Power Consumption & Temperatures

The power consumption levels of the Radeon HD 4870 in general are very good, at least under load. At idle the Radeon HD 4870 does tend to use a fair bit of power when compared to the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 graphics cards, for example. The Force3D Radeon HD 4870 Black Edition used roughly the same amount of power as a standard Radeon HD 4870.

The Arctic-Cooling Twin Turbo is one of the best performing VGA coolers out there, so it came as no surprised when we found that the Force3D Radeon HD 4870 Black Edition was 26% cooler than a standard Radeon HD 4870 graphics card under load. The idle temperatures were even most impressive, with the Force3D Radeon HD 4870 Black Edition shaving 40% off the standard Radeon HD 4870's idle temp.