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ATi Radeon HD 4670 vs. nVIDIA GeForce 9500GT |
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Written by Nebojsa Todorovic
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Monday, 29 September 2008 |
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Page 2 of 5
BIOSTAR Sigma Gate 9500GT 256 MB DDR3 (V9503GT21)
Third GeForce 9500GT also comes from Biostar Company and this model is our favorite among three 9500GTs. The main reason for that is fact that only this sample obeyed completely all nVIDIA specifications. For starters on V9503GT2 was not used bigger amount of the cheapest DDR2 memory. Instead Biostar implemented DDR3 memory with tremendous response from 1.2ns that enables frequencies at 1600MHz and you will see that it was capable for even more. You can be certain in one thing, used 256MB memory won’t be surplus, this amount of memory is optimum for 128-bit graphics card of this kind.
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Cooler that is used has as usual "goldfinger looks" and judging by appearance it’s probably colored aluminum. Fan is silent up to 55% of max RPM, while on higher values cooler becomes progressively noisy and at max RPM it produces very unpleasant noise. Still even with fan at half power Sigma Gate 9500GT 256 MB DDR3 performed quite satisfactory although cooler performances were lower than Asus models achieved for about 5 degrees under full-load, but that’s still isn’t something what should bother you (5 degrees Celsius higher temperature isn’t much in this case). As package for this graphics card looked similar to package of previous model so the content of it is also quite similar, therefore when it comes to equipment this is just one more “spartanicly” equipped product. Overclocking went great with 780MHz for GPU, 1830MHz for Stream Processors and 1790MHz for memory, and these results clearly tell us that BIOSTAR Sigma Gate 9500GT 256 MB DDR3 (V9503GT21) is the fastest GeForce 9500GT model among tested samples.
ATi Radeon HD 4670 512 MB DDR3
Until nVIDIA with its renamed series 9 models runs basically on treadmill (even though nVIDIA is moving, it still stands in place) ATi runs forward with full power covering all price ranges with new models that really bring something new to GPUs market. ATi covered up to now: top-range with Radeon HD 4870X2, parries to GTX 260 with Radeon HD 4870 and to 9800GTx with HD 4850, while the lower segment was left to models from HD 3000 series. Now covered area is extended for another model from new series and new star from lower middle class is Radeon HD 4670.
ATi Radeon HD 4670 512 MB DDR3 brings with itself new GPU – RV730. As all GPUs from R7XX series and this one is also produced in 55nm technology and is consisted of 514 million transistors with chip surface from 145 mm2, which only goes in favor of low power consumption and small thermal dissipation. Number of Stream Processors that RV730 has is 320, while number of texture units is surprisingly high and counts 32. Number of ROPs is increased for this class, when we talk about ATi, and there are in total 8 of them. Number of ROPs is increased compared to HD 3670 (RV630) and reduced if compared to HD 3850 (RV670). We think that this amount of ROPs is excellent choice for graphics card like this one. GPU clock is at extremely high 750MHz and just on first glance at the cooler that covers the graphics card, we’ve caught the scent of mini “stove” in front of us. This little graphics card is covered with small cooling system seemingly made from copper and besides covering GPU it also overlaps four memory chips on the front side of card, while four memory chips on the back are left to themselves. Fan that is used has small surface beside “propellers” and it is turbine-shaped. Of course, when number of rotations increases you will for certainly hear it, but there will not be much opportunity for that because it seems that we underestimated this little cooler. It did its job during testing period extremely well and Radeon HD 4670 512 MB DDR3 didn’t heat up over 58°C.
The nice thing is that card in 2D mode lowers clock at 165MHz for GPU and 1000MHz for memory and by doing this it actually prolongs cooler life cycle and saves energy. HD 4670 is equipped with 512MB DD3 memory. Eight memory chips are arranged on both sides of PCB and their response is 1 nanosecond. Memory bus is, like you might already guess, 128-bit which is also great choice. From the rest characteristics we must mention also two HDMI ports which is phenomenal solution, while you have at your disposal also one DVI. We didn’t mention bundle for this graphics card because it didn’t exist. This card was “press sample” that came in bulk package (antistatic bag and card). And when we tell you announced price from 65€ for it, you'll probably won’t even look at the table with test results because you already know what will be your next graphics card.
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Graphics cards 
