Testing Participants Brief Overview

All graphics accelerators were provided to us in OEM packaging and without any accessories or cables.

PowerColor Radeon HD 4650 512MB

The first card we would like to introduce to you is a Radeon HD 4650 solution from PowerColor with 512 MB of video memory onboard. Compact and almost weightless graphics card is built on red PCB and is equipped with a small aluminum heatsink with a fan:

RV730Pro graphics processor manufactured with 55 nm process is only 145 mm² big and its specifications are exactly the same as we pointed out in the table above.

The graphics card is equipped with four DDR2 memory chips by Qimonda marked as HYB18T512161CF-20 with 2.0 ns nominal access time and 1000 MHz theoretical effective frequency. Nevertheless, video memory on this graphics card works at 800 MHz, which is 200 MHz lower than the specifications claim for Radeon HD 4650. Therefore, to ensure fair results during our test session we increased the memory frequency to 1000 MHz. The card uses a 128 bit memory bus.

The screenshot below sums up the specifications of PowerColor Radeon HD 4650 512 MB:

This card doesn’t require additional power supply, because its power consumption doesn’t exceed 55 W. The cooler is very quiet, but you can still distinguish its noise against the background of a quiet system case.

PowerColor Radeon HD 4670 512 MB

The next graphics card – Radeon HD 4670 512 MB – was also a PowerColor solution. The same red PCB and small size. However, we see a different cooler this time: a larger heatsink with a bigger fan:

RV730XT graphics processor has the same structure as the one in Radeon HD 4650: 320 universal shader processors, 32 texturing units and 8 raster units. However, its frequency is a little higher: 750 MHz instead of 600 MHz, according to HD 4670 specifications.

Unlike Radeon HD 4650, HD 4670 uses GDDR3 memory chips with higher operational frequency than DDR3. The effective memory frequency is 1746 MHz (the same as in the specifications). These memory chips are made by Hynix and marked as H5TS5163MFR 11C. They feature 1.1 ns nominal access time and have theoretical effective frequency of 1820 MHz.

Here are the full graphics card specifications:

The power consumption of this solution shouldn’t exceed 70 W that is why Radeon HD 4670 doesn’t have an additional power supply connector. The graphics card cooling system is the quietest of all our today’s testing participants and provides very modest thermal range of no more than 60 °C on the chip under peak load.