Many buyers believe that you need to pay attention to a discrete video adapter only when buying or upgrading a personal computer. But the characteristics of the video card installed in the mobile device are somehow overlooked. The problem lies in the fact that the manufacturer advertises complete laptops, and not its components separately, so the user does not even think about which graphics accelerator is installed in mobile technology. But in vain, because no one bothers a potential buyer to pick up a laptop with a decent gaming graphics card.
The focus of this article is a discrete graphics card for a Radeon HD 8670M laptop. The reader is given the opportunity to find out the characteristics of the video card, as well as get acquainted with the reviews of users who use a mobile device for games.
Chip positioning
Better to start with the fact that the graphics accelerator for a laptop is fundamentally different from the discrete video adapters that many users are used to seeing on store windows. The product is more like a central processor both in appearance and in size. In addition, the chip is a fixed element and is firmly soldered to the motherboard.
The Radeon HD 8670M graphics card is positioned in the budget segment, however, many users claim that the video adapter is able to enter the battle for primacy with the chips of the initial gaming class if it is previously dispersed. But, as practice shows, the manufacturer knows better where to position the chip, because the owner of the laptop, unlike the owners of a personal computer, is not able to improve the cooling of the chip and memory modules by installing a more powerful cooler.
Basic performance features
But the configuration of the mobile product is practically no different from the capabilities of a full-fledged Radeon HD 8670M video adapter. Performance characteristics directly depend on the technologies used, the data bus and the operating frequencies of the graphics core and memory modules. The chip is built on the Mars architecture and has a working frequency of the 775 MHz graphics accelerator. In Boost mode, the video card can accelerate to around 825 MHz.
The weak link in the system is the memory, which works using DDR3 technology using a 64-bit bus. The operating frequency of the video memory is 1000 MHz. The video adapter is discrete and uses its own 2 GB memory modules.
Used technologies
The key to success in launching many modern games is support for DirectX 11.1 instructions. It is clear that old memory chips and modern technologies are poorly compatible, however, in the minimum settings, the user will still be able to not only launch, but also play his favorite toy. According to the performance of the Radeon HD 8670M chip, owner reviews are quite predictable - to work with demanding applications, processor power and a large amount of RAM are required.
The only one who can not worry about high performance is users who work with multimedia processing. The fact is that a graphics accelerator at the hardware level can encode video. Radeon HD 8670M supports all existing codecs, and the video card does not use a central processor to process the content.
Interesting symbioses
Many potential buyers managed to pay attention to the fact that the manufacturer in the description for the device indicates two video adapters instead of one. There are no typos here, it's just that laptops often use an integrated adapter and a discrete video accelerator. Such a bunch can work both individually and jointly in CrossFire mode.
In their reviews, many owners note an interesting symbiosis - AMD Radeon HD 7620G + 8670M. This solution increases the productivity of the mobile device by 30-50%. Yes, the indicator is small, but the difference in resource-intensive games is still noticeable. There are also unsuccessful bundles of video adapters, for example, Intel HD Graphics 4400 + 8670M. There is no question of any CrossFire mode, respectively, and you can forget about high performance. A feature of such a system is increased energy saving while idle, because the Intel product is less demanding on resources than the integrated AMD chip.
Closest mobile competitor
To make it easier for potential buyers to navigate among the Radeon products, we note that an analogue from Nvidia is very interesting, which can demonstrate similar results in testing. Compare with the Radeon HD 8670M chip and the discrete Geforce 840M graphics card . Yes, it is the legendary chip that is installed on Macbook Air laptops. It will not be difficult for users to analyze and identify which applications and games a laptop built on the basis of the 8670M graphics accelerator can handle.
Only a comparison of an AMD product with an Nvidia chip is customary to make using basic characteristics. The fact is that the Geforce controller is superbly overclocked both in the graphics core and in memory modules. This can not boast of the Radeon HD 8670M, whose characteristics are limited at the hardware level. Therefore, do not be surprised at some of the test results that are available in the media.
Gaming performance
It is clear that the numbers are less interesting to many potential buyers than the list of real games that a discrete video adapter can handle. On the Radeon HD 8670M graphics accelerator, the reviews are disappointing. In terms of games that work with DirectX 11.1 instructions, it is worth noting that the launch of Battlefield 4, Metro Last Light or BioShock Infinite is quite real. But when it comes to FPS, here users have a lot of complaints. At minimum settings, achieving more than 20-25 frames per second is unrealistic even with the Inrel Core i7 processor. This is where overclocking the graphics core would be very useful.
Finally
Inexpensive, but quite productive graphics accelerator Radeon HD 8670M will be of interest to many users who want to have fun away from a personal computer, but you should not count on a complete replacement of your home workstation. Fans of demanding games budget graphics card will bring only frustration. But for professional work related to graphics or video processing, a laptop with a Radeon HD 8670M video adapter is quite suitable.