Hello people!

As promised, I am back with yet another graphics card review. And this time, its mother of all cards. Today we are taking a close look at the Palit’s Revolution 700 Deluxe. This is the first 4870x2 to utilize 3rd party design. Palit has made its own design PCB and cooling solution for this card.

Palit has taken a monster of a card, and made it more savage with this design. It’s certainly the biggest and heaviest card I have ever tested.









[BREAK=The R700]

The R700



Unlike NVIDIA, ATI had approached the graphics card market differently this time around. NVIDIA went for a massive chip while ATI made 1 good economical core and make mainstream, mid budget and high end cards from the same chip.

R700/4870x2 is nothing but two 55nm fab. RV770 chips on 1 PCB. ATI first did this with the 3870x2, and now they have done it again with 4870x2.

What makes this card special is the fact that RV770 (HD4870) alone by itself is a very good performer which gets very near to the best of what NVIDIA has to offer (GTX 280 ). You put 2 of them together and you get a monster powerhouse.

The specification alone are nothing short of amazing. You get 2 times everything of 4870. So you get monstrous 1600 shaders at your disposal.

Basically ATI has managed to put 2 HD4870s on 1 PCB, bridge them together with on card PCI express 2.0 bridge and put out a card that does not need crossfire board to run two GPUs.



And ATI learnt from its shortfalls and mistakes of 3870x2 and rectified them with this card. The former had PCI express 1.1 bridge chip on the PCB. This meant less bandwidth for crosstalk between the two chips and hence performance suffered. This was rectified with the 2nd generation PLX PCI express 2 bridge on this card providing full 10GB/s bandwidth between the two cores. Each core gets 1GB 256bit GDDR5 memory buffer of its own.

The result of this is a 2.4TFLOPS monster card in the hands of gamer.

Let’s quickly run through the specifications.



[BREAK=Specifications]

Specifications



• HD 4870 X2

• Bus interface: PCI Express® 2.0

• Memory Support: 2048MB GDDR5

• Memory Interface: 512 bit ( 2x256bit )

• Memory Clock: 3800MHz (950 x 4)

• Core Clock: 750 MHz

• RAMDACs: 400 MHz

• Full Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 Shader Model 4.1 support

• Dual-link DVI output supports 2560x1600 resolution display

• Dynamic geometry acceleration

• Game physics processing capability

• ATI PowerPlay™ technology

• ATI CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology

• ATI Avivo™ HD video and display technology

• HDCP capable

• 4-in-one display support includes CRT, HDMI, Dual-link DVI, and DisplayPort

• Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™

• ATI Stream Support*



* On the morning of this review, ATI formally announced its plans for ATI Stream which is counterpart to the NVIDIA’s CUDA GPGPU. The package will be available next month to the users.



[BREAK=The Package & Bundle]

The Package & Bundle



The Box





Well, the frog is back. Only this time around he is in surrounded by red instead of green. It’s the same box art you saw on the 9800GTX+ box.









The back of the box is also very much similar to other Palit products, just lists the different features.



Open Box





The inside is different story, it’s all plastic molded foam than simple bubble wrap and box like other Palit cards. It is understandable and good to see as this card is indeed very big, and very heavy. So the protection while shipping is really needed and this is not just for the show.





The Bundle







The bundle still remains basic. But the good thing about this Palit bundle is inclusion of crossfire bridge and PCI express 6 pin to 8pin adapter. These were missing from previous ATI products from Palit and I complained about this in my previous reviews. Good to see company listening to what gamers, users and reviewers have to say and implement it.



[BREAK=The Card]

The Card



Front







As you can see, the cooler is lot different than the reference. It has dual fan cooling setup which is quiet ingenious when you actually see what is under it later. Big badass looking card for sure.





Back







The back of the card is covered by the black metal plate which covers the RAM and acts as heat spreader. You get the warning message about the hot temperatures.

The two square gaps with steel crossbars is the back support for the heatsinks on two GPUs.



