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Redefining Budget Gaming Graphics: ATI's HD 4670

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:28 pm
by MikeC

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:49 pm
by merlin
I'd imagine with any good aftermarket cooler, or oem design with larger fan and/or 2 slots, this is the best option for a mid-range performance card in almost any system. Also probably the best option for many htpc's as well. It's definitely something I will recommend to anyone who doesn't need top flight gaming performance from a 48xx or GTX 2xx. Anyways, great review Mike, the idle power usage is really useful info for knowing this card is almost as power efficient as integrated.

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 3:06 pm
by AZBrandon
Wow. That's pretty amazing for the power figures. I looked on newegg and found a few different models of 4670 and it seems to be a popular one to make different cooler designs on, although almost all of them have complaints except the large dual-slot design. It seems there's just no way around the fact that if you want a quiet cooler, you need to make room for it. That would be fine by me though. Maybe it is time for me to replace my 7800GT soon?

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:36 pm
by mkk
So inexpensive that non-gamers get some real gaming performance at little to no extra cost too. Cards with alternative coolers seem plentiful already.

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 7:18 pm
by Aris
8800GT uses around the same amount of power, but gives you MUCH better performance, and only costs around $30 more. Only thing the 4670 has is a shorter PCB Form Factor. But as long as your case can support longer video cards, the 512mb 8800gt is better in every aspect. Also nvidia drivers are still superior to ati.

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:22 pm
by tyeh26
Can this thing run 3 monitors at the same time?

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:30 pm
by bozar
This card would be a killer HTPC card with a passive cooler like Accelero S2. A good alternative for mid-resolutions.

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:42 pm
by nightmorph
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Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:07 am
by Vicotnik
Aris wrote:8800GT uses around the same amount of power, but gives you MUCH better performance, and only costs around $30 more. Only thing the 4670 has is a shorter PCB Form Factor. But as long as your case can support longer video cards, the 512mb 8800gt is better in every aspect. Also nvidia drivers are still superior to ati.
Xbitlabs has it 8.7/47.1 for 4670 and 34.6/78.3 for 8800GT (idle/load W). Hardly around the same amount of power.

Which one have the best drivers are a bit subjective. I haven't had any problem with either the last few years.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:47 am
by FlorisNielssen
Too bad the SPL and GPU temperature wheren't tested with the fan at 25%. I kind of missed that. Otherwise a good review.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 4:07 am
by QuietOC
nightmorph wrote:Still, if you're looking for 3D gaming performance, and you're willing to spend $40 or more higher than the typical $80 price for the 4670 (on cards with louder coolers), you probably would be better off buying a card from nVidia. But now you're well into the $100s for price points, and the fact that you have to go that far into it to find something that can beat the 4670 says quite a bit. ;)
It is still possible to get a G92-based GeForce 9600 GSO for $50 after rebate. Mine is happy at 680/1700/975 with a fairly quiet 2-slot cooler. It certainly requires more electrical power than the 4670, but it is both faster and (hopefully) cheaper.

The HD 4670 is a great design, and AMD should be able to make a nice profit on them even at $50 a card.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 4:30 am
by Tzupy
@MikeC: since the stock cooler is not acceptable by SPCR standards, it would be nice to investigate the mounting of aftermarket coolers on it.
In the forums there was a post from an early adopter which had problems cooling it passively.
Not because the GPU became hot, it didn't, but because the VRMs weren't properly cooled - this seems to be an issue with other modern cards too.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 5:02 am
by mczak
QuietOC wrote:It is still possible to get a G92-based GeForce 9600 GSO for $50 after rebate. Mine is happy at 680/1700/975 with a fairly quiet 2-slot cooler. It certainly requires more electrical power than the 4670, but it is both faster and (hopefully) cheaper.
From all reviews I've read, the 9600GSO isn't really faster, especially not with AA applied. Consensus seems to be the HD4670 is about as fast overall as the 9600 GSO, with the 9600GT slightly faster. That's true for non-overclocked settings at least, the GSO has more overclocking potential than the 9600GT (and more than the HD4670 too I think). Not sure about prices, the only way you can get 9600GSO cheaper than HD4670 seems to be with MIR (which don't exist in Europe).
The HD 4670 is a great design, and AMD should be able to make a nice profit on them even at $50 a card.
That much is true. If you look at 9600GT/9600GSO, those are MUCH more complex cards (and much larger and thus more expensive chips), the HD4670 must be way more profitable at the same price point... Too bad AMD skimped a bit on the fan - at least it got a decent fan control...

