Can't wait until there are aftermarket boards. maybe someone will figure out how to make one of these silent like the 6450.

It's often confusing which TDP goes with what specs down in the sub 60W cards as they tend to make so many versions. Here is table I made recently that lists the configurations I researched.




*The 6790 was originally listed at 150W TDP but then delayed to allow them to lower the TDP. I still can't find an official TDP for the released cards. It's likely that early reviews have higher TDP cards than what will be in stores this summer/fall. I suppose it's possible that you may get one of the early high TDP parts if you play the lottery and buy one of these.

** rounded to nearest GB/s

*** no official TDP for this but it doesn't have an extra power connector and in furmark it only draws about 62W.

The ones in the top group with a TPD above 75W require an extra power connector and are very hard to make fanless as a retail product (though there is and will be a number of fanless cards in that group but they are more expensive). Look at PowerColor and Gigabyte as the most likely ODMs in the US (Powercolor products go by other names in the EU).

The ones in the middle group with GDDR5 plus anything in the 60 - 75W TDP range are in my opinion ideal for silent gaming PCs. Should be able to find a fanless card in this group much cheaper than the top group or convert a stock model to a fanless heatsink. Likely to save money in the long run as well due to lower initial cost and lower power usage.

I think there's mostly two reasons for the lower power draw of the HD6670:
- first, both cards seem to use the same voltage range - usually the lower clocked ones have lower voltage but for some reason this doesn't seem to be the case with the HD6570/HD6670 reference cards. I don't know if that extends to retail cards but given the small specced TDP difference I'd think probably yes. So it might be luck of the draw if you get a chip which needs a bit more or less power, and the clock difference just isn't large enough to always offset this.
- second, better cooler of HD6670. Higher temperature means higher power draw, and this effect can actually be quite large for these chips. So if you'd swap the fans the power draw difference might disappear.

I find the differences in video quality interesting.

Did you compare it to a software rendered frame?

btw Ati drivers have a "smooth video" check-box that disables post-processing features according to load.

Why is there a difference in video quality? Is this often for different video cards to display video differently?

I think 'mczak' is right at saying that higher temperature causes higher power draw...

Is there a way to repeat the measurement of 6570 power draw using 6670 cooler?

There's no question this is the case but I have no good idea how much difference this could make. This is an often overlooked effect - I'm sure you could quantify it somehow but I can't . It is probably highly nonlinear but I don't know.
You can find some discussion about this here:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.ph ... 5&page=221
In particular look at Dave's quote which says 1W per degree for Cypress - if we'd just take that and scale it back to Turks (at roughly 1/3 the power draw) that would still amount to about 5W for the 14 degree difference measured here.
I think I've seen some article about this somewhere but can't find it. Some more investigation would be interesting imho - this effect is probably the bane of (non-value) fanless cards, as not only might they get hot because they lack a fan, but they get even hotter simply because they already run hot .

edit: actually the discussion there has a link to an article which measured the temperature/power draw correlation: http://ht4u.net/reviews/2009/leistungsa ... index9.php - the effect isn't quite as pronounced there (~22W for 30 degrees for a chip which uses more power than Cypress), I suspect the effect could have increased with the move from 65nm to 40nm but there could be other reasons. In any case, there are just too many unknown parameters to really quantify this effect for the HD6570/HD6670 without measuring it.

probably not worth the trouble. Other manufacturers will use other heatsinks and very few experienced shoppers buy the reference card design. In a few weeks/months after more cards are out you'll see more tests of the other designs and will be able to compare those and have a better idea.

Oh please please please review this product quickly before I buy it:

http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-617.shtml

I like the 6450 because it is silent, but it lacks a bit of horsepower. If the HIS silent version is as good as the AMD reference boards then I will get it yesterday. But why is it only $75, that's $10-$15 dollars less than other 6570's listed on Amazon.com? Maybe because it doesn't come with any HDMI to DVI or DVI to VGA adapters (but it doesn't need any in this configuration unless you use the low-profile bracket). It also doesn't have DisplayPort. But for an HTPC who needs that (yet).