Top







This picture gives you an idea how thick this card really is. It’s a 3 slot card and. Big bulky cooling solution. You can see the crossfire bridge on the top left corner of the card.



[BREAK=The Card 2]



PCI express Connectors







Here is a closer look at the PCI express power connectors. On this palit card, the power connectors are facing top which is much better. On reference cards, the power connectors were facing the front of the card.





Side View







There is big gaping hole on the side to allow the proper airflow. This view makes the card look more monstrous.





Backplate







Palit has once again put every possible output on the back of this card like they had don’t on the Sonic edition cards. You get VGA, HDMI, DVI and display port all present on the back of the card.

You can also see air vents that dumps hot air outside the cabinet.



[BREAK=The Card Size]

The Card Size

This is indeed a big card. It’s as big as GTX280 in length.



But its 3 slot card making it thickest card at the moment. Here are couple of snaps comparing it with other cards.







On the left its Palit 9800GTX+. Top one is Palit Revolution 700, bottom card is Gigabyte GTX 280 and one on the far right is Palit HD4870 1GB Sonic Dual edition.







From left, 9800GTX+, GTX280, Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe, Palit HD4870 1GB.





[BREAK=The Naked Gun]

The Naked Gun

Taking apart this card is little tricky. Taking off the front was rather easy. 3 screws at top and bottom and 2 screws on the backplate keeps the fan and fan housing on the card. Removing these 8 screws will allow you to remove this housing.



The Fans







As you can see, the housing holds dual fans.





Front without fan housing







Removing the fan housing gives you first indications of what is under the hood. There are two independent heatsinks on 2 GPU cores. Rest everything including RAMs and PLX PCI express bridge chip are covered with black heatspreader.



[BREAK=The Naked Gun 2]



Cores Exposed







Removing 4 screws from the back of the card and pulling the heatsinks out exposes the cores. You will quickly notice the similarity between these heatsinks, and one used on the 9800GTX+ by Palit if you read that review. Its the same design here. Each heatsink is made up of 2 copper heatpipes. And each core is cooled independently with two independent heatsinks and independent fans. That is why this card is so massive and huge.

You can see the rest of the card is covered with black heat spreader. This covers the RAM chips and PCI express bridge chip.

The card supplied to me used the thermal compound which kinda fused this black front heatspreader to the PCI express bridge. Even pulling it with substantial force didn’t help. Obviously I didn’t want to damage the card before testing, so I put it back together. I would later try the freezer method.



Digital PWM







This card uses digital PWM. 2 separate circuits for two cores.



The back







The back of the card. The card uses Qimonda GDDR5 rated at 1000 (4000Mhz effective) memory



The RV770







This is the RV770 core up and close. It measures 16mmx16mm

That is it for the photo shoot.



[BREAK=Test System]



Test System



CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 @ 4400Mhz

Motherboard: Asus Maximus II Formula

PSU: Tagan BZ800

RAM: 4GB Transcend DDR2 800

Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX 280, Palit 9800GTX+ Sonic Edition, Palit HD4870 1GB.

HDD: Seagate 7200.11 SD35 500GB

Optical Drive: Samsung SH S223

Heatsink: Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer on CPU, Stock cooling for GPUs

Drivers: 188.43 for Nvidia cards and New ATI 8.11 WHQL.



The FSB was raised to 440Mhz making the CPU run at 4.4Ghz. At this speed, the CPU and entire system was quiet cool and stable on both the motherboard and it ensured the CPU bottleneck is taken out of picture as much as it could be.



Each benchmark was executed 3 times and average of the three results was taken to ensure consistency of the results.

Windows Vista Ultimate X64 was fully patched and updated and latest drivers for all components were used.







Let’s now move onto the benchmarking.



[BREAK=World In Conflict]

World In Conflict









World in conflict is one of the best strategy games out there. The graphics and gameplay both are absolutely stunning, and its one of the games that is really CPU and GPU intensive.



We used game’s in build benchmark system. For this test, the graphics setting were set to very high in the game. This enables DX10 render path and also enables 4x AA.



