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Palit puts Turbo button on Radeon 4870 card
Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition features two fans, a DisplayPort connector and a SmartSwitch Turbo button
After being banished to the retro dungeon since the 486 days, the Turbo button appears to be appealing for re-release now. Not only has Intel announced that its forthcoming Nehalem CPUs will feature a Turbo Mode, but Palit has now also announced a dual-BIOS Radeon HD 4870 graphics card with a switch to go into overclocked mode.
As standard, the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition has a standard core clock speed of 750MHz and 512MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 3.8GHz. However, a flick of the switch on the backplate will push the memory speed up to 4GHz, and the core clock speed up to 775MHz. So, you can run it in overclocked mode if you want to run games, or switch it to standard mode if you want to work in peace.
As well as the new take on the turbo button, which Palit calls the Smart Switch, the card will also come equipped with a pair of fans mounted on a heatsink with a copper base. The speed of the larger fan on the left will change according to the GPU temperature, while the smaller fan on the right will continuously run at the same (low) speed to cool the VRMs. Interestingly, the card also comes with a DisplayPort connector in addition to the two DVI ports.
Palit isn’t the first company to introduce a dual-BIOS graphics card with a ‘turbo’ mode. MSI’s NX8600GT Twin Turbo had a similar dual-BIOS system with a Turbo button this time last year. However that card’s choice of GPU, a GeForce 8600 GT, wasn’t nearly as good as a Radeon HD 4870.
It’s a good idea in theory, although the placement of the button on the backplate isn’t going to be particularly convenient. Could the Turbo button catch on again on graphics cards, or is it better to buy a pre-overclocked card or just overclock a card using a software app such as RivaTuner? Let us know your thoughts.
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Unless you don't know what your doing, what is the point of this turbo when you can increase the speeds yourself at no extra cost + for more speed gain?? **TIP** Just use run CCC, run the Auto-Tune + save this profile. Now use TechPowerUp Radeon Bios Editor and go to the profile editor (load profile) to change the fan speed to 36% Manual for each GPU you have - NOT automatic. Save this profile then load it up again in CCC and give it another go on Auto-Tune. I got 780Mhz + 4,360Mhz this way and its not noisey.
Comment by champmanfan2 at 4:39am 6th October 2008
big difference is that (most of the time) when cars have the word 'turbo' anywhere on them, they usually do have a working turbo that actually increases performance quite well...unlike computer components :o
Comment by EdArch at 4:19pm 25th August 2008
if it aint broke then give it a turbo. whats with the frog is palit French .jj7
Comment by kingjohn721 at 7:46pm 24th August 2008
like everyones said its just a gimmick i use rivatuner on my 8800GTS/320 to sense harware accleration and overclock 675/1666/2100 and ramp the fan up and wen game app stops it underclocks 182/450/600 temps go down to 40.c
Comment by damafia at 9:03pm 23rd August 2008
In my mind when I think "hit the turbo button" I expect my card to deliver at least 30% more fps, make strange noises commonly associated with transformers and morph into some sort of stream lined object. Oh and it needs to have lots of pretty lights too. :)
Comment by msremmert at 3:17pm 23rd August 2008
plaster the word turbo on most anything and it will sell better for all the bling lovers. turbo stickers are the height of tackiness on cars, i see that palit are aiming for the same market of gormless graphics chavs too
Comment by vulcanproject at 3:16pm 23rd August 2008
Totally pointless - install anyone of a number of free softwares that OC your card automatically when you boot up a game. Waste of a good plastic button
Comment by harrymanback at 1:37pm 22nd August 2008
OK so a 3% core clock bump and a 5% memory bump. So that would mean Crysis at 30 FPS will suddenly be turbocharged to... 31 FPS. If you can spot that difference you're a more pertinent observer than I am. Wonder what premium they plan to charge for that 1FPS privilege???
Comment by jontseng at 10:22am 22nd August 2008
Can't they just have an auto sensing bios which can detect that the card is going from 2d to 3d and back again, rather than us having to fiddle around at the back of the case!!!!
Comment by tunedude at 10:37am 22nd August 2008
Can't they just have an auto sensing bios which can detect that the card is goign from 2d to 3d and back again, rather than us having to fiddle around at the back of the case!!!!
Comment by tunedude at 10:37am 22nd August 2008
OK so a 3% core clock bump and a 5% memory bump. So that would mean Crysis at 30 FPS will suddenly be turbocharged to... 31 FPS. If you can spot that difference you're a more pertinent observer than I am. Wonder what premium they plan to charge for that 1FPS privilege???
Comment by jontseng at 10:22am 22nd August 2008
The MSI card with the turbo button didn't catch on last year, why would the Palit be any better? Having to fish around the back of a PC is often bad enough when unplugging a USB cable, but having to do it everytime I play Crysis...? Nah. If this card was in my PC, it would be on OC all the time, which would reduce the life of the card and possibly other components. Pointless gimmick in my opinion
Comment by mitchell2k7 at 9:09am 22nd August 2008
I'd like to see the reverse idea. A button to underclock the card for normal silent windows usage, using less power and producing less heat, then hit the 'gaming' button before I fire up a game.
Comment by pveater at 9:11am 22nd August 2008
Just leave it overclocked and have a better fan controller. Either that or overclock it automatically when it's at full load. Flicking a switch all the time will soon get boring.
Comment by l3v1ck at 8:29am 22nd August 2008
I agree, the cooler does look nice, as to the turbo button i wouldnt use it as i do bios o/c's on my gfx cards useing NiBiTor or RaBiT once i've found the best stable software o/c, but for a beginner or those who are startint out with overclocking its a ood idea, in principle anyway.
Comment by intelc2d at 1:33am 22nd August 2008
Same as philheckler, I'm more interested in the cooler, (shame it doesn't vent though). I wish more companies would apply 'proper' quality cooling to their cards. Quiet too please.
Comment by John_T at 6:59pm 21st August 2008
This looks like a cracking card. I think the switch is a good idea if you just need a little more umph after using the card for a while. This means for the first part of its life it would cope with everything without being overclocked or even slightly noisy. Then as the card ages and new games start to push it you can give it a little boost thus extending the life of the card.
Comment by willeye at 6:51pm 21st August 2008
At least its a good starter for begginners!!
Comment by NikoBellic at 5:36pm 21st August 2008
People who are interested in oc'ing will more than likely have Rivatuner set up to automatically OC the card when running games. The turbo button on here is a marketing gimmick to attract people to the card who are insecure about oc'ing by themselves, which is all fine, nothing more than that.
Comment by russell at 5:27pm 21st August 2008
They need to add an extra thing on the card which would allow you to line a cable through to that wasted FDD bay at the front to give that wasted space something usefull to do, and it would be easy to access!!
Comment by NikoBellic at 5:03pm 21st August 2008
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