When we compared the Radeon HD 4870 and GeForce GTX 260 graphics cards a couple of months ago, the Radeon came up on top with one major exception, heat generation.
While the 80C+ load temperatures of the the Radeon HD 4870 were a little concerning, it was the 70C+ idle temps that had us really worried. This meant that even when sitting at the Windows desktop the Radeon HD 4870 was cranking out more than 70 degrees of heat, much of which escaped into the case.
And finally we have a Radeon HD 4870 card that has dealt with this issue. The new Force3D Radeon HD 4870 Black Edition slightly overclocks the standard core and memory clocks, but most importantly replaces the reference cooler with one of the best VGA air coolers money can buy, the Arctic-Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo.