Hardware AMD ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...d-4670-512mb/1

AMD has announced the mainstream Radeon HD 4000 series - today, we look at the ATI Radeon HD 4670, the fastest of the new cards, to find out how it stacks up against the competition. Will AMD conquer the mainstream like it did the enthusiast sector? Let's find out...

[Kúsař]

4670 might be just the right option for my brother's PC upgrade. Decent performance & relatively low power consumption(but I hoped for lower consumption). He surely doesn't deserve faster card then my 3870

While 9600GSO seems to be graphic card with decent performance...for f*'s sake, nVidia should fire the guy who's responsible for mess in naming conventions: GTS, GS, GSO, GTX, GT...it's getting more and more disgusting each time nVidia release new GeForce series.

[mclean007]

Great article Tim. You're absolutely right that in this area of the market you get a fantastic return on investment for a small additional cost. I still think by far the best value card on the market today is the ATI 4850, which offers astonishing performance for £115. Maybe I'm getting less price sensitive in my old age, but that seems a small outlay for a great card, and makes it hardly worth considering 'lesser' cards for gaming at least. Which brings me to...

I'd also be interested in a quick note on the multimedia capabilities of this card - I presume it offers hardware decoding of h264 / AVC content up to 1080p? Off-topic, I recently bought a 780G motherboard (with the integrated ATI HD 3200 core), and am having an absolute mare getting it to offload video decoding from the CPU.

[Dreaming]

S*D You need to consider there are two types of people buying graphics cards. There is the people like you and me I imagine who like to have nice components and spend several hundred pounds self building and getting it perfect, then there is the people with their prebuilt dell with onboard graphics. When they unwrap spore for their birthday the onboard just wont cut it . Although I noticed on ebuyer the other day for £35 you can get a 3650 which most of these casual gamers would opt for as it ticks the boxes: does it run the game? Yes. Is it cheap? Yes.

I'm just really impressed on the whole though at how fast the market is moving the past few years. As much as people could moan graphics cards have come ahead in lightyears in terms of how fast they perform.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I don't intend to get rid of my 8800GTX for a LLLLOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG time lol.

[Bladestorm]

You can pick up the 9800 GT for £82 from scan, how would that factor into all this with its 16 additional cores and 512mb memory do you think ?

[Joeymac]

You can get a 4850 for £99

[LeMaltor]

Originally Posted by Star*Dagger

I do wish that ATI and Nvidia wouldnt make such cards. It 1) confuses the market 2) makes people think they have a decent card when they dont.
A year from now this card will be worthless, utterly. I can still sell my old 8800gtx for some cash and apply it towards my new Radeon HD 4870X2.

Enjoy,
S*D

Give some evidence to back up what you are saying, please.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Star*Dagger

I do wish that ATI and Nvidia wouldnt make such cards. It 1) confuses the market 2) makes people think they have a decent card when they dont.
A year from now this card will be worthless, utterly. I can still sell my old 8800gtx for some cash and apply it towards my new Radeon HD 4870X2.

Enjoy,
S*D

It's worthless for a lot of people, but I genuinely believe there's a market for it. And it's bigger than the market for Radeon HD 4850-class hardware.

[Baz]

The market for mid range and low end is much much bigger than the ultra high end, or even the budget high end like the 4850.

Think of all the mid range dells and their competitors that just drop a card like the 4670 into machines. Consumers see the 512mb, think "that'll do" and buy em.

[ChaosDefinesOrder]

I'd be interested to see what performance you can get out of a quartet of these cards in CrossfireX

Not really any point other than purely out of interest and the fact that they don't require any supplimentary power connecters...

[mcvan]

Looks like you need to recheck your power measurements. Every other reviews thus far put both idle and max power of the 4670 well below the 3850 -- which is what we'd expect.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Lets face it. AMD need to get as much of the market on their side as they can. Yes the card basically is useless for us "enthusiasts" but it would be perfect for your mums everyday machine lol.

[Jasio]

For $79 USD... can't complain at the performance. And the low power consumption makes it a reasonable HTPC option.

[impar]

Greetings!

ATi is commanding the video card market. nVidia just seems to be reacting to ATis product/price combo.
Only missing the HD4850X2 to fill the gap between the HD4870 and the HD4870X2.

[Cupboard]

Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz

Lets face it. AMD need to get as much of the market on their side as they can. Yes the card basically is useless for us "enthusiasts" but it would be perfect for your mums everyday machine lol.

Intel would be fine for mum's everyday machine but it came with an HD 3650 (or similar) and there is no need for it to be removed

[anduril]

Originally Posted by Star*Dagger

I do wish that ATI and Nvidia wouldnt make such cards. It 1) confuses the market 2) makes people think they have a decent card when they dont.
A year from now this card will be worthless, utterly. I can still sell my old 8800gtx for some cash and apply it towards my new Radeon HD 4870X2.

Enjoy,
S*D

this is just utter crap. the first card i ever bought was a radeon 9000pro.about as mainstream as it gets at around 80euros.and 4years later i was able to play far cry with it. even though it wasn't at maxsettings it was enjoyable. mainstream cards have got potential.i don't need ****ing light effects were u can put a mirror on the ground and watch ur ass in it while shooting some enemies. all i need is decent gameplay. I know there are plenty others who think the same.
and who even buys second hand graphics cards? i'd rather buy mainstream new than high-end second hand
just my 0,02$

[naokaji]

Cards like the 4670 and 9500 should be passive cooled without exceptiions...
Nice job on the review, but the competition from "old" higher end cards like 38x0 or the 8800 series that are being sold for low prices is very tough and makes those new mid range cards pretty unattractive.

[Adnoctum]

Originally Posted by Star*Dagger

I do wish that ATI and Nvidia wouldnt make such cards. It 1) confuses the market 2) makes people think they have a decent card when they dont.
A year from now this card will be worthless, utterly. I can still sell my old 8800gtx for some cash and apply it towards my new Radeon HD 4870X2.

1) How exactly does it confuse the market? This is exactly the type of card most consumers should be buying. I would say that someone playing WoW or The Sims and buying an 8800GTX would be complete overkill. Why should I or anyone else pay for capability that would never be used?
Stop confusing YOUR needs with the needs of mainstream consumers.
And stop being such a hardware bigot. It is people like you who make forums unfriendly and unwelcoming places to new people.

2) The only people who care about "decent" cards are enthusiasts such as yourself who constantly waggle their e-peens at each other in enthusiast forums.
BTW, thanks for slipping your 8800GTX out. Here's my 4870. Mine's BIGGER!!

3) Who's the fool? Let us do some maths. I don't know when you bought your GTX and for how much, so lets make some wild guesses.
(4670) $79 - 18 months depreciation = $20 on eBay = $59 loss.
(8800GTX) $500 - 18 months depreciation = $150 on eBay = $350 loss.
But because we are "enthusiasts" we are willing to wear those losses for the gameplay we gain.
I made the decision to drop off the bleeding edge and upgrade more often with lesser hardware. Had a choice between a GTX280 for 30 months or a HD4870 for 18 months. I'd rather get something new in 18 months than spend an extra 12 months with the GTX280.
So far this approach has been a much more satisfying experience. I cannot imagine that the GTX280 is twice as good as my HD4870 (at the prices when I purchased) at 1920x1200.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Very true Adnoctum.