AMD and NVIDIA are constantly fighting for leadership in the current graphics card market, and in almost all price ranges. In some situations, one of the companies produced a certain product, which in its characteristics significantly exceeded its competitor, while others produced almost similar products, each of which had its own advantages and disadvantages. It was the latter situation that occurred during the release of the Radeon HD 6000 and GeForce 500 series.
What is the HD 6670?
The Radeon HD 6670 is not the most productive model in the series, since it is far from the first in the lineup and there are more powerful models such as the HD 6790 and others. This board is a budget version designed for low-cost gaming computers, which allows you to run the vast majority of modern projects at medium or minimum settings. Radeon HD 6670 is the best option for frugal computer game lovers who prefer to rest periodically in front of the monitor, but do not constantly chase after every new product and do not want to make an “omnivorous” machine from their computer that can run absolutely everything that will be on it installed.
If you initially consider this model in this way, everything immediately falls into place. The Radeon HD 6670 is the perfect balance between two video card options: multimedia middles and true gaming accelerators. Of course, these are completely different categories of products, since the latter require the highest possible performance, while the latter must be silent and at the same time have compact dimensions in order to be able to accommodate in a small building of all kinds of media centers and not bother their owner with buzz during the rest.
The manufacturer managed to make a combination of all the positive consumer qualities, as a result of which a rather interesting card was obtained, very precisely designed for a specific category of customers. According to reviews, if you are a person who does not play too often and does not chase after some of the most modern graphic effects, Radeon HD 6670 is the ideal option for you.
Architecture
This model came out as much as 15 months after its predecessor (HD 5570), which represents a fairly significant period in this area. That is why initially it is worth considering what changes have occurred in the design of this accelerator and how the manufacturer was able to increase the main characteristics.
Immediately it is worth noting the fact that the AMD Radeon HD 6670 decided not to be limited to standard half measures like the traditional frequency increase. Thus, the Redwood graphics processor was installed in the graphics card of the previous generation, while the new model is already based on the Turks GPU. This processor was initially positioned as a completely new one, and not just representing an updated version of the previous kernel.
Processors from previous models
To be more precise, on the previous model, the Redwood processor was used, which has the XT index, which marked older versions of processors. In addition to this model, this core was also used in the production process of the HD 5550 and HD 5570 models, but at the same time, devices with the PRO index were installed in them. This version differed from its older version by an exceptionally reduced operating frequency, while an even younger version of LE also had a reduced number of active kernel blocks.
The core of the kernel was five SIMD graphic mini-clusters, each of which included 16 streaming multiprocesses. In other words, each of them contains five single stream processors, and this figure is indicated by AMD in the list of characteristics of its board. Each such cluster, in turn, operates with four texture units.
What are the differences?
In fact, it turned out that in the end the GPU Turks processor is almost identical in its architecture to this device. The structure of their work is almost the same, and the main difference in this case can be called a greater number of SIMD blocks, the architecture of which has not changed, as a result of which the number of stream processors was proportionally increased from 400 to 480. In addition, the total number of texture blocks increased from 20 to 24, while the configuration of the rasterization blocks remained the same, and their number is still 8 pieces.
On this, all the differences that relate directly to the computing part of the kernel are over. The memory controllers in the AMD Radeon HD 6670, just like the old model, provide the communication of GDDR5 chips and the core via a 128-bit bus, while the technology for binding SIMD blocks is identical at all. It is worth noting the fact that the core is also equipped with additional Eyefinity controllers, which are the manufacturer’s unique technology designed to connect multiple monitors to one card simultaneously.
From generation to generation of graphics cards, the UVD unit is undergoing gradual modernization. Thus, support for MPEG-2 format was introduced to version 2.0, while in the transition to 2.2, minor adjustments have already been made to provide more efficient and easier work with various codecs. As regards the Radeon HD 6670, the review showed that the new UVD 3.0 unit provides support for MPEG-4 ASP format, and is already capable of supporting Blu-Ray 3D.
