Hd4870X2
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Alienware debuts Radeon HD 4870 X2-equipped gaming rigs
Alienware has already stuffed NVIDIA's top-end GTX 280 graphics card into its Area-51 desktop, but if that's not your thing, you can rest assured that company is now offering the high-end comforts of ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2 as well. That option, which Alienware helpfully reminds us offers 2.4 teraflops of graphics power, is available in the company's Area-51, Area-51 ALX, and Aurora desktops, each of which also offer the even pricier option of dual HD 4870 X2 cards in a CrossFireX configuration. To go for that latter bit of excess, however, you'll also have to bump the power supply up to a full 1,200 watts, although we're guessing that won't be too much of a concern for anyone considering going this route.
AMD dubs HD 4870 X2 "world's fastest graphics card," benchmarks prove it
Looks like all the Cinema 2.0 fuss that AMD has been blustering about with its new RV770-based GPUs is fully warranted. The benchmarks are in and AMD's new $549 ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 -- what AMD calls the "world's fastest graphics card" -- is an out and out screamer, besting the best cooked up over at NVIDIA thanks to that RV770 GPU pair nuzzled up next to 2GB of GDDR5 memory. As noted by PC Perspective, the new champ, "is able to run away from NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 1GB card handily. Our various game tests proved this - Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and GRID showed big gains for AMD's new card at resolutions 2,048 x 1,536 and 2,560 x 1,600," though performance gains are less dramatic as resolutions drop to 1,600 x 1,200. Not that any self-respecting gamer would push so few pixels. CrossFireX performance was disappointing, however, as the systems didn't scale well when going from 2 to 4 GPUs. In fact, Crysis seemed to barely notice the additional CrossFireX horsepower, something that should be corrected with future driver releases. Make no mistake though, as power-hungry, expensive, and hot-running as the new HD 4870 X2 may be, it's a big day for AMD as it retakes the graphics crown from NVIDIA, as short-lived as this victory may be.Read -- HotHardware Read -- PCPer Read -- Tweaktown Read -- CustomPCRead -- TechGageRead -- AMD press release
