Product Reviews

AMD's supercharged Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card was formally released just last week, but already Asus has released with a custom edition featuring higher clock speeds and more video outputs.

The EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP is the latest addition to the Taiwanese manufacturer's Republic of Gamers range, and comes bundled with THQ's recent Company Of Heroes spin-off Opposing Fronts. Asus describes its Republic range as designed "by gamers for gamers", and for a graphics card, this naturally means performance is a priority.

To this end, the card is supplied with its core and RAM both overclocked, from 825MHz to 851MHz and from 1.8GHz to 1.9GHz respectively.

These increases translate to a measurable, if not dramatic, improvement in performance. Across our high-detail Crysis tests the Asus card averaged an extra frame per second compared to a stock X2.

Over the duration of the Call of Juarez benchmark the average frame rate was unchanged, but the extra speed visibly helped out during challenging scenes. At 1,280 x 1,024 with high detail a regular X2 occasionally dipped to 10 frames per second, while the overclocked Asus never fell below 14 frames per

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second.

But to focus on out-of-box performance is to miss the point. So long as your power supply is up to it, any X2 card can be overclocked with the free ATi Overdrive utility.

Asus clearly expects enthusiasts to push the the EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP beyond the preset speeds (TOP stands for Top Overclocking Performance). That's why it has two fans, one dedicated to each of the card's two GPUs.

This provides better cooling than the single-fan standard model and keeps the card stable at higher speeds. It slightly increases noise as well, but the card's still not conspicuously louder than a normal X2 or any other performance graphics card we've seen.

As a final customisation, Asus has also upped the number of outputs to offer four dual-link DVI ports. This allows quad-monitor configurations with resolutions theoretically reaching 5,120 x 3,200 or 2,560 x 6,400, though we imagine very few purchasers will ever use this ability. There's a 7-pin TV out too, and an adapter to turn one DVI port into HDMI.

Asus' take on the HD 3870 X2 is certainly distinctive, and the custom cooling only extends the X2's already-impressive potential. Don't expect huge performance leaps compared to a vanilla card, but gameplay should be a little smoother when the going gets tough.

You pay for that, of course, with a price premium of around £35; but then the bundled game is still selling for £25 on the high street, so for RTS fans (who don't already have Opposing Forces) it's a decent deal. And if you happen to have a four-monitor setup, it's a bargain.