Radeon HD 4670: A perfect balance?

They make noise, too.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:45 am

QuietOC wrote:
loimlo wrote:CPU can't access the memory that resides at display card. 1GB on 4670 is a marketing gimmick.
Shouldn't 256MB be enough for the 4670? My 384MB 9600GSO is faster than my 512MB 9600GT. 256MB wasn't enough for the 8800GT and 3850, but the 4670 seems to run out of ROP power before the point the 3850 benefits from an extra 256MB.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powe ... 670/9.html
I think 4670 is more or less the same with 3850. Though I've never seen a 256MB version, 4670 did benefit from 512MB GDDR3.

Another Powercolor notice: After moding bios fan speed control from 20% to 15%, I can't hear it at all in P182 at midnight.

Image

QuietOC
Posts: 1407
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:08 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by QuietOC » Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:09 am

loimlo wrote:I think 4670 is more or less the same with 3850. Though I've never seen a 256MB version, 4670 did benefit from 512MB GDDR3.
I saw this 4650 with 256MB of GDDR4. This should be a very low power card.

kaotikfunk
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 8:55 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by kaotikfunk » Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:50 pm

thejamppa wrote:That Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate looks very, very good! I pulled trigger on this one with my local retailer. I really do like the fact passive cooling is more than enough, its small and has DVI, VGA and Display Port ^^

review in here: http://metku.net/index.html?path=review ... /index_eng
The MetkuMods comments state that the card stays at 1.25v in 2d mode. Can you confirm if this is the case on your retail card?

I'm considering this as an upgrade from my 3650 so that I can bump up the shader and AA settings on my source engine games, but don't want to get a card that will run hotter in 2d mode than my current Asus EAH3650 silent

thejamppa
Posts: 3142
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 9:20 am
Location: Missing in Finnish wilderness, howling to moon with wolf brethren and walking with brother bears
Contact:

Post by thejamppa » Fri Feb 06, 2009 1:59 pm

kaotikfunk wrote:
thejamppa wrote:That Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate looks very, very good! I pulled trigger on this one with my local retailer. I really do like the fact passive cooling is more than enough, its small and has DVI, VGA and Display Port ^^

review in here: http://metku.net/index.html?path=review ... /index_eng
The MetkuMods comments state that the card stays at 1.25v in 2d mode. Can you confirm if this is the case on your retail card?

I'm considering this as an upgrade from my 3650 so that I can bump up the shader and AA settings on my source engine games, but don't want to get a card that will run hotter in 2d mode than my current Asus EAH3650 silent
I will see, which one I get. GDDR4 version or Ultimate. My retailer has ordered both and I'll see which one I eventually get. Ultimate is silent for sure but I kinda don't like "crippled" memory.

easyrider
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:49 am
Location: NL

Post by easyrider » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:07 am

QuietOC wrote:
loimlo wrote:I think 4670 is more or less the same with 3850. Though I've never seen a 256MB version, 4670 did benefit from 512MB GDDR3.
I saw this 4650 with 256MB of GDDR4. This should be a very low power card.
That company also has a 4670 with 256 MB. It has a HDMI connection and a special type of active cooler.

http://www.apollovcard.com/Apollo-HD4670-256MB.htm

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:37 am

easyrider wrote:
QuietOC wrote:
loimlo wrote:I think 4670 is more or less the same with 3850. Though I've never seen a 256MB version, 4670 did benefit from 512MB GDDR3.
I saw this 4650 with 256MB of GDDR4. This should be a very low power card.
That company also has a 4670 with 256 MB. It has a HDMI connection and a special type of active cooler.

http://www.apollovcard.com/Apollo-HD4670-256MB.htm
It seems to dump GDDR4 stock, still very interesting idea. Under 1280x10 or below this card has potential to be faster than most 4670s in the market.

As for power draw, I wouldn't hold my breath for powerplay implementation. Let's wait and see.