1280x1024









1680x1050











1920x1080









At every resolution, the Revolution Revolution 700 Deluxe is faster. Even at 1920x1080, game is butter smooth on this card. Maintaining 50+ FPS is no joke in this game and the card really delivers.



[BREAK=Far Cry 2]



Far Cry 2







This is the new game here for the first time in our reviews. This game is based on brand new Dunia Engine made by Ubisoft for this game.

This game is somewhat of a mixed bag, entertaining at times but not meant for everyone as those who don’t like long drives in the game that are just that, driving for long time from location A to B and nothing more. Some people hate it, some love it. But we can’t ignore it at the moment

The game is not really too heavy on high end GFX cards unless you really crank up the details to Ultra High settings. That is exactly what we did here as we are testing a high end card. We set everything to Ultra High and ran the benchmark tool built into the game.



1280x1024, 4xAA









1280x1024, 8xAA









1680x1050, 4xAA











1680x1050, 8xAA











1920x1080, 4xAA











1920x1080, 8xAA







In Far Cry 2 the 4870x2 used to be weak link until now. The new catalyst 8.11 was released by AMD just in time for this review, and it really made a difference and its visible here. With 4xAA, the Revolution Revolution 700 dlx really dominates every resolution and matches GTX280 with 8xAA.





[BREAK=Crysis]



Crysis.







Oh yes, the ever so debated game out there. Many people call it badly coded game; many curse it for being just a technological demonstration. But surely, it’s one of the best looking games out there at the moment and its very tough on the graphics cards.



So let’s have a look.



1280x1024











1680x1050











1920x1080







This game is completely dominated by Revolution Revolution 700 at all resolutions. This is one of the few cards that will allow you to game at 19x10 resolution under DX10 and Very High setting. If you want to play Crysis in its full glory, this is the card to get.





[BREAK=S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky]



S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky







This is the sequel of the Stalker SOC. This game didn’t receive many exceptionally good reviews. But it is really nice game and with DX10 enabled this game really looks great (though not really playable on most computers). But the lighting effects are amazing in this game.



I used FRAPS for benchmarking, and maximum preset setting was used.





1280x1024









1680x1050











1920x1080









This is the only card that allowed playable FPS without turning down eye candy. All other cards including GTX280 really struggle in this game. But Revolution Revolution 700 Deluxe handled this game nicely.





[BREAK=Race Driver GRID]

Race Driver Grid







One of the new racing game that came out from the Codemasters. Codemasters in past had a reputation of churning out outstanding racing simulation games. Grid is no exception to that. Beautiful game with some great cars and circuits.



This game is very hard to benchmark. There is no built in benchmark system. And races are fully dynamic. So you have to drive through circuit and measure fps using fraps. I tried my best to drive as carefully and uniformly. I drove very carefully for 1 lap of the circuit at the back of the grid with all cars in front of me. All in game settings were maxed out.

The game is not too heavy on GPU so let’s start directly from 1680x1050.





1680x1050, 4xAA











1680x1050, 8xAA











1920x1080, 4xAA











1920x1080, 8xAA









As you can clearly see, none of these cards had any real problem playing this game at acceptable frame rate. As expected Palit Revolution 700 is fastest.





[BREAK=Call Of Duty: World At War]

Call Of Duty: World At War





Yet another game in COD series. And COD WAW goes back to WW II era. This game is still based on the same engine that was used in COD4, it is little tweaked and the game still looks very good. But the game like COD4 is still pretty much CPU limited.



I still decided to do quick benching on GTX 280 and this card. All in game settings were maxed out. Texture settings to Extra, AF was set to max and Maximum in game AA was set to 4x.

Have a look.



1280x1024











1680x1050











1920x1080







As you can see, the cards are dead even. The only +ve thig is that 4870x2 manages to maintain minimum FPS much higher than GTX280.