I want so bad to get one of these cards, but it seems that if I wait longer there are more options.

Could be though it seems to me the other cards have too much of a "new" price tag added... This is still 10$ or so more expensive than the HD5770 ddr3 you can get which sounds about right.
The pcb/heatsink seems to look the same as what HIS used for some of their HD55x0 cards, silentprcreview reviewed one such card (though it was a 5550 with DDR2(!) memory) and didn't like the heatsink too much. Seems like you'll definitely need some airflow for it, at least if you stress it a bit.

Can either or both of these drive three monitors? The review is ambiguous on this point stating (on page 2 - as a photo caption for the 6570)I am looking for a card to drive a three monitor system - it would be nice if this could do the trick.

edit: I should say the simple answer is Yes: if one of the three is has a Displayport connector.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technolo ... ts-support

Unless you have a display port monitor or active adapter in the mix the best you'll do with the average card is two monitors.

I've been seeing mention of 3 monitors on newer cards from some tech sites but the displayport limitation is still in the official FAQ at AMD so until they change it I'm going to assume it's confusion.

But if you do displayport in the mix you can get 5 monitors going on one card (by way of a displayport 1.2 MST (multi stream transport) hub which will have enough bandwidth to allow 3 monitors of 1920x1080 resolution to run off one displayport output on the graphics card + the native DVI + the native 15 pin analog VGA). See http://accellcables.com/products/Displa ... onitor.htm for an example of a 1.1a hub that will do 3 monitors at 1280x1024 or less.

So yes even if you bought the oldest lowest end eyefinity card with a single displayport + any two random non displayport connectors you could run 3 monitors on it as is with no adapters or up to 5 monitors with a displayport hub. But if none of your 3 or 5 monitors have a displayport input you have to fork out money for an "active adapter" or a "displayort hub".

Great - the system that I would want to use this card in has a Sandy Bridge i2500K CPU. I thought I read somewhere that you cannot use both the onboard GPU and a discrete GPU - is that correct?

If so why is this?

I also believe that using a discrete GPU means that the Quick Sync feature of the CPU is disabled - again why is this? Shuldn't the CPU/GPU have more resources to do video encoding if it is not tasked running displays?

Any news about dBA noise of Sapphire HD6670 1gb? It mounts an Arctic Cooling 80mm fan I think.
I need it for my silent PC but maybe it's better a HD5670 1gb Ultimate passive.
Or maybe should I wait for a fanless HD6670?

The fans on the Gigabyte and PowerColor 6670 boards appear to be larger still.

http://www.gigabyte.com/press-center/ne ... x?nid=1011

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1271&page=3

Gigabyte claims for their cards:


Usual grain of salt applies to that spiel though.

Sapphire have just announced a HD 6670 ULTIMATE (passive) Edition.

Press Release:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentatio ... cleID=3518

Product Page:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentatio ... 1&pid=1240

Review:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1 ... ction.html

Has anyone seen any passive 6670-range card at retail yet? Seems like it would be a big seller for the first to market at this perf level/$$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161374 is the HIS DDR3 version so it's in that range for HTPC use but not for gaming. Same with the ASUS DDR3 version at http://www.directron.com/ah6570di1gd3lp.html?gsear=1

Looks like 6570 GDDR5 and 6670 are both hard to find in passive versions still.

Still $70 US for a silent gaming/HTPC card isn't a bad deal compared to the price of a fanless 5750 which is now hard to find on the retail market.

Given the GDDR5 versions of the 6570/6670 don't game as well as the 5750 did I'd hope they keep the price down in the $75-$85 range for the 6670 fanless models.

I purchased the HIS 6570 silent. I hope to install it. the only concern I have is airflow. It will be installed in a Thermaltake Motzart case. There are two small fans in the back and one 3.5" in the front of the case. Hopefully that'll keep things cool

I'll post system specs and results by Sunday.