RainerT
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:18 am
Location: Germany

Post by RainerT » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:51 am

maf718 wrote:Many (most?) 4670 cards support undervolting in the BIOS but don't have the components on the card to actually undervolt. The only sure way I know to measure the voltage is with a multimeter.
I'm not sure how you define "undervolting", but I made a test with my Powercolor with idle settings 165/500Mhz. I set the Idle voltage to 0,9V and 1,1V. The difference in total power consumption of the whole system was around 1,5-2W. There seems to be at least some voltage regulation.

easyrider
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:49 am
Location: NL

Post by easyrider » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:55 am

loimlo wrote:Thanks for such an useful info on VGA power consumption. Btw, I recently found the same 4670 chips with different PCB designs (ASUS, HIS, Powercolor tested) would cause different whole system power figures. HIS (91W) is the most energy efficient, ASUS (94W) is average, and Powercolor (97W) is the least energy efficient 4670. Your mileage may vary depending on what card you purchase.
If you change with RBE the idle clock speeds of the Powercolor (500/750) to the same low values of the HIS (165/250), then they maybe both use the same amount of power during idle.

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:55 am

easyrider wrote: If you change with RBE the idle clock speeds of the Powercolor (500/750) to the same low values of the HIS (165/250), then they maybe both use the same amount of power during idle.
I guess there won't be a huge difference, which may be two watts, based on what I've seen in RBE. In my opinion, Powercolor's relatively higher power draw has something to do with its unique PCB design. Though the difference might be slim, it's worth saving a few watts if you were to hunt the most energy efficient 4670 at idle. I'm fine with fanmod now.

Image

QuietOC
Posts: 1407
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:08 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by QuietOC » Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:20 am

loimlo wrote:As for power draw, I wouldn't hold my breath for powerplay implementation. Let's wait and see.
So high idle power is pretty common with 4670 and 4650 cards? That's too bad--I'll pass.

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:12 am

QuietOC wrote:
loimlo wrote:As for power draw, I wouldn't hold my breath for powerplay implementation. Let's wait and see.
So high idle power is pretty common with 4670 and 4650 cards? That's too bad--I'll pass.
Not really so. The power figures among manufacturers using the same chips vary slightly from my experience. I upgraded my system from ASUS 3650 passive cooling which consumes 94W at idle to Powercolor 4670 fan-cooling that draws 97W during idle. With the same system components other than HIS 4670, I got amazing 91W! ASUS 4670 got 94W. For comparison, I just installed MSI 7600GS passive cooling on my system which measured 102W from the wall. 4670 is generally more efficient than nVIDIA counterpart, yet the difference is case-by-case. You need to know nVIDIA side is case-by-case as well.

Well, the bottom line is that most card manufacturers doesn't pay much attention to idle power consumption since average buyers aren't aware of it. At least, AMD 3x00/4x00 series now has working Powerplay implementation compared to no-undervolting-at-all 8x00/9x00 series. But your mileage may vary slightly depending on what card you get.

Btw, if you were one in a hurry to purchase reference 4870/4850 last year, you may get a card with broken Powerplay. AMD months later corrected this bug and now all 48x0 has functional Powerplay.
Last edited by loimlo on Sun Feb 08, 2009 12:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

maf718
Posts: 247
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:25 am
Location: England

Post by maf718 » Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:54 pm

QuietOC wrote:So high idle power is pretty common with 4670 and 4650 cards? That's too bad--I'll pass.
It depends what you call high idle power draw, even without powerplay voltage control the 4670 can draw about 13-15 Watts or so at idle which is better than most other graphics cards you can buy. It's not 3-4W like in the SPCR review, that much is true.

