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 Vapor-X Cooling
The HD4870 Toxic's cooler looks similar to the reference design but has some obvious differences. The HD4870 features Vapor Chamber Technology. Take a look at the following images and I'll try to wrap them all together at the bottom of the page.
A vapor chamber is composed of three distinct layers: the transportation wick, the vaporization wick and the condensation wick. A wick is a material that can draw in a liquid by capillary action. The names of the other layers are pretty self-explanatory. Pure water is heated while in the transportation wick, and as it turns to gas, it moves into the condensation wick. Away from the heat source, the water condenses back into a liquid and travels back to the transportation wick by way of capillary action, and starts all over again. This is very similar to heatpipe technology, but heatpipes limit the ways the heat can be dispersed (it must travel in the pipe). The vapor chamber technology let's the heat disperse in all directions and is much more efficient. Also the chamber itself helps, by having a low air pressure in the chamber the boiling point of the water is decreased, increasing the efficiency of the heat transfer. The result is a much lower GPU temperature. The Vapor-X is also very quiet.
And finally, an exploded view of the cooler. While the HD3870 Toxic version was able to use the Vapor-X technology as a single slot design, the HD4870 still requires two slots.
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