ASUS EAH4870 Matrix 512MB Video Card Review

Overclocking and Temperatures

The Asus Matrix HD 4870 is a most unusual card to overclock. Unlike nearly every other video card I’ve overclocked, this particular card has been equipped with everything you would need to reach the limits of the components. With Asus’ iTracker software, you can increase the GPU and GDDR5 voltages well past what would be useful on air-cooling. The overclock below was achieved with 1.425vGPU and 1.6vGDDR5 while solely using iTracker. Click the image for the 3Dmark Vantage run associated with those clocks.

I was a bit conservative with the card due to not having finished by the deadline but I plan on fully utilizing this software when I assemble AMD’s Dragon Platform with the Phenom II X4 940 I reviewed earlier.

I was incredibly surprised with the capacity of the heatsink that the Asus Matrix HD4870 was equipped with. Load testing was performed by looping 3DMark 2006 Game Test 3 and 4 three times each with the temp measured the average of the last loop. Fan speed was kept on “auto” and was silent at idle and a faint buzz on the Gamer preset. The overclock runs though had the fan at 70% and it was quite audible, definitely not an ideal speed for an open case but it’d be muffled in a PC case.