Gainward Rampage 700 Golden Sample Goes Like Hell Gamers Edition (4870 X2 -ed.)

Gainward Rampage 700 Golden Sample Goes Like Hell Gamers Edition (4870 X2 -ed.)
 
Performance:
72%
Design:
40%
Value:
45%
Build:
50%
Length of name to useful information ratio:
100%
54
---

The first triple-slot cooler we've seen wins the game of product name length. As for everything else? Well...

Dual slot coolers were a bit silly when they came out. But we got used to them, and shrugged them off as what you needed for intense graphical performance.

Then we got used to them.

Now we've witnessed our first ever stock triple slot cooler, the Gainward 4870 X2 Goes Like Hell Rampage etc etc. There’s so much bumpf on the box it’s hard to actually work out the product name! Awesome? Well, let's let the benchmarks speak for themselves, and then get to the extravagant cooler.

click to view full size image

We threw this, as well as two other 4870 X2s, at a Nehalem system powered by an SSD and running 64-bit Windows Vista. The contenders were the triple slot behemoth, an overclocked Asus 4870 X2 and our reference AMD/ATI card, which has taken a bit of a beating over the few months we've had it in our labs.

Here are the 3D Mark Vantage GPU scores:

AMD/ATI reference: 14,050
ASUS overclocked 4870 X2: 13,031
Gainward Rampage (truncated) Gamer's Edition: 12,392

So, as it turns out, it's an average performer. But wait! Surely there are some upsides to that monstrous cooler?

Frankly, erm, no. It's unnecessary. It's like a Gillette Mach 13 (or whatever they're up to now) razor. You'd be hard pressed to measure the difference, but on the plus side, it does look imposing.

click to view full size image

Say you're planning on filling your motherboard with all sorts of extravagant expansion cards. Well, you're out of luck, because this hulking behemoth renders two of them useless for no appreciable performance benefit.

Should you want to Crossfire a pair of them, you'll have trouble fitting them in your system, with no guarantees that they’ll electrically fit on your motherboard nor that they'll fit in your case. And you'd have lost four expansion slots, while using only two. There's no room for anything else on most motherboards in that arrangement.

click to view full size image

So on its own, in the performance stakes, it's great. But that's only because it is a 4870 X2. And compared to the other dual slot X2s on the market, it's not as fast. And it's also more expensive than it should be, because of the heat sink arrangement.

Yes, if you wanted to overclock the bejesus out of it, you'd probably be able to get the thing running faster than a card with a stock cooler. But the benefits of doing that are outweighed by the cost increase and expandability hit you have to take.

But hey, at least ATI-based cards are now seen as good enough to take silly risks on, which is more than we could say for them a year ago.

 
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11 Comments
nesquick
Nov 25, 2008 10:44 AM
There is something wrong with your testing methods I think as any card thats overclocked compared to its stock variant will be faster (in 99% of cases)
Fat_Bodybuilder
Nov 25, 2008 10:50 AM
Tri slot but only one DVI Port?
Hawkeye
Nov 25, 2008 12:37 PM
We've certainly found that to be the case, nesquick, but we think this might be that 1 per cent coming out!
c0nc0n
Nov 25, 2008 1:38 PM
That is some weird testing results...

Run those tests again!!
SceptreCore
Nov 25, 2008 4:09 PM
As I thought when Mohawk put up the thread on this thing.... it's just a large pointless space taker with no real advantages over other 4870x2 models.

However Frunj Im disappointed that you didn't think to include some temperature comparisons, especially as this is incorporating such a large heatsink!
Hawkeye
Nov 25, 2008 4:31 PM
Uh... not Frunj's article, dude!

- DH
Jeruselem
Nov 25, 2008 5:14 PM
Why VGA + DVI ... and not 2 x DVI when this is aimed at uber gamers with uber screens.
Lord-Ezekiel
Nov 25, 2008 5:18 PM
I'm sure the "full" article - temperatures and all - will appear in next months issue of atomic :P
SceptreCore
Nov 25, 2008 10:38 PM
Woah shit your right DH, sorry Frunj.

It's one of Faldo's that's why it's crumby! :P

I thought Frunj was the holder and judger of tech goodies?
Hawkeye
Nov 26, 2008 9:30 AM
We all fight over the cool stuff, though 'cool' can sometimes just mean 'interesting and easy to dislike'!

But, in fairness to Faldo, this review really is more of a performance comparison. The card certainly isn't that much cooler to really justify the cost and performance hit.
SceptreCore
Nov 26, 2008 10:03 PM
It looks like a slab of PCB cheese... from whence all cards are made!
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