From what I can tell comparable nvidia cards use more power in 2D mode. If you want a discrete graphics card and are concerned by idle power consumption your best choice is still the 46xx cards.

easyrider
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:49 am
Location: NL

Post by easyrider » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:26 am

QuietOC wrote:
loimlo wrote:As for power draw, I wouldn't hold my breath for powerplay implementation. Let's wait and see.
So high idle power is pretty common with 4670 and 4650 cards? That's too bad--I'll pass.
The idle power draw of the 4670 series differences a bit, but is by far one of the lowest.

Image
(The 4670 in this graph is a PowerColor PCS HD4670)
source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... ack_4.html

QuietOC
Posts: 1407
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:08 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by QuietOC » Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:21 am

easyrider wrote:The idle power draw of the 4670 series differences a bit, but is by far one of the lowest.
I know the reviewed 4670s were <9W idle. My point was that many if not most of the actual retail 46x0 cards do not seem to implelement voltage reduction at idle.

The 9600GT/GSO can idle at ~25W and have load power similar to the 4670, but they are often significantly faster w/ 192- or 256-bit memory interfaces. Xbitlabs surely reviewed a 65nm 9600GT--probably an nvidia reference card. The 55nm 9800GTX+ had lower idle power than the 65nm 9600GT, but both are now 55nm chips.

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:12 am

QuietOC wrote:
easyrider wrote:The idle power draw of the 4670 series differences a bit, but is by far one of the lowest.
I know the reviewed 4670s were <9W idle. My point was that many if not most of the actual retail 46x0 cards do not seem to implelement voltage reduction at idle.

The 9600GT/GSO can idle at ~25W and have load power similar to the 4670, but they are often significantly faster w/ 192- or 256-bit memory interfaces. Xbitlabs surely reviewed a 65nm 9600GT--probably an nvidia reference card. The 55nm 9800GTX+ had lower idle power than the 65nm 9600GT, but both are now 55nm chips.
Out of curiosity, I found two 9600GTs' power figures in Xbitlabs. That's almost 2 watts difference at idle between Gainward and reference 9600GTs. In other words, you need to take power consumption with a grain of salt unless you get absolutely identical card.
Image

I've compared PCB before, and it turns out that I got exactly the same one as Xbitlab's Powercolor 4670. I suggest you taking my figures as baseline. Get HIS if you were to hunt the most efficient 4670. Powerplay works on most 4670s from my experience, but I guess the relatively higher power draw of Powercolor 4670 has something to do with its power circuit. Maybe Powercolor's two-phase regulators isn't as efficient as reference one under such a low load? We already witnessed similar pattern on 780G motherboards. Frankly speaking, most card manufacturers don't care about idle power consumption of mid/low-end products since average buyers aren't aware of it. In the past, I'd found similar variations among 3 7300GTs.

Take easy, I think you take 5W too seriously as 5W can't save the world environment or economy slump. Btw, 4670 is faster than 9600GSO but slower than 9600GT. As for energy efficiency, I''ve never seen a review that states 9600GT's power draw is similar to 4670.
Last edited by loimlo on Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

QuietOC
Posts: 1407
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:08 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by QuietOC » Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:33 am

loimlo wrote:Btw, 4670 is faster than 9600GSO but slower than 9600GT. As for energy efficiency, I''ve never seen a review that states 9600GT's power draw is similar to 4670.
The 9600GT Green Edition (which is a 55nm) has a 59W TDP compared to 96W TDP of the regular 65nm 9600GT. It also lack the extra PCIe power connector. FWIW: the regular 4670 has a 70W TDP. The standard load procedures used by reviewers don't get close to that, but running something like Furmark will.

As far as speed my 9600GSO is much faster than my 9600GT which is faster than the regular 4670. It would be nice to save ~20W at idle, however.

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:27 am

There are two kinds of 9600GSOs (or 8800GS if you want ...), which is 48SP and 256bit VS 96SP and 192bit combination, draws different power figures and cause different speeds. What's your configurtion? Your speed result is certainly different from most reviews.

