Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic

When everyone thought AMD was sinking into a dark abyss, ATI unveiled their Radeon HD 4000 series and proved the critics all wrong. The Radeon HD 4870 is their current single-GPU flagship, and it's earned a high level of well-deserved distinction. Palit has followed-up this pattern by adding some stand-out features of their own. Benchmark Reviews tests the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic edition video card from Palit. This RV770 graphics solution offers factory overclocked performance and a new cooling solution.

Tao Le Ching had it right: the more you know, the less you understand. This notion surrounds the computer hardware industry as much as anything, because I have discovered that the moment my experience leads me into one opinion, the industry changes and goes in a new direction. Case in point: AMD / ATI. Phenom processors built for the Spider platform have had a very difficult time building momentum against Intel, relegating AMD to being second-best. At the other end of the corporate conglomerate is ATI, which has taken such a beating from NVIDIA that most enthusiasts would have to agree that their future looked bleak prior to Q2 2008. But that's exactly when things changed.

At some undetermined point in late June of 2008, ATI and AMD each gained ground on the competition in small steps. AMD launched several enthusiast-level processor, lifting them up out of the tailspin. Around the same time ATI launched their Radeon HD 4850 video card, which directly competes with the GeForce 9800 GTX and GTX+. Then, after a few on-again off-again launch dates, NVIDIA and ATI did an excellent job of confusing the community with a barrage of product launches. NVIDIA came out swinging with their GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 video cards, and ATI retaliated with the Radeon HD 4870 featuring the industries first implementation of GDDR5 video memory.

We live in a world where a company that produces the most powerful video card available is usually regarded as the leader in graphics technology. There is a certain amount of truth to this to be fair, but it's not always good to be the king. I imagine NVIDIA has to be getting a little tired of constantly polishing the throne in a lonely palace, especially after their recent launch of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 offered just as much to gamers as it did to multimedia editors. But what happens to everyone else who doesn't have enough gold to buy a piece of the kingdom?

The Radeon 4800-series is what happens. Ever since AMD purchased ATI, not only have times been tough for chipmakers, but our national economy has gone down the moat. Adding to the frustration for AMD was a series of flawed product launches and less-than-spectacular performance from those products that actually worked. So when you're living out in the stables with livestock, you learn to make the best of what you have. This is what it appears ATI has done with their latest Radeon HD 4850, and improved upon in the 4870 graphics card.

About the Company: Palit Multimedia Inc

Palit Multimedia Inc. provides a wide range of industry-leading graphics cards to North and Latin America with a focus on service, support and innovative products. Palit Multimedia is affiliated with Palit Microsystems, a world-leading supplier in the design, manufacture, and distribution of PC graphics accelerators which was established in 1988. Palit is well positioned to maintain an industry leadership due to the vast array of NVIDIA and AMD's ATI VGA products and on-going development efforts.

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