craig5320

Read The Review Here
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Not that long ago Nvidia were showing some real dominance in the graphics card market as ATI struggled to remain competitive with their Radeon HD 2000 and 3000 series products. ATI managed to get themselves back into a competitive state with the release of the 4870 and 4870 X2 that offer a good alternative to the GeForce GTX series of cards. As most of us know the 4870 X2 is the fastest single card solution available at time of writing.

As with all new product ranges as time progresses the technology trickles down into the lower end parts and that is why we are here today, the launch of an R700 based budget product, the Radeon HD 4670. This card retails for £60/$80 and so should be well within the price range of most consumers, but is it worth buying if you are a gamer? It is our job today to find out, and we will also test them in Crossfire to see the possible gains if you upgraded at a later date.

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[hobo]eclipse

nice read and nice bundle with this lil performer. the crossfire scaling is great and i am glad to see it. would have liked to see some 4850 numbers tossed in there aswell for reference. you guys should have a look at some of the 1 GB 4850's and 4870 and there performance. newegg has quite a few listed. im speciffically interested in a 4850 1 GB core OC'd to 4870 speeds and any benefit or mootness of the GDDR5 speeds.

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Judas

nice.... 884.8Ghz core... that's amazing!

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Matth

Interesting, wonder if it would be a drop-in upgrade for most midrange card that don't use a power feed?

Wonder if it's any hungrier than an X700 Pro ?

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Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

sammorris

Some nice results, especially Crysis, for such a lightweight card.

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Other stuff not in my Specs list:
Logitech Z-5500 speakers, Razer Diamondback Magma mouse, Saitek Eclipse II keyboard, LG 20x DVDRW S-ATA.
The other 8 HDDs: WD360GD Raptor, WD5000AAKS, WD2500AAJS, WD2500JD x2, HD400LJ, 7200.9 250GB (all S-ATA) + WD1600 IDE (IB-351 USB)
plus more fans & fan controllers than you can shake a stick at...

Erroneus

Interesting card, but if I read the results correct, it should be a tad slower then HD 3850 512 MB in most games, which here in Denmark is actually cheaper.

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mkk

Lower power consumption and similar performance as the HD3850. That's a nice enough improvement in its class. There should be some fanless cards out soon.

Judas

i'm actually waiting for the HD4450 series to show up.... as i typically use those in my cheaper budget end machines... the 3450's do very well considering.....

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LukeK

how many systems do you build a week Judas?

Judas

depends...

recently i've moved about 15 machines within the last 2-3 weeks

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IvanV

Nice! I'm getting closer to deciding to make a new build and I'll certainly consider the 4670.

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Feed the porkers and don't touch the buttons!

KillerSneak

Well there's a error in the article the enw budget line in fact isn't based on the R700 / rv700 series but on old rv610 and rv630 cores So again ATi simply changed names for old products to get rid of the overstock. You can confirm this by looking @ the new 8.9 drivers.. Just wanted to let everybody know. I can't say this for 100% certain but why would they use X6 / rv610 / rv630 driver settings if it's based on a rv730/rv700 series? makes no sence.

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• [COLOR=#dddddd][COLOR=blue]AMD-FX [COLOR=red]60[/COLOR] @ [/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=red]2.8 GHz[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=#0000ff]2x Sapphire [COLOR=red]HD 3870[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]C[/COLOR]ross[COLOR=red]F[/COLOR]ire[COLOR=red]X[/COLOR][/COLOR]
  [COLOR=#dddddd]
• [COLOR=blue]ASUS A8R MVP-32 [/COLOR][COLOR=red]Deluxe[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=blue]2048MB [COLOR=red]PC3200 cl2 Patriot[/COLOR][/COLOR]
• [COLOR=red]Sound Blaster Audigy[COLOR=blue]2 ZS[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]

Veridian3

There is no error in the article, the 4670 is based on the R700 series, and in the drivers it is stated as such. The 8.9 catalysts don't even contain an inf line for the 4670, it isn't supported until Catalyst 8.10.

If you had said some of the upcoming cards may be based on the R600 series then you may have been right, but on the 4670 you are wrong.

LukeK

when people ask me "hey Luke why don't you install cool 3rd party modded drivers?".

A prime example why, they aint got a clue

KillerSneak

Then tell me why the newer budget series are:
"ATI Radeon HD 4730" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9505&SUBSYS_3002148C
"ATI Radeon HD 4730" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9505&SUBSYS_3001148C
"ATI Radeon HD 4750" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9505&SUBSYS_3003148C
"ATI Radeon HD 4750" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9505&SUBSYS_3004148C

Wouldn't it be strange that a lower budget serie will be based on a newer core?

Ehh sure m8 no clue? This article is trying to sell a lower end budget card as R700 based what i seriously doubt as newer buget cards (as stated above in the ATI Catalyst driver) are using rv610- / rv630 code paths so i won't believe this, or ATi is seriouslt screwing something up in their drivers

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• [COLOR=#dddddd][COLOR=blue]AMD-FX [COLOR=red]60[/COLOR] @ [/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=red]2.8 GHz[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=#0000ff]2x Sapphire [COLOR=red]HD 3870[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]C[/COLOR]ross[COLOR=red]F[/COLOR]ire[COLOR=red]X[/COLOR][/COLOR]
  [COLOR=#dddddd]
• [COLOR=blue]ASUS A8R MVP-32 [/COLOR][COLOR=red]Deluxe[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=blue]2048MB [COLOR=red]PC3200 cl2 Patriot[/COLOR][/COLOR]
• [COLOR=red]Sound Blaster Audigy[COLOR=blue]2 ZS[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]

LukeK

Yes you have no clue, you never had any clue, and you still don't. Stunned you aren't still banned here for your idioticy over the years. Im guessing if you come onto the site and in your ignorance start shouting at the admins and telling them they are reviewing "wrong" because you still dont understand the infs (scary though people use your drivers), then I hoping that might change.

Veridian3

Thats marketing for you.

The RV730 based 4670 doesn't always beat some of the older RV630 based cards (due to the configuration of the core) but when you call something "4670" and another product in your range "3650" the uneducated public expect the 4670 to be the better card when in fact it is not necessarily the case.

So they are re-positioning the RV630 in the product catalogue by calling some of the cards 4750 etc. Its a common practice, just like when Nvidia rebadged some of the Geforce 2 cards as Geforce 4.

That doesn't stop the 4670 from being a true RV730 card.

macbiter

I think you might be wasting your time explaining it Veridian3