Just a few short months ago, ATi and Sapphire shocked the world with the explosive performance of the Radeon HD 4870 X2. Six months later, and this card still stands uncontested as the fastest single card on the market. So what do you do if you are Sapphire? You try to make the fastest even faster. Which brings us to today’s spotlight at the Club. Sapphire has unveiled their brand new limited edition, factory overclocked version of the 4870 X2, known as the 4870 X2 Atomic Edition. This isn’t your typical factory overclocked edition video card, however, as Sapphire has really upped the ante with extra features in this bundle.

So what makes the “Atomic Edition” stand out from the pack? The feature that stands out the most is the cooling solution. Instead of opting for the typical dual slot blower-style fan, the Atomic sports a single slot self-contained water-cooling solution that also supports the CPU. Secondly, the “Atomic Edition” is also the fastest factory overclocked card on the market today, sporting an 800MHz core speed and 1GHz (2GHz effective) memory speed. But don't expect to find one of these at every mom 'n pop computer store, as the Atomics are limited to a run of 1,000 units.

Featuring a closed loop liquid cooled system, the SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC brings workstation class cooling to the PC, enabling faster clock speeds and quieter operation - and delivering the fastest graphics performance ever seen in a single slot solution. Both GPU’s in the SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC are clocked at 800MHz and each has 1GB of DDR5 memory clocked at 1000MHz, making a total of 2GB of memory on board. The streamlined single slot cooler assembly on the graphics card evenly cools both GPU’s and their associated memories - enabling this dual graphics system to run with a high level of stability even when delivering the highest levels of performance - currently the fastest PC graphics available.

The SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC is a limited edition product packaged in an aluminium case with a host of accessories aimed at the gaming enthusiast, including HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, CCL UV lamp and SAPPHIRE USB memory sticks, as well as driver and utilities software.

Liquid coolant in the SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC is circulated through the graphics card cooler and a chassis mounted radiator by a pump assembly which fixes onto the standard system CPU mountings (both AMD and Intel mounts supplied). The graphics cooler, CPU cooler and radiator are connected in a closed loop by high quality flexible yet tough Teflon tubing and attached to each module with interference fit barbed joints that are sealed for life. This arrangement is easy to install, and efficiently cools the system CPU even in enthusiast systems where it is common to raise CPU speeds. The pump and sealed joints have been independently tested to 50,000 hours MTBF.

Air flow through the radiator is provided by a low noise 120mm 7-blade fan which delivers up to 60 cfm at full speed and is illuminated by blue LEDs. The fan and radiator can be mounted on the rear panel or in the top of the PC enclosure. The fan can be connected directly to the system power supply, to a motherboard connector, or to a fan speed controller which allows user controlled fan speeds and even lower noise when the PC is used for less demanding applications. Note that this system has only one fan and one pump cooling both CPU and dual graphics, considerably reducing overall system noise.

The SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC comprises two complete HD 4870 graphics systems on a single PCI-Express card connected by an on-board PCI Express Gen 2 bridge chip. Each GPU has 800 stream processors and is equipped with 1MB of GDDR5 memory, making a total of 1600 stream processors and 2GB of memory on-board. Two Dual Link DVI outputs are provided as well as TV-Out. 3D applications such as games use both on-board GPU’s together in CrossFire mode to deliver a single accelerated output on the Primary display. The single board layout of the SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC with its single slot cooler brings the fastest solution yet available to performance users with only a single PCI-Express slot available.

The SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC incorporates the latest ATI Avivo™ HD Technology for enhanced Video display and features a second generation built in UVD (Unified Video decoder) for the hardware accelerated decoding of Blu-ray™ and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as mpeg files, reducing CPU loading to a minimum. The SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 is HDCP ready and is compatible with the latest High Definition displays. Like other HD 4800 series products it also supports HDMI over the DVI interface with the correct HDMI Adapter.

All SAPPHIRE's current graphics cards are Microsoft Windows Vista ™ certified and supported by the ATI Catalyst™ suite of software, ensuring customers have easy and ongoing access to software updates for performance, stability and added features.

GPU Technology for Accelerated Computing (Stream)

ATI Stream technology is a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPU), working in concert with the system’s central processor (CPU), to accelerate many applications beyond just graphics. This enables better balanced platforms capable of running demanding computing tasks faster than ever.

Along with leading third party industry partners and academic institutions worldwide, AMD is building a complete ATI Stream computing ecosystem, one that delivers the performance, applications, software and tools necessary to turn AMD's low-cost application acceleration vision into reality.

Characteristics of GPU acceleration:

Enable new applications on new architectures
Parallel problems other than graphics that map well on GPU architecture
Transition from fixed function to programmable pipelines
Various proof points in research and industry under the name GPGPU