I've seen 60W~70W TDP claims for 4670, thus I can't comment on it since I don't have definite proof to back my words. Yet I doubt 9600GT Green edition retail products would draw 5W at idle considering the predictable PCB design variations and cost reductions in my hometown. I guess you can save the money and skip nVIDIA/AMD algother.

QuietOC
Posts: 1407
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:08 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by QuietOC » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:12 am

loimlo wrote: What's your configurtion? Your speed result is certainly different from most reviews.
I've aready posted that several times, like back on page 2 of this thread. My GSO performs exactly like this one, but with a fairly quiet 2-slot cooler.

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:38 pm

Ohh, you got more powerful 96SP and 192bit combination. :)
Reference 4670 seems to be your last resort, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It it very difficult to find a reference 4670 on the shelves since 4670 is right at the borderline of budget class.

rei
Posts: 967
Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:36 am

Post by rei » Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:42 am

asus has some cards with arctic cooling fans: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=2& ... odelmenu=1

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:19 am

Don't purchase ASUS 4670 - it definitely not quiet at all out of box from my experience.

batka
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:53 am
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Contact:

Post by batka » Sat Feb 14, 2009 9:29 pm

thejamppa wrote:That Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate looks very, very good! I pulled trigger on this one with my local retailer. I really do like the fact passive cooling is more than enough, its small and has DVI, VGA and Display Port ^^

review in here: http://metku.net/index.html?path=review ... /index_eng
Hi !

Did you got this card already?
This looks especially great!

thejamppa
Posts: 3142
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 9:20 am
Location: Missing in Finnish wilderness, howling to moon with wolf brethren and walking with brother bears
Contact:

Post by thejamppa » Sun Feb 15, 2009 12:08 am

batka wrote:
thejamppa wrote:That Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate looks very, very good! I pulled trigger on this one with my local retailer. I really do like the fact passive cooling is more than enough, its small and has DVI, VGA and Display Port ^^

review in here: http://metku.net/index.html?path=review ... /index_eng
Hi !

Did you got this card already?
This looks especially great!
I have not yet. Neither, GDDR-4 or Ultimate are not yet in for sale. They are listed in several stores, however the importer has 0 of them and expected arrival is 1-3 weeks. So we have to be patient ^^

lowpowercomputing
Posts: 154
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 3:05 am
Location: Germany

Post by lowpowercomputing » Sun Feb 15, 2009 4:13 am

thejamppa wrote:
batka wrote:
thejamppa wrote:That Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate looks very, very good! I pulled trigger on this one with my local retailer. I really do like the fact passive cooling is more than enough, its small and has DVI, VGA and Display Port ^^

review in here: http://metku.net/index.html?path=review ... /index_eng
Hi !

Did you got this card already?
This looks especially great!
I have not yet. Neither, GDDR-4 or Ultimate are not yet in for sale. They are listed in several stores, however the importer has 0 of them and expected arrival is 1-3 weeks. So we have to be patient ^^
Is the card going into your main rig then (as your gaming rig already has a 4850)? If so, no offense intended but isn't a 4670 overkill for a non-gaming machine? :wink:

renethx
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:25 am
Location: US

Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 GDDR4 with Arctic Cooling Fan

Post by renethx » Mon Feb 16, 2009 12:24 am

Here is a quick test of the Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 GDDR4 with Arctic Cooling fan.

Image

The connectors are VGA, DVI and HDMI. The card occupies two expansion slots.

Test System

- Pentium Dual-Core E5200
- GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H
- DDR2-800 2 x 2GB
- Antec NSK2480, fans at Low
- Room temperature: 22°C

Fan Speed and Noise

Here is the Fan Settings in RBE:

Image

The fan runs at the constant speed of 34% up to 60°C. It is quieter than HIS H467QT512P at this speed. When FurMark is running, the temperature stays around 67-70°C and the fan is running at 56%. It is slightly noisier than HIS. The noise at 50% is roughtly equivalent to HIS (well, my ears are the sound level meter :wink:).

