Hawk’s Babble-Log

This here is the big, bad, ATI Radeon HD 4870. Yep, it’s big, and it’s bad. This card kicks some serious ass. Of course, by the time you’re reading this, it’ll be obsolete/ancient. But right now, it kicks ass and I love it. I got it from mwave.com.

It’s a double-wide card. Even though it only plugs in to one high-speed PCI (x16) slot, it’s so wide that it takes up two slots. This is one of the reasons why I chose the particular motherboard that I did. It’s got room for two of these bad boys. Actually, technically, it can take four, but four double-wides like this one won’t fit.

Yes, those are heat-pipes. This is why it’s double-wide. It’s got heat fins and heat pipes all over the place, and the fan there blows all the heat straight out the back. Nice design, good cooling.

Here’s some info on overclocking this card without buying anything else, but just using the onboard fan:
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=580

It’s installed, the case side panel is on, the side panel case fan is on (and glowing blue, but soon to be red), and all lights are all on in nifty glowy red goodness. You can see the lights on top of the RAM near the top.

Here’s a better shot, pulled-back a bit more so you can see the whole case. Oh yeah, my new game machine kicks ass. And this new ATI Radeon HD 4870 kicks some serious ass, too! Those red cold cathodes are so bright that they light up my room at night. Who needs a night-light when you’ve got a kick-ass gaming machine with evil-red cold cathodes?

Up next: New CPU cooler with evil-red fan.