VGA Reviews by stefan @ 2011-07-22
The Radeon HD 6670 video card from AMD comes with interesting features like UVD 3.0, Eyefinity with 3 video outputs and offers decent performance in games, while using lower resolutions like 1280x1024, 1600x1200 or 1680x1050, making it a card to consider when building a HTPC system.
At first I would like to thank AMD for supplying a sample of their Radeon HD 6670 1GB video cards for testing and reviewing.
"AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its ground-breaking AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). AMD’s graphics and computing technologies power a variety of solutions including PCs, game consoles and the servers that drive the Internet and businesses.
Our Mission
Lead through innovative, customer-centric solutions that empower businesses, enhance the digital lifestyle and accelerate global digital inclusion."
The RADEON HD 6670 video card is positioned in the mainstream segment and features one of the “Turks” GPU, which offers plenty of power to use in HTPCs, without the need of an extra power connector and the reference 1GB model from AMD also takes only one slot inside the case.
HD 6670 comes with 480 stream processors and a 128-bit GDDR5 interface, with 512MB or 1GB of memory. Compared to the RADEON HD 5670, a video card from the same segment but from the previous generation, the 6670 has more shader units, texture units and higher core clocks.
More interesting is the fact that the HD 6670 (or HD 6450, HD 6570) can be paired with a Llano CPU for improving the platform performance even further.
Regarding connectivity, the RADEON HD 6670 supports 3-display Eyefinity.
DirectX® 11 support
AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology
AMD App Acceleration
AMD HD3D technology
AMD CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology
Cutting-edge integrated display support
Integrated HD audio controller
AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology
AMD Catalyst™ software and HD video configuration software
The reference Radeon HD 6670 is a small card and should fit in most systems; we can notice quickly that it does not have a separate power connector and the heatsink covers most of the PCB surface:
The 9-blade fan cools the vapor chamber heatsink and the heat is evacuated through the left and right sides:
In the top right corner, we can locate the 2-pin fan connector:
Depending on the level of usage and the temperature inside the case, the cooler may get really hot; AMD have placed a small warning sign right on the side of the heatsink:
After the removal of the cooler, we can discover that the card comes equipped with Hynix memory chips, part number H5G02H24MFR (also found on Radeon HD 6950/6970 cards):
Here is a closer look of the small Turks GPU:
Since all memory chips are placed on the frontal side of the PCB, on the back we can only see some stickers with serial numbers, along with the screws with springs, that keep the cooling solution fixed on the GPU:
As outputs, we can find one DisplayPort, a VGA and a DVI:
Test Setup:
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.2GHz HT
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme
Memory: G.Skill F3-12800CL8T-6GBPI PI Series
Power Supply: Antec True Power New 750W
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10
Case: Cooler Master HAF 922 with 2 NB-Multiframe S-Series MF12-S3HS@1800RPM on the side
To find out the IDLE and maximum Full Load temperatures, I have used the latest version of Furmark, and let it run for about 15 minutes. To record the temperatures, the GPU-Z utility was running in the background. The recorded room temperature at the time of testing was 27.5 degrees Celsius:
Before finding out the noise the video card was producing, I have first measured the noise the system was producing with no video card installed and I found out it was 36.6dBA.
During the measurement readings, most of the fans inside the case were turned off, but the CPU (43%) and chipset one (30%).
At all times, the sound meter was placed 8cm under the video card.
The GPU fan was controlled by the Catalyst Control Center software:
The 3DMark Vantage scores were calculated by summing up the GPU and CPU subscores.
Here are the Vantage subscores separately:
We first converted the obtained scores/FPS for each benchmark to a percentage in comparison to the highest score (=100%), we then averaged all the benchmark scores per resolution/IQ and the results are put into these charts. So these are relative performance charts in % to the fastest card. (full performance numbers here)
We first converted the obtained scores/FPS for each benchmark to a percentage in comparison to the highest score (=100%), we then averaged all the benchmark scores per resolution/IQ and the results are put into these charts. So these are relative performance charts in % to the fastest card. (full performance numbers here)
The Radeon HD 6670 from AMD is a card to consider when building a HTPC system and succeeds to offer enough performance in games when using lower resolutions like 1280x1024, 1600x1200 or 1680x1050; for the last two resolutions, in some cases we might find the need to lower the in-game details a notch. Another feature that makes the card attractive for HTPC is UVD (Unified Video Decoder) version 3, present from Radeon HD 6400 Series to 6900 Series, which provides hardware acceleration for different media content.
While gaming with AA off, the card positions itself under the two previously tested GTS 250 (both with lower than standard clocks), but when using 4xAA, we may find the HD 6670 going head to head with the cards from Nvidia; the advantages are the lack of need of an extra power connector and less dissipated heat, at the same performance level.
The AMD reference implementation comes in two versions: the one presented in this review which occupies a single slot and a low profile version which takes up two slots in our case. Other manufacturers like MSI have opted for a dual slot and dual fan implementation, which lower the IDLE and Full Load temperatures quite a bit.
Since the launch, the card price has fallen and can be found in stores for prices as low as 64 Euros.
I would like to thank again to AMD for making this review possible!