The box was surprisingly small, it made me think of the boxes you find low-end budget cards in. Of course we all know that size isn’t everything. The box has the usual suspects, with plenty of cables, connectors and CDs to get you started. The card itself was also rather small. I actually can’t remember the last time I had a mid to high-end card that took up only a single PCI slot. I’ve pictured it with the single-GPU VisionTek 3870 for reference.

Yes, I know, looks are great and all, but you want to get down to business. How does it measure up? Well I’ve brought back both the VisionTek 3870 and 3870X2 OC for reference. I suspected that it would easily surpass the single-GPU card, but with it being the lower-end of the 48xx series, I figured that my X2 would still reign supreme. Let’s see how it turned out.

First, here’s our gaming rig setup. It’s still the same as the last benchmarks I ran, but  for reference, here are the specs.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz
Cooler: CoolIT PURE
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
RAM: Corsair Dominator 2GB TWIN2X2408-8500C5DF
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATA
Case: Ultra m998 Mid-Tower

Crysis and World in Conflict are still two of the top games for working the higher-end cards, so I’ve decided to stick with them. I’ve also included the 3dMark06 results as well.

To be perfectly honest, I was blown away here. I expected this card to fall short of the 3870X2 OC, however, it scored the exact same in the two higher-resolution tests. Even more, it bested the dual-GPU card by a slight margin at the lower setting.

Once again, the 4850 surpassed my expectations. With Anti-Aliasing turned on, it actually had more than a 25% increase over the 3870X2 OC. The other two tests were pretty much a tie, which is still incredible.

Here are the 3dMark06 scores for the card. Surprisingly, the card scored lower here, but higher when actually running through game benchmarks. How strange.

Right now, if you’re buying a graphics card, don’t bother spending the extra money on the 3870X2 OC. Sure, it’s a great card, but you’re going to get the same, if not better performance out of a card that costs half the price. You’ll find the VisionTek 4850 on store shelves for around $199.

Overall, I give the VisionTek Radeon HD 4850 a solid 4.5 out of 5 gears.

[rating: 4.5]

Since this card is essentially two GPUs built onto one card, we get a total of 4 DVI inputs, which I have been taking full advantage of. I’m really not sure if I can ever go back down to just 2 monitors per PC. Of course when it’s time to game, I turn on CrossFire, which only allows me to use two monitors (most games only utilize on monitor anyway, so it really doesn’t matter).

The card comes with the usual adapters, a pair of CDs and a small manual. I really like the look of the card itself, though when it’s stuck inside your PC, you really aren’t going to be looking at it very much.

Not much has changed on our gaming rig since the we tested the original 3870, but for those curious, here are the full specs of our test machine.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz
Cooler: CoolIT PURE
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
RAM: Corsair Dominator 2GB TWIN2X2408-8500C5DF
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATA
Case: Ultra m998 Mid-Tower

For our benchmarks I’ve chosen to run Crysis and World in Conflict, as they seem to push even the latest graphics cards to their limit. You can also see how the card stacks up to the single-GPU version.

I was hoping for a little more of a gain on Crysis, but I was definitely happy to be able to finally play the game on High at my screen’s full 1680×1050 resolution. You have to sacrifice Anti-Aliasing, but 31fps is definitely playable.

I was seriously impressed with how the card handled World in Conflict. The bas 3870 card was only able to really play the game at the lowest resolution while still keeping the graphics set to high. The X2 OC really shined, especially at max resolution with AA 4x enabled.

Of course no review would be complete without a look at the 3dMark06 results. There really aren’t any surprises here, as most of the results are just a little over double what the single 3870 card scored.

The card did well, making Crysis and World in Conflict seem very playable even at high resolutions. Of course you’ll pay extra for the speed increase. You’re looking at about $400, which is a little more than what you’d pay for two single 3870 cards. The benefit here is that you only need a single PCI-e slot, and the card comes overclocked from the factory.

I give the VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 Overclocked four out of five gears

[rating: 4]

The box looks nice enough, you’ll recognize characters from the game Tabula Rasa You’ll also note the big bold print which lets you know that the card needs a PCI Express x16 slot, has 512MB of GDDR4, is HDMI 5.1 certified and comes with a lifetime warranty.

Inside the box you’ll find the card along with a few accessories. You’ve got cables for component output as well as an S-Video cable and adapter for both DVI-to-VGA and DVI-to-HDMI (which is nice for some of the newer, larger HD monitors). You’ll also find a manual, driver CD and a CrossFire bridge.

The overall look of the card is fairly basic, though the cooling pipes are a nice touch (and will help keep the card nice and cool). The card is going to take up two of your PCI slots because of the larger cooling setup.