Great HTPC comparison of the HD 6450, HD 6570, GT 430, and GT520 at Anandtech.

Sapphire HD 6670 ULTIMATE at Quiet PC...

http://www.quietpc.com/products/vga-car ... hd6670-ult

Reasonable price and (world-wide) shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102950 is the fanless 6670 for ~$120. Less if you believe in the rebate fairy or if you don't pay sales tax. Or you could just order it from SuperBiiz for ~$110 and not deal with the rebate issue.

No matter where you get it it is still above the price I'd be wanting it for. Maybe if someone put it on sale without rebate to get it under $90 shipped it'd be a good deal.

If I'm going to pay over $100 I'd be looking at the PowerColor Go! Green 1GBD5-NS3DHG 6750 or Gigabyte GV R675SL-1GI 6750. The Go Green is more expensive at about ~$145 but the Gigabyte is only ~$120 shipped.

For pure price of purchase vs silent GPU value the Gigabyte 6750 is the best value if it will fit in your case (9" or 229 mm).

If you live somewhere that electricity is very costly the Go! Green might be worth it on power usage but even if it isn't there are some cases the Go Green will fit in that the Gigabyte won't. The Go! Green 6750 is 7.16" long (182 mm).

I guess if you didn't game or need the processing power of the 6750 and had a case that wouldn't fit the Gigabyte Silent 6750 you might choose the Sapphire 6670 just to save a few bucks vs the Go! Green 6750 but until it's noticeably cheaper than the Gigabyte Silent 6750 I'd be saving it as a last resort.

So far the silent 6570 is doing well. I did, though, have to add an additional 3.5" fan in the front (I had removed it before because it was noisy). I found a new one that was on the recommended list (I don't remember which...it's been a couple months).

6670 - nice HTPC card but the price is kinda disappointing (although these initial prices on all cards drop a little bit and add a rebate pretty fast) but it performs less then a 5750 and costs as much at msrp that a 5770 can be commonly had for after rebate, or less!

Cant wait to see what will hopefully be sweeping changes that the AMD 7xxx series will bring to the table from a price:performance perspective

well, so I have had the card in for about 3-1/2 months and had some problems. The HTPC has a megabit connection and is networked to a server with a gigabit jack and on a gigabit network. I think that with the new card's capabilities it tries to get info quicker than the network chip on the HTPC board can handle and it crashes the software. This seems to only happen with sage TV, but not with windows media player.

So after I put the fan in the front, things did not get any better. I was getting a lot of wierd lines across the screen to the point where menus were not even readable. This woudl carry through even when I exited the media player. The heatsink was really hot to the touch.

Last night I cut a hole in the top of my beautiful case and moved the fan from in front of the case to on top to blow directly down on to the card in an attempt to cool it better. That did not work. I am pretty confident it is the card overheating because the anomalies on the screen only show up after watching a bit of hi-def content (like shows recorded on hi-def over-the-air channels). It also seems to overheat even when watching DVDs. The TV shows are on a local hard drive; the DVD's are stored on the server.

So, last night I bought an A6 processor, motherboard, and 8GB of ram. Not sure what I am going to do with this card. the MOBO I will probably use to rebuild the server since I am borrowing some hardware from work to test out how I want to set up the network.

What is to be learned from this?
- The card overheating may not exhibit problems for several weeks or months.
- Be sure to have plenty of air flow in the case to begin with
- How quiet do you really need it to be. I chose the silent card when I probably could have gotten away with any one of the vendors with a decent (quiet) active cooling system on the card and never heard it from my couch.

So now I am out the price of the card plus $300 to upgrade the system (which was probably needed anyway).

Well, if you already spent the money and can't return the stuff it's too late but:

1. You can check the temp of your graphics card in the AMD Catalyst Control Center in the AMD Overdrive section. Most cards will misbehave somewhere above 90c. Any time you build a new system you should be running one or more programs to monitor temperatures and address any problem areas.

