Diamond Multimedia, a well-known supplier of graphics cards in the USA, has unveiled its new graphics board that would be, at least initially, available exclusively from a builder of high-end computers called Smooth Creations. The graphics card supplier claims that the graphics adapter powered by ATI Radeon HD 4870 chip is pre-overclocked so substantially that it can leave behind even Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 280.

“The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition was clocked to kick some ass. We didn’t just want a fast card out in the market, we wanted the fastest card that could kick the living daylights and bust some performance records. We wanted a card that kicked the competitions teeth into the curb, and that’s exactly what our engineers accomplished,” said Mario Gastelum, director of product development and engineering at Diamond. 

Diamond “Unlocked” Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition graphics card comes with graphics processing unit clocked at 800MHz and 512MB of GDDR5 memory operating at 4400MHz, up from 750MHz/3600MHz on reference design ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics adapter. Moreover, according to Diamond Multimedia, the firmware of the board was modified and the board can be overclocked even further and can leave behind the current flagship Nvidia, the GeForce GTX 280.

“The firmware was custom designed to enable end users to go beyond the normal over clocked speeds and allow them to push their cards for higher performance via the Catalyst Control Center. The GPU’s custom firmware has been unlocked to push cards to GPU settings of up to 950MHz and Memory of up 1200MHz,” said Mr. Gastelum.

The Diamond’s Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition comes with a custom liquid-based cooling system from Danger Den, which ensures that extreme overclocking of the product does not affect its lifespan and stability of work.

Market rumours indicate that other leading suppliers of graphics boards may also start making “über-overclocked” graphics boards based on ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics processing units. Theoretically, with custom cooling solution, modification of power supply system and overclocking the ATI Radeon HD 4870 may leave behind much more expensive Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, but what should be kept in mind is that the latter may also be overclocked beyond its stock speeds as well.