ASUS EAH4870 TOP Radeon HD 4870

Before we get into the appearance of the card, we should point out that ASUS informed us recently that the cooler (which is a reference ATI cooler) on our sample is not the cooler that ASUS plans to use for EAH4870 TOP cards that it will sell in the United States. Instead, ASUS plans to swap it out for a better cooler that will provide lower temperatures and possibly better overclocking, but the factory overclock will remain the same.

As we just mentioned, our sample came with the reference cooler attached to the board. You can probably tell that there isn't really any change from the reference HD 4870 at all, other than the sticker that covers the cooler (which is a cool cherry blossom + female warrior combination). She definitely makes us want to frag.

As you might expect, the size of this card immediately apparent. It takes up two slots and is pretty long (about as long as a standard ATX motherboard is wide). It features a red PCB and a red fan in the translucent, red plastic cooler. Overall, the cooler does an adequate job and doesn't get too noisy (except during boot/POST).

We were happy to see that the bracket is vented, which will allow hot air to leave your system. In the second picture above, you can see the two CrossFireX connectors. These connectors are required for those of you wanting to rock some multi-GPU goodness.

Like other flagship cards from both NVIDIA and ATI, the EAH4870 TOP boasts two DVI connectors. In addition, there are two 6-pin PCI Express power connectors.