Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC 2GB video card review

It doesn't seem like all that long ago that we used to long for ATI's graphics AIB partners to start differentiating their products a little bit more - While NVIDIA parts frequently came to market with factory overclocks, third-party coolers and other extravagant extras, ATI's offerings tended to stick to the reference specifications 99% of the time.  However, the last few generations have seen this change, and very much for the better.  Factory overclocked ATI parts are no longer a rarity, third-party cooling solutions on boards are flooding the market, and thanks to Sapphire we've even seen the introduction of fully pre-built, water cooled parts of late.

Indeed, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was the first time we saw Sapphire extend their ATOMIC brand to refer to water cooling, and we couldn't help but be impressed due to the sheer fact that it's the first time we'd ever seen anything like it from an ATI AIB partner, and we like our innovation here in the Elite Bastards review dungeon.

Well, the ATOMIC name is now back, and once again it refers to a limited edition, water cooled version of AMD's flagship graphics solution, in the form of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 this time around.  Rather than simply slap their previous ATOMIC solution's cooler onto this new part however, Sapphire have almost completed reworked their solution, even including a CPU cooler as part of the water cooling system.  Of course it's going to be expensive, but is the Radeon HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC going to live up to its hefty price tag?  Let's give it a look.