price, meaning noise. The compromise is however that when the Catalyst drivers control the fan speed the temperatures never hit 70°C in our testing, being a decent improvement.

And a benefit to this is that the Radeon HD 4870 GB Toxic can be overclocked right from the factory. This offers a pretty decent performance increase over the preset overclocked performance. With performance between the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 and Toxic pretty similar you really have to come down to looking at price. At around $250 dollars, the pricing structure puts this card right under that of the GeForce GTX 260 version. The Toxic offers great value for the performance and cooling it delivers, which is certainly a big plus.