AMD’s Radeon HD 6670 & Radeon HD 6570: Two’s Company, Sub-$100’s A Crowd
by Ryan Smith on April 19, 2011 12:01 AM ESTMeet The Radeon HD 6670 & Radeon HD 6570
With the Redwood cards (5670 & 5570), we saw two distinct reference designs even though both used the same GPU. The 5670 was a full-profile card while the 5570 was a low-profile card intended to fill a higher performance low-profile niche. With the Turks cards however, this kind of stratification is gone.
Look closely and you'll see the ATI logo. AMD is using spare 5570 coolers for the 6570 reference design, which means these coolers predate the AMD rebranding. Retail cards won't be like this, however.
Instead both reference cards are low-profile cards. The PCB for both cards is quite similar, but not identical. In practice with only a 6W difference between the two cards, we can’t imagine too many partners will roll different PCBs for the cards. The difference between the two cards really comes down to the cooler used – the 6570 uses the same AMD reference cooler we’ve seen on the 5570 and 6450 (it is in fact a spare 5570 cooler), while the 6670 uses a new low-profile double-wide cooler. This is how AMD managed to get the 6670 out as a low-profile card as opposed to a full-profile card like the 5670: it’s shorter, but it’s wider.
Our 6670 is equipped with 4 2Gb 5GHz Hynix GDDR5 memory modules. This marks the first time we’ve seen 2Gb GDDR5 on anything other than a high-end card, which is a good sign that we should expect to see more cards using 2Gb GDDR5 in the near future. Both the 6670 and 6570 measure 6.61” long, the same length for that matter as the 6450.
Display connectivity is the same as with other AMD low-profile cards. On the PCB are a single DVI-DL port and a DP 1.2 port, while on the bracket is a VGA port attached with a ribbon cable. With partner cards we’d expect a number of cards to drop the DP1.2 port for an HDMI 1.4 port on both cards. But on that note, one thing we’re still trying to get confirmation on from AMD is whether Turks can drive more than one DVI-type display at once. We have no specific reason to believe this, but Barts did drop a DVI-DL port for a DVI-SL port, so if anyone is going to drop down to supporting a single DVI-type display at once, it’s AMD. In any case through the magic of DP1.2 MST hubs, the 6670 can drive four displays. Meanwhile the 6570 can drive three displays.
As was the case with the 6450, AMD’s reference design is only for engineering and sampling purposes – it’s not going to be used in retail cards. We don’t have any pictures of retail cards as of press time, but we’d expect 6670 and 6570 designs to resemble 5570 designs with a larger cooler more suitable for Turks. As such our temperature/noise results are a decent approximation of the cards that will be on the market, but they won’t match any specific retail cards.
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Ryan Smith - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
Our primary focus on reviews is for the North American market. I'm not sure about Europe and Asia, but in North America the 6450 does (did?) not go on sale in retail until today. It has been available to OEMs for a couple of months however.mino - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
Even ignoring your global audience, if a card was available for MONTHS in the OEM channel, calling it "paper launch" is absurd.But; who pays, he gets. :(
AstroGuardian - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Consider opening an European branch. Many of us do not agree with many things in the reviews.Targon - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
If a game is CPU limited after that many years, that hints that the game is not multi-threaded by design. Both Intel and AMD have really been more focused on multi-core designs, rather than really pushing the performance of individual cores. Yes, there have been improvements, but it has not been the real focus of CPU development. AMD looks to be working on getting the core design improved to be more competitive with Intel, but that is pretty much it at this point. Going to a 32nm CPU design should also help.vavutsikarios - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
I guess it's not really multithreaded, and even if it is, it definitely won't use more than 2 cores. Afterall, it's a 2005 game. But this is besides the point. The game is CPU limited because of its nature. It is not a design flaw or anything. To clarify: the CPU is the limiting factor not from a performance POV but from a gaming experience POV. After you do whatever you have to do you click the "end turn" button. Then you have to wait for the AI to make their move. This takes awhile. It was minutes, worst case, on the PC I had when I first played the game, it may be less than a minute on the 3GHz quadcore I use now. Still, in order to have smooth gameplay, I need this to become 100x faster.SlyNine1 - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
Thats like saying ChessMaster is CPU limited. Or saying Every game out there is HDD/SDD limited. Yes you will have to wait for complexe operations, but it doesn't interfer with gameplay. Because of that its hard pressed to say its CPU limited, as It doesn't limit gameplay.vavutsikarios - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
I understand what you re saying. The CPU speed, at these levels of CPU performance, doesnt interfere with the functions of the game, that is true. But it does affect the gaming experience. Imagine having to wait a couple of hours for the AI. Wouldnt that be really frustrating? More than that, wouldnt it render the game unplayable? The way you define gameplay, having to wait any amount of time doesnt matter. So, I guess, it is a matter of semantics, of definition of what gameplay is.In the broader sense, which, IMHO, is what matters, things like that are important. They directly affect the pleasures we make for ourselves in the precious little time we have. So, yes, obviously, Every Game out there is HDD Limited! -nice line that one :)
Btw: Chessmaster is not CPU limited, although it should be. It is not though, because having to wait for your opponent to move is part of the normal chess experience. Truth is, chessmaster moves way too fast sometimes, and sometimes it thinks a lot when what it has to do is obvious, but still.
AstroGuardian - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
+1fic2 - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
CPU limited on an i7-2600k Sandy Bridge? Or CPU limited on the cpu you bought 6 years ago to play Heroes 5?vavutsikarios - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
See my reply to Targon above. An i7-2600 Sandy would probably be a nice improvement over my phenom2, but still a long way from not being the limiting factor.