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Palit Radeon 4870 Sonic Dual Edition CrossfireX
Conclusion:
This is one of those instances of, if you got it flaunt it. The Turbo switch isn't really necessary, when they could just as easily clock the card at the turbo specs. The only real reason you could need it is if you are super eco conscious and want to save a watt or two by leaving it down clocked whenever you're not gaming. The nice thing is that the specs on this card beat out the other cards in the same price range. For only about $265 you are getting a very good deal. The cooling system could have been engineered a bit better, to not blow hot air back into the case. The main boost I found from the Turbo switch was in synthetic benchmarks, which don't always mean that much in the real world. I was able to play Crysis on max settings as long as I didn't go crazy on the AA. With two of these babies you're just over the cost of a lower end GTX280, for a setup that can beat the 280 in some tests. It all comes down to how much you want to spend on your graphics setup. ATI's current strategy of not aiming for the stars in performance, but instead shooting for the atmosphere seems to be working for them so far. By aiming for the midrange market, they are able to cash in on a larger user base, as opposed to the enthusiast market, which Nvidia has always succeeded at.
I would recommend this graphics card to someone with a well cooled case and a desire to get a little bit more performance out of a card. That or someone with nostalgia for the turbo button.
