HD4870 512MB - MSI R4870 and R4870 OC review

Page 13 - Temperatures, Conclusion

The cooling of MSI R4870 and MSI R4870-OC has completely referent design, meaning that all cards from any brand made according to that particular AMD design will look identical. That must in no way be accepted as purely negative quality of the cooler. Temperatures reached according to the diagnostic software in the Catalyst driver were no more than 90 degrees centigrade for R4870-OC and 88 for R4870, after 30 of Furmark load, with enough Antialiasing at room temperature of 22 degrees. The cards remain acceptably noisy even at their temperature peaks, so the only reason to change it for another is if you are noise sensitive or just want completely silent computer.

And here we are after so much fun and games to the Pros and Cons.

MSI R4870 512MB

The card is based on the awesome AMD HD4870 core. It offers extraordinary performance, at times close to the one of the much more expensive NVIDIA GeForce 280GTX 1GB and overall higher than the one of 260GTX. MSI had provided rich bundle for this model, and though its a tad aged you still get an original game (Colin McRae D.I.R.T) - and believe you me, for that kind of money with any other brand you won't be getting this much. Warranty is whole 3 years, compared to the 2 of most other manufacturers. On top of that, R4870 has hefty overclock potential and could be safely overclocked to the R4870-OC frequencies. So, all we're actually trying to say is that undoubtedly MSI R4870 512MB deserves our highest excellence award and mark of 9.5/10!

MSI R4870-OC 512MB

All the good things we said for MSI R4870 are valid for R4870-OC too. The card has the same bundle and warranty, but has factory raised frequencies of the core and memory, making it faster than any plain HD4870 512MB. It;s a fact that the PCB and cooler of R4870-OC are absolutely ordinary, meaning that getting HD4870 512MB card, its extremely likely that there will be nothing stopping you to overclock it just as much. Still there are those people that are either unacquainted with how to do that or are merely afraid that they might damage it in some way, so for them, that exact faster model of HD4870 512MB is highly recommended (mind you, for a few bucks more). We award this model with out PERFORMANCE award and mark of 8.5/10 only because the lower price/performance ratio.

Author: Dimitar Dinchev a.k.a Veseliq

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