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:22 am
by HammerSandwich
TechReport has a good comparison of power draw. The 4670 spanks even the 9600GT, and the 9800GT (nee 8800GT) uses far more power. The Nvidia cards may be faster, but an SPCRer with a smaller monitor should consider the 4670 carefully.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:30 am
by QuietOC
mczak wrote:From all reviews I've read, the 9600GSO isn't really faster, especially not with AA applied.
FWIW: my GSO runs the same clockspeeds as this one. I mainly play Team Fortress 2 at 1600x1200x8XCSAA and get framerates around 100 fps. It is an all around better card than the 256 MB 8800GT I got last December for $236 (the extra 128 MB might actually be worth losing 64-bits of bus width.)

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:52 am
by dhanson865
Aris wrote:8800GT uses around the same amount of power, but gives you MUCH better performance, and only costs around $30 more. Only thing the 4670 has is a shorter PCB Form Factor. But as long as your case can support longer video cards, the 512mb 8800gt is better in every aspect. Also nvidia drivers are still superior to ati.
1. I agree that Nvidia drivers are generally superior to ATI. They almost always have been better and may or may not continue to be better in the future.

2. Until Nvidia addresses their reliability issues I won't buy any 8xxx or 9xxx cards. See viewtopic.php?p=433113 for discussion and links to further reading material.

I have a 7800GT, a 6600, a 4200, etc and have never had a single problem with Nvidia cards of any make or model. I simply won't take the chance of having the problems that are widely reported on current Nvidia cards.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:14 am
by QuietOC
dhanson865 wrote:I have a 7800GT, a 6600, a 4200, etc and have never had a single problem with Nvidia cards of any make or model. I simply won't take the chance of having the problems that are widely reported on current Nvidia cards.
I don't think I have ever had any computer hardware from any company that hasn't had some problem. I had a 7900GS that would lock up the computer occasionally probably due to insufficient stock cooling. ATi has had fine drivers since the Rage 128 circa 2000. Why can't nVidia drivers handle video crashes yet?

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:43 am
by Monkeh16
QuietOC wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:I have a 7800GT, a 6600, a 4200, etc and have never had a single problem with Nvidia cards of any make or model. I simply won't take the chance of having the problems that are widely reported on current Nvidia cards.
I don't think I have ever had any computer hardware from any company that hasn't had some problem. I had a 7900GS that would lock up occasionally probably due to insufficient stock cooling. ATi has had fine drivers since the Rage 128 circa 2000. Why can't nVidia drivers handle video crashes yet?
Why can't ATI drivers not cause a BSOD on boot yet? I've yet to use an ATI card which hasn't given me serious driver issues.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:35 am
by MoJo
I wonder if they will get PowerPlay working on the 48x0 series too?

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:58 am
by hikeskool
dhanson865 wrote:ATi has had fine drivers since the Rage 128 circa 2000.
That's a joke, right?

I've owned a Voodoo 2, Rage 128, TNT2 Ultra, Gefore 3 (original), Radeon 9800 Pro and now a 7800GT so I feel I have some good representation from both firms.

The Geforce 3 and Radeon boxes are still up and used for some light gaming occasionally (Counter-Strike on the Geforce and any Source game on the Radeon) and still, the ATI driver interfaces are clunky, slower and just generally more difficult to navigate than any Nvidia package. From an aesthetics standpoint they're a disaster and I really feel for any non-technical person that has to do even elementary things such as setting up a dual-monitor rig.

The ATI drivers used to be legitimately bad and it wasn't until well into the R300 core that they finally turned their act around. Nvidia just gets boned recently due to Vista being a drastic failure for pretty much all drivers, regardless of hardware but that's more or less the same for all new Microsoft OS releases. I remember it was months before I could use my Soundblaster Audigy in Windows XP because they couldn't cook the drivers. And of course neither Creative nor Microsoft wanted to take any responsibility. With the advent of SP1 I think a great deal of driver anxiety has been settled with Nvidia but performance still suffers compared to XP, and that's something I can't afford running three-year-old hardware.