Given the rather large similarity between Turks and Redwood, the total number of transistors on the chip of the new model rose slightly - up to 715 million (from 627 million, that is, an increase of about 14%). All this ultimately led to the fact that the original area of the crystal also increased, which now is 118 mm 2 instead of 110 mm 2 , as it was before.
If you believe the reviews, according to its architecture, the Radeon HD 6670 is not very far from its predecessor.
What are its advantages?
If we consider the advantages of this model, then it is worth noting the following:
- the total number of stream processors has been increased from 400 to 480 units, that is, an increase of 20%;
- the total number of texture units has been increased from 20 to 24, that is, in this case, the increase is also 20%;
- the core operating frequency has risen from 775 to 800 MHz (here the gain is already only 3.2%).
Of course, such changes can hardly be called revolutionary, as a result of which the indicators of the overall speed of filling the scene or “mathematics” did not rise very noticeably. The positive point in this case is that such an increase in performance was achieved with a minimum increase in power consumption, which rose by only some 5 watts. According to reviews, this video card, although positioned as a game accelerator, just like its predecessor, can be used without any additional power cords, which is an extremely important fact for modern small-sized systems.
Memory
In the memory subsystem, the changes are completely insignificant. In the HD 5670 model, GDDR3 or GDDR5 chips were used, while the first option is far from the most successful performance, because video cards were predominantly supplied to the OEM market, where it was necessary to attract inexperienced customers with loud names. A sufficiently narrow 128-bit bus is far from interacting with GDDR3-format microcircuits in the best way, since the bandwidth of 25 Gb / s is definitely not enough to ensure the normal operation of a truly powerful graphics processor. In the case of using GDDR5, the situation improved significantly, and the total bandwidth was already rising to 64 Gb / s.
This is the option that the AMD Radeon HD 6670 graphics card uses to this day, while modifications equipped with slow GDDR3 memory have been completely eliminated. The frequency characteristics of the microcircuits used on both models completely coincide and amount to 4000 MHz.
Cooling
Quite surprisingly, in the process of simple applications, the temperature of the device can be 45 ° C, which is a fairly large result, since a relatively compact accelerator uses a very, very good cooling system. With active use, the processor begins to switch from a low frequency mode to a full one, and the same thing happens with memory chips, which explains the presence of such a temperature regime.
Extreme loads (testing)
In extreme conditions, the temperature is 72 ° C, which already represents a very good result, especially considering that the fan speed only slightly exceeds 50% of the maximum possible value. Thus, on the AMD Radeon HD 6670 graphics card, user reviews often note precisely that it does not heat up and does not make much noise during the work of even productive games and applications.
Despite the fact that the fan is characterized by a small impeller diameter, it spins as easily as possible, and at maximum loads the noise level is only 33.7 dB. Of course, this does not allow us to call the card silent, but reviews say that it is heard very weakly.
Analogs
The video card Radeon HD 6670 has almost the same characteristics as the HD 6570, which is a truncated version of the older model, but it is positioned in the same way. In the latter case, the main stake is placed on the most favorable price-performance ratio for this device for the consumer.
GeForce GT 440
It is also worth noting that manufacturers compare both of their solutions with the competing GeForce GT 440. Thus, in accordance with the tests performed on games of that time, this solution is approximately 15-40% more productive, depending on what exactly you give your preference both in terms of games and in terms of graphics card. It should be noted that, despite the budget execution of these devices, they were able to run even very, very demanding games of their time, which already suggests that they can also launch most modern projects at least in the minimum settings.
HD 6450
Some reviews claim that the HD 6450 has characteristics similar to the Radeon HD 6670, but in fact these are completely different devices. First of all, it is worth noting the fact that it is based on the Caicos processor, which in terms of its characteristics in terms of stream processors is exactly three times inferior to older models, since there are only 160 of them here. Such a device will be enough only for some extremely simple games, and then in low resolution.
In this case, the characteristics speak for themselves. It is worth noting that, in comparison with Radeon HD 6670, reviews of specialists about this device often note the abundance of available options, as different memory options and core frequencies are used here. If we talk directly about the internal content of this device, then we can say that the device is absolutely identical compared to the older model, and the only difference in this case can only be called the operating frequency of the core.