2. If the card is overheating and is passive the best option is to strap / tie / suspend a fan on or near the cards heatsink. Doing so doesn't require adding a front case fan or any kind of top or side hole with fan. Depending on the orientation of the fins on the card you might tie it to the video card or you might hang it from something else in the case that is near there (I have a system where I'm hanging a 120mm fan down by the video card, one end is tied off of another other 120mm fan that is on my CPU heatsink, the other end is tied to a hole in the back of the case).

3. If you are having problems with heat and aren't good at custom hanging a fan near your video card or just think that looks tacky you are probably better off getting a card with active cooling at least in the low end video card range. It may be different if you get into the SilentCell or GoGreen style cards that are in the $100 to $200 range. Even the sub $100 cards must be working for a lot of users.


But even with all that I wonder what specific video card you have and what specific case it was in?

dhanson865,
thanks for the reply. yeah, I already bought it all from the egg, so I could return it, but...

everything is in a Thermaltake Mozart Media Lab.
The video card is the HIS 6570 Silent.
Before that, it was an AMD 2600XT with a fan. All was good except I wanted the HDMI 1.4 out.
As I said, I cut a hole in the top of my case and now have a fan blowing right down on the cart.
Just behind the card are two small fans blowing out.

I uninstalled catalyst control center because I thought maybe that was causing some other issues. I think the thing was running in the upper 70's but I never checked it when it was rendering HD content.

Just a moment before this I was watching some college football and the system hung as I was changing between two games.

From the reviews I have read, the AMD A6 APU should be able to handle the HD content as well as blu-ray if I ever get a blu-ray drive to rip the ones I own (that came with DVDs).

I'm gonna use the current HTPC MOBO, memory and such to build the server. I think the rest is OK. I'll just have to figure out what to do about the video card. Hopefully being in a headless server will allow the card to stay cool and not freak out the system.

hEdly.

I'm assuming it was this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161374 a spare 80mm or 92mm fan secured directly to the face of that relatively flat black heatsink would do quite a bit more for cooling that style card than a fan at the front or top of the case.

as for the case I think the newegg comments sum up my thoughts

"As for ventilation, there's one 80mm intake on the front -- without much access to air -- and two 60mm exhausts at the back. They could have at least vented the sides. And why two rather noisy 60mm fans when they could have made room for a much quieter 120mm fan?"

with the review that follows hammering this home

"Fans are useless. Case runs too hot. I have an All In Wonder X600 and if I try to do anything graphically intensive it gets too hot and locks up. I added a good slot cooler and that helped but this case has no airflow at all!"

and the reviews continue with one after another complaining about poor airflow. I guess now I understand why you cut another hole in your case. I imagined you modifying a case with decent airflow to begin with.

Yes, that is the card I got.

Believe it or not, up until this point (i.e. the installation of this card) everything was fine. Never a problem. The fans at the back are actually very quiet, although they are wired to 5V I think. I had thought about rewiring them to run at 7 or 12v. Even with the active cooling of the XT2600 I could not hear the system when sitting 6ft from the case. In fact, you could barely make out any fan or even HD noise when sitting there touching the case.

If I have time maybe I will try your suggestion. But right now the wife it really chomping at the bit to get the thing working. It is our PVR with two digital tuners and 2TB of space for recording shows; it also accesses our music and all the kids DVD's on the server. We use the heck out of it.

When I bought the case something like 5 years ago, there were no complaints that I could find. I got it because it kind of matched the motif of my other AV equipment. I have older silver Sony equipment; they have black plastic areas where the info show up. The Mozart also fit the opening and it can take a full ATX MOBO. I had considered an Antec case, but it was just 1/4" too wide for the AV cubby.

Maybe I'll put another 80mm fan at the front and get rid of the two fans at the back. Maybe then I can overpressurize the case and just have all the air being pushed out the back over the system. Of course this may be moot with the new A6. I guess I could also get one of those slot fans, but I think they are noisy. I could even put a fan in the front under my single DVD drive.

Maybe I will write back once the new kit shows up.