I'm just glad that ATI finally seems to have its act together because it brings better products to the consumer at a cheaper price.

I think I'll hold onto my 7800 GT (with Accelero on there) and see how it fares against Fallout 3, Dead Space, Red Alert 3, GTA IV, Left 4 Dead, etc. before I plunk down cash for any new hardware. I'm not really interested in Crysis because it's just generally a bad game so I'm not really gonna spend $500 on graphics gear. I ran through Bioshock about a month ago for the second time with no real problems and even though the game is over a year old it still pushes hardware pretty decently.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:51 am
by QuietOC
hikeskool wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:ATi has had fine drivers since the Rage 128 circa 2000.
That's a joke, right?

I've owned a Voodoo 2, Rage 128, TNT2 Ultra, Gefore 3 (original), Radeon 9800 Pro and now a 7800GT so I feel I have some good representation from both firms.
Yep, no driver problems here. Xpert 2000, Radeon 64 VIVO, Radeon 8500, Voodoo 5 5500, Radeon 9500 (softmod 9700 Pro), X800GTO, 7900GS, X1950GT, 8600GT, 8800GT, 7300GT, 9600GSO. I have had hardware related problems with several of those--mostly nVidia based products.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:20 am
by hikeskool
QuietOC wrote:Yep, no driver problems here. Xpert 2000, Radeon 64 VIVO, Radeon 8500, Voodoo 5 5500, Radeon 9500 (softmod 9700 Pro), X800GTO, 7900GS, X1950GT, 8600GT, 8800GT, 7300GT, 9600GSO. I have had hardware related problems with several of those--mostly nVidia based products.
Just because you personally have had no driver problems doesn't mean that, in general, ATI drivers haven't been inferior to Nvidia drivers for the better part of a decade.

That counts double for your hardware problems. The only hardware problem I've experienced is when I tried to install new heatsinks on the memory of my Geforce 2 GTS and did a poor job causing one RAM chip to overheat. Otherwise I've been OK with all my cards, ATI or Nvidia.

But again, you can't extrapolate your personal experiences on the entirety of the community, just like I can't. The majority of users will probably never have a hardware or driver-related problem.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:14 pm
by QuietOC
hikeskool wrote:The majority of users will probably never have a hardware or driver-related problem.
No, they will almost certainly have both hardware and driver related problems--and blame both on Microsoft! :)

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:28 pm
by hikeskool
QuietOC wrote:
hikeskool wrote:The majority of users will probably never have a hardware or driver-related problem.
No, they will almost certainly have both hardware and driver related problems--and blame both on Microsoft! :)
Here here.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 3:49 am
by prodeous
With regards to the card it self.

I have the 4670, sitting next to my system as there is a driver issue.

:P

The standard drivers 8.8 or 8.9 do not support this card at the moment, so only Manufacturers drivers should work. Problem is that I also have a 2600xt (gigabyte passive), and using the manufacturers drivers (in this case ASUS) causes so many issues it is not even funny.

So driver problems, hardware problems. Have them both. Lucky I'm educated enough to blame DAMMIT (AMD+ATI) for this :P

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 5:07 am
by dhanson865
Welcome to SPCR!

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:56 am
by hikeskool
dhanson865 wrote:Please learn to edit quotes properly. I never said that. The correct attribution would be to "QuietOC"
Please don't talk down to me.

It was a simple mistake.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:06 am
by dhanson865
Welcome to SPCR!

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:29 pm
by AZBrandon
prodeous wrote:With regards to the card it self.

I have the 4670, sitting next to my system as there is a driver issue.

:P

The standard drivers 8.8 or 8.9 do not support this card at the moment, so only Manufacturers drivers should work. Problem is that I also have a 2600xt (gigabyte passive), and using the manufacturers drivers (in this case ASUS) causes so many issues it is not even funny.

So driver problems, hardware problems. Have them both. Lucky I'm educated enough to blame DAMMIT (AMD+ATI) for this :P
Catalyst 8.10 was release today.

http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

While the download link doesn't have it, you can select 4870 instead of 4670 and get to the 8.10 download page. If you look at the 8.10 release notes you'll see the 4670 is listed as supported by 8.10.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:41 pm
by NeilBlanchard
Hiya,

Tiny typo patrol, on page 4:
the fan had an unpleasant, clickysound quality