AMD Radeon HD 4670: Ruling from Top to Bottom
by Derek Wilson on September 10, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Radeon HD 4670 vs. Last Year's $200 Offerings: The 3870/3850 Revisited
This is an interesting comparison. We included the 3850 in our 9500 GT article, as it was a fairly popular part that had fallen to $100. This time around we throw in the 3870 in order to see how the reduced clock speed and architectural changes impact performance. Let's take a look at the mayhem.
The 4670 really takes the 3850 to task under Crysis with medium settings. Impressively, the 4670 stays above 30 fps at 1920x1200 and does a fair job of paralleling the performance of the 3870 at about a 10fps deficit after 1280x1024.
Our Enemy Territory benchmark has everything maxed out plus a little 4x antialiasing action. At low res, the 4670 actually leads the pack here. This is quite impressive and is our first inkling that maybe our hope about AA performance will prevail. The increased ROP power of the 4670 might also have an impact here, but either way this isn't a bad showing.
Both the 3870 and 3850 lead the 4670 in Oblivion with ultra high defaults and no AA. The 4670 remains playable up through 1680x1050, which is quite nice. But nothing really interesting happens until we consider what happens when we flick on the AA switch.
With 4xAA and 16xAF enabled, the tables are turned and the 4670 jumps on top. Staying barely playable at 1680x1050 with 4xAA (we'd still recommend dropping back to 1280x1024 though), the 4670 certainly looks to be on pace for delivering mainstream hardware with usable AA for resolutions that really need it while running at high quality settings.
With Age of Conan, 1024x768 is really the highest res we can manage on the 4670 with high quality. The card performs similarly to the 3850 here.
While AoC and GRID are ruled by the 4850 and 4870, the 4670 does lag the 3800 series cards. The game is still incredibly playable at 1280x1024 and we'll have to explore AA in this game a little later on as well.
Last is a look at Crysis with high quality settings (and very high quality shaders). This is a tough benchmark and we only compared the 4670 against the 3870 here. The 4670 can't quite attain playability at 1280x1024 either. Looks like something between medium and high quality would suit the 4670 best.
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srikar115 - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
i completely agree with the review ...i myself use a 4670 and frn has a 9600gso ..the parameters shown here are 100% correct ....also this article elaborates the upperhand of 4670 over 96gso/gthttp://pcgamersera.com/category/4670-vs-9600gt/">http://pcgamersera.com/category/4670-vs-9600gt/
dellprecision380 - Saturday, July 9, 2011 - link
plz tell me that 4670 will work on 375 watt psu and pci x16?i have intel 955xcs board plz tell me i want to buy this cardJogi - Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - link
Just wanna add a few words about market situation in such "strange" (regarding to price policy) region as Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine, Russia.The rebate program isn't available here (in Ukraine) nor in Russia. Don't know how about Poland. Here are the prices for mainstream VC:
Radeon 4670 - about 100$
GeForce 9600GSO - about 120$
GeForce 9600GT - about 150$
As I said before, there is no rebate program available here, buying something on the ebay... Well, I can't trust my money to someone, who is living a thousands of miles from me :)
evonitzer - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Good review. I appreciate how you focused on 1280x1024 (as opposed to some people who wanted 1920x1200?!) as that is the monitor I'm still rockin. However, I'm curious how the 4670 performs in The Witcher with AA, regardless of how the 9500GT does. I like this game and wonder what kind of performance hit I might expect were I to pick up the card. It would appear that nobody is watching the comments anymore since it broke down into fanboy/retarded complaining, but I'd like to know. Also, please no "answers" from others who haven't actually run the game but want to speculate. I can perform such speculation on my own, and already have.Maz - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
PNY stock 8800gt is at 110 dollars now... just get that if you're on a budget to be real about it...lemonadesoda - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
I thought the review was great. Thanks for being so thorough in your analysis vis-a-vis older cards. That's exactly the comparison people want to make... not which current generation card is 5% better than another... but how much they gain from upgrading an older card to the latest generation.But there are two points left open:
1./ Performance at 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 which is the resolution that PEOPLE WHO READ THESE BENCHMARKS are interested in. I can guarantee you NOBODY is interested in the 800x600 figures you give. Nobody considering a performance part works at that resolution. But you left a big knowledge gap for the screen resolutions that most people with enthusiast PCs have: 1600x and 1920x1200.
2./ You say there is no win with the 4670 over 3870. For a few $ more you get a few % more performance, therefore 3870 QED. Not so. Many people are interested in silent machines or cool HTPC. The power usage figures between the 3870 vs. 4670 warrant 4670 winning in every case. I'm sure you can OC the 4670 to 3870 performance and still have a cheaper to run machine with less heat and silent.
Otherwise, very informative review. Thanks.
Nil Einne - Sunday, February 15, 2009 - link
Actually no one is interested in such resolutions with a budget card. If you get a budget card, you accept that your likely to play at relatively low resolutions. You'd have to be stupid to get a budget card and then try to play at 1920x1200. In case it isn't obvious, I personally hate it when stupid reviewers, perhaps insipired by equally stupid commentators test resolutions that no one is ever going to play with and then complain the card is too slow. I DO NOT care if the card can only manage 10 FPS at 1920x1200. It's completely irrelevant and doesn't help me in deciding which card to buy.Maz - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
1920x1200??? People who are truly interested in those resolutions really don't read budget card reviews to find out if the latest games will run well cause they know the answer.What is it with people who wanna drop 500 dollars on a high res monitor then buy an 80 dollar video card? It's like putting four thousand dollar wheels on your 93 honda.
Ajay - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
Don't most people game on a wide screen monitor nowadays (high end games, like Crysis)? So why is the final comparison is done at 1280x1024??Really, I'm just wondering.
Nice review in any case - thx!
wvh - Friday, September 12, 2008 - link
When the HD 4650 is released and reviewed, I'd be interested in a comparison between integrated solutions and these lower-end cards regarding power consumption, performance and price... Are there any plans by AMD to integrate one of these lower-spec cards into a motherboard?