GPU Temperature

Sapphire

- Idle: 38°C
- Video Playback: 40°C
- FurMark (after 30 min running): 68°C

HIS

- Idle: 36°C
- Video Playback: 39°C
- FurMark (after 30 min running): 68°C

So the GPU temperature of the Sapphire card is more or less the same as HIS. (If the case ventilation were bad, maybe the HIS card would stay lower because of its better heat exhausting system.) The picture below is a screenshot of CCC when FurMark is running with the Sapphire card.

Image

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the total system measured with Kill-A-Watt:

Sapphire

- Idle: 73W
- Video Playback: 82W
- FurMark: 148W

HIS

- Idle: 72W
- Video Playback: 82W
- FurMark: 140W

Higher power consumption of the Sapphire card at 3D load is perhaps a trade-off of the better performance by GDDR4 at 550MHz (3D performance is better by a few percent).
Last edited by renethx on Tue Feb 17, 2009 7:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

dhanson865
Posts: 2198
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:20 am
Location: TN, USA

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:21 am

Could a few of you run Furmarks benchmark with the exe default name and then again with the renamed exe per http://ht4u.net/reviews/2009/power_cons ... index8.php

I'm curious to see how much it varies by card and how it compares vs the 4830 results shown there.

maf718
Posts: 247
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:25 am
Location: England

Post by maf718 » Tue Feb 17, 2009 8:19 am

dhanson865 wrote:Could a few of you run Furmarks benchmark with the exe default name and then again with the renamed exe ...
Renaming the exe doesn't seem to make a difference with 4670, at least not with mine, same score either way.

Palit Radeon 4670 512MB GDDR3
Catalyst 8.12
Furmark 1.65
Score = 2256

ryboto
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 1439
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:06 pm
Location: New Hampshire, US
Contact:

Re: Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 GDDR4 with Arctic Cooling Fan

Post by ryboto » Tue Feb 17, 2009 7:19 pm

renethx wrote: Sapphire

- Idle: 72W
- Video Playback: 82W
- FurMark: 140W

HIS

- Idle: 73W
- Video Playback: 82W
- FurMark: 148W

Higher power consumption of the Sapphire card at 3D load is perhaps a trade-off of the better performance by GDDR4 at 550MHz (3D performance is better by a few percent).
Your numbers don't agree with your conclusion.

renethx
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:25 am
Location: US

Re: Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 GDDR4 with Arctic Cooling Fan

Post by renethx » Tue Feb 17, 2009 7:48 pm

ryboto wrote:Your numbers don't agree with your conclusion.
Corrected. Thanks.

BillyBuerger
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 857
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2002 1:49 pm
Location: Somerset, WI - USA
Contact:

Post by BillyBuerger » Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:50 pm

kaotikfunk wrote:The MetkuMods comments state that the card stays at 1.25v in 2d mode. Can you confirm if this is the case on your retail card?

I'm considering this as an upgrade from my 3650 so that I can bump up the shader and AA settings on my source engine games, but don't want to get a card that will run hotter in 2d mode than my current Asus EAH3650 silent
I just got the Sapphire Ultimate myself. And unfortunately, MetkuMods was right, it doesn't do below 1.25V. I tried setting it to 0.9V using RBE but it still draws the same power. Unless of course I did something wrong. I was just happy that after flashing my BIOS that it came back up. 37W idle (total system AC) before flash, 37W idle after flash :( But at the least, it's exactly the same numbers I had with my HD3450. Way more GPU and no additional idle power. Power with integrated graphics is 22W AC. So 15WAC and assuming about 70% efficiency (probably optimistic) with my EarthWatt 380 at this load = about 10WDC.

As for dhanson865's question, ATITool got my system up to 88W while FurMark pushed it to 100W. This is with Catalyst 9.1. I didn't try renaming FurMark, but considering the amount of additional power it used over ATITool, it would seem to not be holding anything back.

Post Reply