Palit Radeon HD 4870 1GB Sonic Dual Edition: Overclocked Bargain

Palit have released a quad-output graphics card based on ATI's Radeon 4870 HD.  The Palit Radeon HD 4870 1GB Sonic Dual Edition consists of an overclocked ATI chipset with a sizable dual-fan cooler and switchable dual-BIOS for 'sonic' and 'turbo' modes.  The output options are twin HDCP-compliant DVI and a DisplayPort socket, with included converters for DVI-to-VGA and DVI-to-HDMI.

The sonic/turbo switch – which requires a reboot to take affect, so no on-the-fly changeovers possible – flips between two BIOS settings.  Sonic leaves the CPU at 750MHz but boosts the 1GB GDDR5 RAM speed to 3800MHz; Turbo takes the core to 775MHz and the memory to 4000MHz.

HardwareZone have been testing out the Palit card, and rated it highly: 4.5 out of 5, in fact.  Their main criticism appears to be their test unit's 512MB of RAM, and how the card could do with more – something Palit seems to have taken on board, as a 1GB version is available.  Where it really scores is the price: the Sonic Dual Edition benchmarks better than the standard Radeon HD 4870, but costs around the same. 

Look to pay around €230 or $270 for the card, which is available now.