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 ESTFinal Words: It’s Nobody’s Business But The Turks
At the high-end of the market we’re used to seeing AMD and NVIDIA trade blows with similarly priced, similarly performing cards. In the sub-$100 market this is not the case however. At least among the non-crippled versions of various GPUs, NVIDIA and AMD’s GPUs seem to do a better job fitting in between each other than they do going head-to-head with each other. Pricing is what makes these cards compete in the market, rather than their GPUs performing similarly.
In this case Turks seems bound to fit in between NVIDIA’s GF106 (GTS 450) and GF108 (GT 430) GPUs, a position that Redwood (5670) has similarly occupied up to this point. Between those NVIDIA GPUs there’s a very small slice of space that AMD can call their own, at least before pricing is taken into account.
The fact of the matter is that the sub-$100 retail market is extremely crowded, with the space being shared by last generation cards on close-out, current generation cards on sale, and newly introduced cards like the Radeon HD 6670 and Radeon HD 6570 that are designed for that price range in the first place. Compared to the 5600/5500 series cards that the 6670 and 6570 replace, both cards are nice mid-cycle updates. Performance is up by over 10% for the 6670, while the 6570 is very close to the 5670. Without a die shrink, this is probably the best AMD can do to iterate on Redwood.
The problem of course is that based solely on performance, the sub-$100 market is too crowded. As long as power consumption and a low-profile form factor are not concerns, the Radeon HD 5770 and GeForce GTS 450 are both regularly on sale for under $100 and are easily 30% faster than the 6670. Cards like the 6670 and 6570 have their place, but it’s not as performance kings. For that, higher-tier cards on sale have and will continue to be the better buy.
So where to the 6670 and 6570 fit in? That’s hard to say. The 5570 was the ultimate HTPC card, but the 6450 has dethroned it. Unless you can snag a higher-tier card for $80 the 6570 is a good deal – or at least no worse than the 5670 – but the 6670 isn’t as well defined.
The best qualities of both cards are that they’re low-profile cards that don’t need an external power source, and that this is a reference quality we should see in partner cards. With the exception of a couple of one-off non-reference designs like the much more expensive PowerColor Go Green 5750, the 6670 and 6570 are going to be the fastest cards available that don’t require external power. In the OEM market that AMD sold these cards to first, that’s a significant advantage. For the retail market however this is only of particular use for HTPC users that need a bit more gaming horsepwer. For every other use in this price segment, time will tell if it is enough.
Ultimately Turks and the 6670/6570 are technically superior, but at $99 and $79 respectively they won’t have that same superior position on the open market.
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Taft12 - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
Courtesy of Hardwarezone (and Techconnect), here's a look at what many of the major AMD video card hardware partners have for us on release day:ASUS:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news/view/166085
Gigabyte:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news/view/166139
MSI:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news/view/166128
Sapphire:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news/view/166079
HIS:
http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/37325/...
Powercolor:
http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/37324/...
Highlights (for me): the HIS fanless 6570 and that dual-fan MSI 6670! I'm sure many more overclocked and exotic cooler models (like MSI Cyclone and HIS IceQ) are on their way
LB-ID - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
The eternal question.ekoostik - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I just read all the comments looking for something like this. Thanks for not letting me down. Ryan, nice TMBG reference.larson0699 - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
We know, we know. The article immediately reads "copypasta" when I see this. *sigh*jah1subs - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - link
Personally, I expect my next build to be used mostly as a work (browser + Office 2010) PC (no games) and to be used sometimes as an HTPC and -- very infrequently -- a video encoder since our only child will probably be more than 500 miles away, going to college. I am cheap, especially about electricity. My apartment is all fluorescents today and I am impatiently waiting for 5000K LED bulbs.Therefore, I may be looking at the 6570, or, more likely, the 6450. But what about the Sandy Bridge integrated 3000 graphics? Below, I have copied several paragraphs about the 23.976 fps problem from The Sandy Bridge Review, "A Near-Perfect HTPC." What is the current status of the software fix mentioned in the last paragraph? Is it available? Have you tested it?
"What happens when you try to play 23.976 fps content on a display that refreshes itself 24.000 times per second? You get a repeated frame approximately every 40 seconds to synchronize the source frame rate with the display frame rate. That repeated frame appears to your eyes as judder in motion, particularly evident in scenes involving a panning camera."
"How big of an issue this is depends on the user. Some can just ignore the judder, others will attempt to smooth it out by setting their display to 60Hz, while others will be driven absolutely insane by it."
"If you fall into the latter category, your only option for resolution is to buy a discrete graphics card. Currently AMD’s Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series GPUs correctly output a 23.976Hz refresh rate if requested. These GPUs also support bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, while the 6000 series supports HDMI 1.4a and stereoscopic 3D. The same is true for NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 430, which happens to be a pretty decent discrete HTPC card."
"Intel has committed to addressing the problem in the next major platform revision, which unfortunately seems to be Ivy Bridge in 2012. There is a short-term solution for HTPC users absolutely set on Sandy Bridge. Intel has a software workaround that enables 23.97Hz output. There’s still a frame rate mismatch at 23.97Hz, but it would be significantly reduced compared to the current 24.000Hz-only situation."
Anandtech, thank you in advance for your reply.
Belard - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
For an office/browser setup. Any current technology will work just fine. My old 2009 ThinkPad runs Windows7 pretty good with a PDC 1.8Ghz (bottom end Core2) with crappy intel graphics and 2GB of RAM.The AMD Fusion Llano platform is pretty exciting and its not even the top-end bulldog. Its onboard graphics destroys intel and it'll help the CPU with other tasks.
Sandy bridge is very good of course, so just add a $60~80 video card and you are ready to go. Sad we have to talk about todays CPUs by their code-names.
** Don't expect an answer concerning the 23.976fps issues. Call intel on that one. intel always had and always will have sub-par graphics. Check out HOW stupid Intel is.
For the bottom end SB, it has the worst performing built-in GPU. The top-end has their best, which is still pathetic compared to the graphics built into AMD chipsets. Logic should dictate that the person who spends $500+ on a CPU, is most likely going to have a dedicated video card - DUH! Even a $40 6450 will smoke any built-in Sandybridge graphics. Its the entry level systems that need better graphics.
papapapapapapapababy - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
i got 640 sp in 2009 for 99$... (4770) screw u AMD... go sell this POS to NintendoSpoelie - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
Sapphire just launched an 5850 SKU ("xtreme") at sub 150$ prices...euroland: 115€
http://azerty.nl/0-970-401029/sapphire-radeon-hd-5...
newegg: 145$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
crazy prices for the performance
don't know how long supplies will last but it launched less than 10 days ago..
Spazweasel - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
Has anyone actually seen a low-profile 6670 offered for sale anywhere? I see only a small handful of full-height cards when I search.Taft12 - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
No OEM ever made a low-profile 5670 and I don't imagine there will be a low-profile 6670 either.