PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Diamond Radeon HD 4870

 & Loyd Case loyd_case@ziffdavis.com

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

Our Expert
LOOK INSIDE PC LABS HOW WE TEST
65 EXPERTS
43 YEARS
41,500+ REVIEWS
 - Graphics Cards
4.5 Outstanding

The Bottom Line

The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 is nearly as fast as competing graphics cards, yet more affordable.

Buy It Now

Pros & Cons

    • 9.5 inch length fits in most cases; good price/performance ratio and overall good performance.
    • Not the fastest card you can get.
    • "Only" 512MB of video memory (albeit fast video memory.)

Diamond Radeon HD 4870 Specs

Graphics Memory: 512
Included Cables: S-Video
Includes DVI-I-to-VGA converter?: yes
Memory Clock Speed: 900
No. DVI Output(s): 2
No. VGA Output(s): 1
RAMDAC Speed: 400
System Interface: PCI
Warranty: 12 months

The Diamond Radeon HD 4870, which is driven by an ATI GPU, gives impressive performance for a sub-$300 graphics card. In fact, at $275 street, the ratio of price to performance qualifies as pretty notable. Although the stock ASUS ENGTX280 offers good performance, given that some gaming tests ended in near dead-heat with the Diamond Radeon HD 4870, the latter may offer a better value. The wild card here is the memory: The 1GB of video RAM on the ASUS adapter can come in handy if you really pump up anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, or run at very high resolutions.

For more on the Diamond Radeon HD 4870, check out our sister site Extremetech.com

Final Thoughts

 - Graphics Cards

Diamond Radeon HD 4870

4.5 Outstanding

The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 is nearly as fast as competing graphics cards, yet more affordable.

Get It Now

Buy It Now

About Our Expert

Loyd Case

Loyd Case

loyd_case@ziffdavis.com

Loyd Case came to computing by way of physical chemistry. He began modestly on a DEC PDP-11 by learning the intricacies of the TROFF text formatter while working on his master's thesis. After a brief, painful stint as an analytical chemist, he took over a laboratory network at Lockheed in the early 80's and never looked back. His first "real" computer was an HP 1000 RTE-6/VM system.

In 1988, he figured out that building his own PC was vastly more interesting than buying off-the-shelf systems ad he ditched his aging Compaq portable. The Sony 3.5-inch floppy drive from his first homebrew rig is still running today. Since then, he's done some programming, been a systems engineer for Hewlett-Packard, worked in technical marketing in the workstation biz, and even dabbled in 3-D modeling and Web design during the Web's early years.

Loyd was also bitten by the writing bug at a very early age, and even has dim memories of reading his creative efforts to his third grade class. Later, he wrote for various user group magazines, culminating in a near-career ending incident at his employer when a humor-impaired senior manager took exception at one of his more flippant efforts. In 1994, Loyd took on the task of writing the first roundup of PC graphics cards for Computer Gaming World -- the first ever written specifically for computer gamers. A year later, Mike Weksler, then tech editor at Computer Gaming World, twisted his arm and forced him to start writing CGW's tech column. The gaming world -- and Loyd -- has never quite recovered despite repeated efforts to find a normal job. Now he's busy with the whole fatherhood thing, working hard to turn his two daughters into avid gamers. When he doesn't have his head buried inside a PC, he dabbles in downhill skiing, military history and home theater.

Read full bio