Now on to what you’re really waiting for, the benchmarks. I’ve set up our gaming rig with the follow specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
RAM: Corsair Dominator 2GB TWIN2X2408-8500C5DF
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATA
Case: Ultra m998 Mid-Tower

I’ve chosen to run the standard 3dMark06, as well as Crysis, World in Conflict and Team Fortress 2 to get a real-world feel.

You can see that Crysis works the card quite hard, however, that’s to be expected of almost any gaming rig. I’ve left the settings on High, and it is quite playable at 1024×768, however, since most people run their games at 1280×1024 at the very least, you’ll need to turn down the settings to make it playable.

World in Conflict is another title that is hard on even the best systems. You can see that once again you’ll get good performance at 1024×768 on High, but you’ll need to lower the settings if you want to go to a higher resolution.

Now if you’re not wanting to punish your system with games that even the best systems have trouble playing, you’ll find that the HD 3870 performs quite well. The card performs well while playing Team Fortress 2, even at the higher resolution with anti-aliasing turned on.

For those that just love to crunch numbers, I’ve provided a few of the standard 3dMark06 tests for your viewing pleasure.

In all, I’d say that the VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 is a solid card. Sure, Crysis and World in Conflict were pretty rough, but honestly, that’s to be expected out of most cards. Aside from those two titles, the card ran flawlessly. Looking online I saw the card for about $215, which I would say is a good price. If you’re looking to spend around $200, then I’d definitely recommend this one.

I give the VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 four out of five gears.

[rating: 4]

You notice two things when you first set your hand upon the XG6. The first is that there are a ton of buttons, the second that there is some sort of strange plastic piece sticking out behind the mouse that your wrist rests on. I’ll admit that I tried to get used to that pad for some time, but I just couldn’t. Thankfully, this is a removable piece, so I’ve stowed it away in case I ever change my mind.

Now onto the buttons, there are a total of 7 physical buttons on the mouse, along with a scrollwheel. You have your standard right and left buttons for clicking, two buttons on the left side for your thumb, and three funny-looking round ones. Each of these round buttons can actually be moved four different directions and if you so choose, you have 14 total configurable buttons. I’m not entirely sure, but I believe that’s the most you’ll find on any mouse on the market.

The three round buttons are what really set this mouse apart from the competition, in both good ways and bad. In addition to being able to program the buttons as commands on the keyboard, they can be used for rotating in a 3D environment such as Google earth, which is very cool. Personally, I just use them for casting spells rather quickly.

The mouse can operate at between 400 and 2000dpi. There are four different setting which can be easily switched by clicking the two buttons on the left side of the mouse at the same time. The mouse comes with software that contains presets for 23 different games. The presets mainly affect those 12 extra buttons. I play World of Warcraft a lot, and unfortunately there was not a preset for that particular game. They make it rather easy to add a new preset of your own, which is what I did. I now have 12 of my most important spells ready at my fingertips at all times. It took a little while to get used to, but now I can fire off spells much quicker than I could before by reaching for the number keys. Needless to say, the mouse has become an important tool in my gaming.

There are plenty of good things about this mouse, however, there is one major flaw. I have found the mouse to be quite uncomfortable for use outside of gaming. Those three buttons are pretty useless in everyday tasks. Granted, you can assign them to shortcuts like Ctrl+c for copy and such, but it’s not really worth it. I don’t notice any discomfort during my gaming sessions, but even after 20 minutes or so of surfing the net and doing other tasks, I’m ready to switch back.

Having said that, it’s a great gaming mouse, and should be taken at that. I was torn for a time, thinking that I wouldn’t want to have a separate mouse just for gaming. After spending some time with the XG6, I don’t really see it as a problem. I just scoot it out of the way when I’m not playing, and switch back to it when I need it. After enjoying the edge it gives me I’m starting to think I should consider getting a dedicated gaming keyboard as well. Overall, I give the VisionTek XG6 4.5 out of 5 gears.

[rating: 4.5]

I enjoyed the short time that I was able to play with it at the show, so I’m really looking forward to some gaming with this mouse. I’ve never really had a “gaming” mouse before, I always just figured that my Logitech MX700 was a good enough mouse for my games.

I’ve already had a chance to plug it in, and as expected, it did not require any special drivers right off the bat. The mouse felt a little awkward at first, but as before, I’m already getting used to it. I took off the extra palm support which helped a lot. I’ll give it a shot both with and without the palm support while gaming. You never know, I might enjoy using it. For now I leave you with a few more unboxing pics.