Micro Star International is among the first graphics card manufacturers to release a factory overclocked version of AMD's latest flagship card, the Radeon HD 4870. This means that users will benefit from much more Radeon power, straight out of the box. The card will probably end up by becoming an option for the latest desktop gaming rigs, especially since it can provide a lot of graphics power at a more than affordable price.

Since AMD has released the latest Radeon lineup, people have been overly enthusiastic about the company's capability of taking the performance crown from NVIDIA. Some even believe that the upcoming R700-based HD 4870 X2 card will help make AMD the leading GPU manufacturer. However, before that happens, the company's flagship model is proving it can pack a serious performance punch at quite an impressive price. Even more, if you think the standard version isn't for you, MSI has decided to go ahead and offer fans an OC'ed HD 4870.

The card comes to satisfy the requirements of all those FPS hungry consumers. Dubbed R4870-T2D512-OC, it comes with 30MHz improvement in GPU speed. The memory clock has been raised from the standard 900MHz to 1000MHz, leaving the rest of the specifications list intact. Users will have the same amount of GDDR5 memory, 512MB, but the higher GPU and memory speeds will improve the card's overall performance, providing users with a better visual gaming experience.

MSI has decided to offer the card without a game bundle, but it's precisely because of this that MSI's OC'ed Radeon HD 4870 can be purchased in Europe for €224. Overall, this is a considerably good price to pay for one of the latest graphics cards that have become available on the market, especially if you consider the fact that you can find standard versions of MSI's card priced much higher. Even more, if one of these monsters just isn't enough, the card's CrossFireX capability will allow you to boost your system's performance by adding yet another one.