AMD Radeon HD 4670: Ruling from Top to Bottom
by Derek Wilson on September 10, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
What You Get for Your Money: 4870 vs 4850 vs 4670
We collected a bit of data on the current 4k series lineup to show a little about what we get for each price point. This data doesn't really tell the whole story, though it does shed some light on relative performance for those who want to know where their money is going.
The real value in these higher priced, higher performance cards isn't in how much faster they can do the same thing as the 4670, but in how much higher a resolution they can hit while doing it. While there are some cases where the 4670 might be able to barely remain playable at 1680x1050, the 4850 is really going to be a better option there and at 1920x1200. Likewise, the 4870 is going to benefit people who have a 30" display or don't like playing without every option ticked and tweaked to the max on the very latest titles.
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Spivonious - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
The real advantage to this card over the similarly-priced 3870 is that it doesn't require any extra power connectors. I imagine it also runs much cooler, therefore not needing a loud cooling solution.Are there any fanless versions of this card in the works? It seems like it would be fantastic for the casual gamer who doesn't want a screaming beast of a machine.
mczak - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
is obviously wrong in the chart, should be 192mm^2 or some such (118mm^2 could be the size of rv635 maybe).toyota - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
its 146 mm. http://www.firingsquad.com/media/article_image.asp...">http://www.firingsquad.com/media/article_image.asp...toyota - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
oops I think you were talking about the 3870 in that chart...nafhan - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
In case anyone else is curious, here's a rundown of current lowest prices (from Newegg, shipping not included):3650 $40
2600XT GDDR4 $44
9500GT $54
9600 GSO $75
3850 $75
9600 GT $80
3870 $90
8800 GT $105
4850 $150
So, as long as 4670's slot in below $75 they should sell fairly well. If MSRP is $79, that shouldn't be a problem.
Interestingly, it looks like they are starting to put 768MB of RAM on some 9600 GSO's. Not to interesting though, since that jacks it up to the price of an 8800GT...
reader1 - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
I'm looking for a low power Intel C2D motherboard. What board did you use for the power consumption tests? It says an Intel G45 in the article but neither of your test bed boards are G45 boards.computerfarmer - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
Does it CrossFire?Good Card for the money.
derek85 - Saturday, September 13, 2008 - link
Yes it doesnpp - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
I don't care if the review is biased or not, just don't have so much time to analyze every single word or sentence and extraxt the bias towards nVidia from it... I found it useful, and the 4670 seems a very, very good card for its money - and considering the already low power consumption of the 3850, the 4670 is an instant HTPC favourite, consuming even less. By the way, I never thought of sub-100$ cards as of something more than just a IGP extension, gaming performance is by no means the decisive factor here. If it can run passively, accelerate H.264 and handle some basic graphic tasks, than it's fine for me. If you can play some games with it - you got a nice bonus.Gastrian - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - link
A few of my famlymembers and myself were looking to upgrading our PCs over the next six months so I've been keeping an eye on new hardware, especially graphic cards.We are only looking at budget systems and seeing the benchmarks for the 4670, especially Crysis, at that pricepoint and I was about to recommend it to my family based on the review. I re-read the article and noticed your test setup, the Q9770 alone costs almost £1000!
I know the point of the article maybe to compare the various GPUs as fairly as possible but these aren't real world figures because I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone in the real world who will use a budget GPU with an ultra high-end CPU.
Myself, like most sane people, would couple this GPU with an entry level Celeron, Core2 or AMD X2 CPU and these charts don't say how much real world performance I'm going to get on this card.
While I'm not expecting to get Crysis playable on the low end I am interested in the likes of Diablo3, Starcraft2 and Dawn of War2 and am severely disappointed at the lack of RTS games in your benchmarks, especially on the mid to budget reviews as these are generally the games you'll get played on lower systems.