[BREAK=Cinebench R10 x64 GPU OpenGL benchmark]

Cinebench 10 x64





Cinebench over years has become a standard for CPU subsystem benchmarking. The latest Cinebench R10 X64 uses Cinema4D engine. And here I am using the built in OpenGL benchmark to test the cards.



Here are the numbers.







2 GPUs on 4870x2 does not matter here. The score is same as HD4870.



[BREAK=3DMark 2006]

3DMark 2006







3DMark 2006 is quiet old and I dropped this from my benchmark suit in recent reviews. But I decided to bring it back as it does prove to be good CPU and GPU benchmark even today.











4870x2 manages a huge lead over anything else.





[BREAK=3DMark Vantage]

3DMark Vantage







This is the latest 3d benchmark from FutureMark. Its first DX10 benchmark. A set of synthetic CPU and GPU tests to evaluate system performance. Though its synthetic in nature, its good benchmark for relative comparison.













Again Palit Revolution Revolution 700 Deluxe has big lead over any other card.



[BREAK=Comments on Overclocking, Cooling and HD playback.]

Comments on Overclocking, Cooling and HD playback.



There are no new comments needed on the HD playback capabilities of this card. This card carries same UVD we saw in HD4870/4850 reviews here on techenclave.com.



Coming to overclocking. Now we need to keep in mind that this is non reference card with 2 GPUs. So when you overclock, you are overclocking two GPUs at a time. And this card didn’t like it at all. Atleast there were no real gains from overclocking. Not even 1FPS advantage in Crysis.



Coming to the cooling solution. Palit has made a lot of efforts to roll out a card that will run cool and quiet. And it does its job perfectly.

The card is really silent. This is the first ATI card I have used in long time that is quieter than GTX 280. And this does not compromise its cooling performance. The 4870x2 is notorious card for heat and high temperatures. But this Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe didn’t go beyond 70°C full load when the room temperatures were near 27-28°C.









EDIT1: Overclocking could be done only through ATI CCC which is limited to 800/1000 with Catalyst 8.11 drivers.



Today when I got time, I installed 8.9 RC drivers and could overclock the card using AMD GPU CLOCK TOOL easily to 836Mhz core and 1141Mhz Memory which is considerably higher than what other reference 4870x2s with Hynix RAM could achieve.



Here is the quick 3DMark Vantage Run.





[BREAK=Final Thoughts.]

Final Thoughts.



4870x2s were launched back in August this year. And since then all AIBs have rolled out nothing but reference cards. Palit has again went out of the way and created a unique card which performs well and at the same time remains cool and quiet.



This is not surprising anymore. If you don’t know, Palit Microsystems now owns Gainward. And this is something which we can expect from Gainward. And Palit team delivers it under its brand name now.

It’s a big, huge card. Absolutely massive. Weighs a ton ( not really, but its heavy ) and occupies 3 slots. But then again its high end card meant for enthusiasts.

Palit has come long way from no name brand in graphics card arena few years back to releasing some unique high quality, innovative graphics card today. And they have done it in style with this card.

The card is expected to cost roughly same as other 4870x2s in the market. In India, this card will cost same as most GTX 280 brands. And at the same or marginally higher price it offers a performance and cooling solution that is simply outstanding.

Who says a silent, cool running high end multi gpu cards are only something from the dreams? This is that card.



It has its own flaws, but those are overshadowed by the positives that comes out of those flaws.

Palit Revolution Revolution 700 Deluxe gets my approval for THE card to get if budget is not an issue.





Pros

• Exceptionally Good performance
  
• Massive cooler which keeps the card cool
  
• Silent
  
• Supports VGA, DVi, HDMI and Displayport
  

Cons

• Takes up 3 slots
  
• Might block SATA ports on some motherboards
  

My Score Card

Performance: 10/10

Features: 9/10

Value For Money: 7.5/10

Overall: 9/10









Thanks to Palit for sending this card for the review and testing.



Shripad signing out.



Please Digg this review here: Digg - Palit Revolution R700 Deluxe Review

Man you are on fire this week



Awesome review as usual





EDIT: No power consumption tests tho?