HIS HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512 MB Review

Name: HIS HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512 MB
Brand: HIS

W1zzard

on Sep 26th, 2008,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: HIS

(26 Comments) »

Introduction

AMD has recently launched their Radeon HD 4650 and HD 4670 cards which are positioned in the lower midrange sub-$100 segment. The cards are designed to have enough 3D performance for casual gamers and all the great video playback features that ATI has produced over the years: UVD2, HDMI via adapter, HDCP and integrated HDMI audio.

Today we have the HIS Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo on the testbench. It is equipped with a fan made by Arctic Cooling and sports a slightly increased core clock of 780 MHz.

	S3 Chrome 440 GTX	GeForce 9400 GT	GeForce 9500 GT	Radeon HD 4670	HIS HD 4670 IceQ Turbo	Radeon HD 3850	Radeon HD 3870	GeForce 9600 GT	GeForce 8800 GT	GeForce 9800 GT	Radeon HD 4850
Shader units	32	16	32	320	320	320	320	64	112	112	800
ROPs	4	8	8	8	8	16	16	16	16	16	16
GPU	Chrome 400	G96	G96	RV730	RV730	RV670	RV670	G94	G92	G92	RV770
Transistors	Unknown	314M	314M	512M	512M	666M	666M	505M	754M	754M	956M
Memory Size	256 MB	512M	256 MB / 512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	256 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB
Memory Bus Width	64 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit
Core Clock	800 MHz	550 MHz	550 MHz	750 MHz	780 MHz	670 MHz	777 MHz	650 MHz	600 MHz	600 MHz	625 MHz
Memory Clock	800 MHz	400 MHz	900 MHz	1000 MHz	1000 MHz	828 MHz	1126 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	993 MHz
Price	$69	$59	$89	$85	$99	$99	$125	$90	$140	$160	$170

Packaging & Contents

The HIS package has a small hole through which you can see the card. Near the top is a "Turbo" sticker which declares this card an overclocked edition. It's very nice to have the actual clock speeds listed on it as well. On the back you find a lot of further product information in multiple languages.

You will receive:

Graphics card
Documentation + Driver CD + HIS sticker
DVI adapter, HDMI adapter

The Card

HIS has chosen a dual slot cooler design for optimum cooling performance. As you can also see on the photos above, the memory chips are not cooled at all.

The card has two DVI ports which is the standard output configuration nowadays. If you need a VGA port you can use the included DVI adapter. When using a HDMI adapter (included as well), you will also have access to HDMI+HDCP+Audio, which allows easy setup of a media PC. AMD has integrated a Realtek 7.1 audio device inside the GPU which means that the sound card's HDMI output shows up as sound device in Windows. In my opinion this is an easier solution than on NVIDIA's cards where you have to route an audio cable from your motherboard to the VGA card.

Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

The cooler of the HD 4670 IceQ Turbo is the famous VGA Silencer made by Arctic Cooling.

You may combine two, three or four RV730 cards in CrossFire for increased performance or better image quality settings.

An external power connector is not needed. The card will draw all its power from the PCI-Express bus.

The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Hynix and carry the model number H5RS5223CFR-N0C. With a latency of 1.0 ns they should be good for at least 1000 MHz. These are basically the same chips as used on the high-end HD 4850 cards.