Conclusion:
The ATI Radeon 4870 X2 not only puts ATI back on the map as a dominant player it's been for more than a decade in the graphics industry but also is quite a shot to Nvidia when they need it the least. The level of performance at the highest game settings and at the highest resolutions is stunning in everything but the infamous performance of Crysis. The 4870 X2 not only is the fastest card on the market but clearly at higher resolutions and detail settings beats two 4870 graphics cards on Crossfire quite handily. We found this surprising but AMD discussed this in our meeting with them and overall it turned out to be very true. Unfortunately we didn't have another GeForce 260 card to test in SLI which would have been Nvidia's best competition against the 4870 X2 but even still that's two cards that take up 4 slots, consume a lot of heat, and require a special chipset to work. ATI's mid-range $300 strategy and then doubling up definitely seemed to be the right move and has paid off for the company. As of their drivers have been excellent as well, long gone are the days of ATI driver problems. What else can we say other than we are very excited about the 4850 X2 and seeing how it stacks up against the 4870 X2. If you're looking for the fastest single card on the market, this is it. And if you were considering two 4870s on Crossfire you'd do well to take a look at this card instead.

Score: 97%