Diamond HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Video Card Review

Conclusion

The Diamond HD 4870 features some of the most current technology available on the market and sits at an easily affordable price point. The power requirements aren’t anything to snuff at but for those users looking for a single-GPU card to game at 1920×1200 with high settings, the Diamond HD 4870 is an excellent option. A single HD 4870 wouldn’t be able to game at 2560×1600 but the beauty of CrossFire would let you couple two or three of these cards together till you have enough graphical power.

One minor concern I have was the temperature the card operated at. It’s a known fact that I like my components to be cold so seeing 92 Celsius at idle I sort of freaked. I also managed to burn my hand slightly while I was poking around the card with my multi-meter probe. The card is hot, I cannot stress this enough. If

you’ve got to work around it, bring out the asbestos suit.

Diamond Multimedia offers a full year warrantyon the card from manufacturers defects under normal use so keep that in mind, if you blow your card up overclocking you’ve voided your warranty. There is no standard length for warranties in the industry however they do vary considerably from one company to the next. Legit Reviews contacted Diamond Multimedia about their warranty and we received a response stating they were actually looking into revising their warranty with the possibility of extending it to a greater length of time if you register the card with Diamond within a certain period of time. If you register your card within 90 days Diamond Multimedia is considering the possibility to extend the warranty from 3-5 years. This is much longer than the standard one year warranty and all you’ll have to do is register the card. So now we pose a question to you, the reader. Would you like to see a 3 year, 5 year, or lifetime warranty and does the length of the warranty factor heavily into your GPU purchasing? Diamond is interested in what our community thinks as they are going to change their policy and you have a voice. Be sure to speak up in the forums and remember it is free to join!

At stock speeds the Diamond HD 4870 offers plenty of performance. With rebates it’ll soon be possible to purchase one of these cards for under $240 which is just under half of the cost for an HD 4870X2. Once you factor in overclocking, the HD 4870 starts to look like a very solid option in it’s price segment. With it’s GDDR5 and gobs of bandwidth the card handles anti-aliasing like a champ, further increasing your quality of gaming.

Legit Bottom Line: Power efficiency, price, and performance are all values that favor the HD 4870 over the competition.