XFX Radeon 6670 DDR3 1GB

[maverick77_uk]

Hi there,

Just seen that Scan are currently selling the XFX 6670 1GB DDR3 on today only for £53.99. How big a difference would the DDR3 make on this card Vs the more usual DDR5, it not being the fastest.....

As this is £10 cheaper than most 6670's, you gotta kinda wonder. The only slightly dubious review of this actual card I could find, seemed to think it ran a fair bit slower than other 6670's. Any thoughts?

Cheers all!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The card is going to severely constrained by its limited memory bandwith.

This HD5670 GDDR5 is around £55 and is faster:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190138

There is also the HD6670 GDDR5 HyperMemory too:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/265342

The card can use additional system RAM too.

Here is a review of the HD6570 GDDR5 HyperMemory:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=30215

[maverick77_uk]

Hi thanks for the reply Cat - thought that may be the case. Ho Hum!

[Pob255]

Actually I'm not sure it'll be severely constricted, the 6670 isn't that fast to start with, they cannot really cope with high res gaming, where ram is of more importance.
it's about the same performance as the old 9800gt / 4830 both of which used gddr3
If you're not looking at gaming then I'd suspect it would be of even less effect.

But yes a gddr5 version will be better, the question is how much?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The GDDR5 versions of the HD5550 and HD5570 had much better performance than the DDR3 versions:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...r5,2704-8.html

The performance difference seems to be around 15% to 30% with the games tested.

[Pob255]

Ahh yes, it's only using a 128bit memory controller no wonder it had that effect.

[scaryjim]

Don't forget that DDR5 is twice as much bandwidth. The 4650 was severly memory-constrained by its DDR2 interface, and the 6670 has >50% more shading power than the 4650. It's been fairly evident for a while that AMD's lower-mid range cards have been bandwidth constrained: I suspect the 57(5|7)0 / 67(5|7)0 are similar constrained, but there's not much you can do with those since they're limited to a 128bit DDR5 interface.

But yes, to reiterate what CAT has already said, a DDR3 6670 is going to be significantly slower than a DDR5 one, to the point where I'd be inclined to recommend a DDR3 4670 @ £46 instead

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For some reason I had the Ebuyer prices on excluding VAT mode!!

Prices now changed!!

[Pob255]

Don't forget that DDR5 is twice as much bandwidth.

it's only twice the throughput as GDDR3 at the same bandwidth.
ie GDDR5 @ 128bit has no real advantage over GDDR3 @ 256bit

However yes I do agree that the lower end ati cards suffer from weak memory controllers

[idlehanz]

Hmm, sorry to drop in on this thread, I'm also looking at this card, as my old graphics card appears to be dying. Nvidia 8800GT.

To be honest these days I don't really do any Gaming, but instead run a pair of Dual 22" LG LED LCDs in 1920x1080 resolution in extended desktop and mainly work with video and audio. in Windows Vista sp2.

Not got exactly the bottom of what's happening with old graphics card, but its become hateful of any flash based video and is exhibiting odd green pixels here and there and drivers been falling over left right and Chelsea. Have tried earlier graphics card driver releases and flash releases but problems still exist. So I've kinda come to the conclusion that its dying.

So I'm just wondering, with its Dual DVI connectors, will this make a good suitable replacement for what I suppose is mainly used as dual monitor workstation?

[dfour]

If you use CUDA in any of your video work you would be bettr off getting the equivilent nvidia card. Maybe a EVGA GT440 as its has dual dvi unless your monitor has hdmi.

MSI NVIDIA GT 520 £36:62

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hmm, sorry to drop in on this thread, I'm also looking at this card, as my old graphics card appears to be dying. Nvidia 8800GT.

To be honest these days I don't really do any Gaming, but instead run a pair of Dual 22" LG LED LCDs in 1920x1080 resolution in extended desktop and mainly work with video and audio. in Windows Vista sp2.

Not got exactly the bottom of what's happening with old graphics card, but its become hateful of any flash based video and is exhibiting odd green pixels here and there and drivers been falling over left right and Chelsea. Have tried earlier graphics card driver releases and flash releases but problems still exist. So I've kinda come to the conclusion that its dying.

So I'm just wondering, with its Dual DVI connectors, will this make a good suitable replacement for what I suppose is mainly used as dual monitor workstation?

What PSU are you using??