The card is based upon ATI’s reference design. In fact the card layout is nearly identical to the HD 3870 X2 cards in most respects. The cooling solution and power connections are identical to the older card. Palit modified the reference heatsink with their logo, and the Radeon HD 4870 X2 logo. The heatsink has ATI’s part number and Radeon logo on it.

The HD 4870 X2 is a two slot video card meaning that the card requires a PCI Express x16 slot and an adjacent free slot to install in a motherboard. High-end cards like the HD 4870 X2 require a lot of power, 240W in this case, requiring the use of a 8-pin power connector and a 6-pin power connector on the card. ATI has the power connectors facing outwards, so that they don’t interfere with the case length when installing the card in a cramped case.

Input and Output of video cards has not changed in several years. The HD 4870 X2 has two DVI-I Dual Link inputs that can drive two monitors at resolutions up to 2560x1600, the maximum supported by DVI. There is also an S-Video Outport, allowing the connection of a HDTV to the card. HDMI is supported through an adapter but the newest display connection DisplayPort is not supported. A few cards have hit the market with DisplayPort but this is not one of them. One of the advantages ATI’s HD4870 X2 has over SLI configurations is the multi-monitor support which is not present on NVIDIA’s solution.