Why we don't use the ATI HD 4870...

ATI is definitely back in the game, and we're very pleased with the results we've gotten from offering the HD 4850 in the Ion. A few of you have asked us why we don't then offer the 4870? It's true that ATI's new high-end card offers decent bang-to-buckness, but the price point and capability clearly make it more appropriate for our Reactor (the Ion, being designed for 22-inch monitors and below just doesn't need that much power.)

As a possible Reactor card, it compares closely to the nVidia GTX 260, each outperforming the other under certain circumstances. That said, we only had to follow a few lines of logic to arrive at the conclusion that the HD 4870 just doesn't fit our needs:

1. We want to use a single motherboard for the Reactor to keep costs down and ensure superior support and quality assurance.
2. We want to offer multi-GPU options (nVidia's SLI or ATI's Crossfire) to our customers, even if they don't buy their PC with two video cards installed.
3. No motherboards can support both Crossfire and SLI (except Skulltrail, but don't even get me started about THAT.)
4. In order to span the Reactor's entire range of supported monitors, we pretty much have to include the GTX 280 as an option (nothing can touch it for 30-inch gaming.)

So we just can't turn to the HD 4870 for the Reactor, until something unseats or pulls even with the GTX 280. The good news is, we use the overclocked versions of the GTX 260, which does consistantly beat the 4870.