When a new generation of video cards are introduced the biggest, baddest cards are the first to be released. What follows later are the lower end, less expensive cards. For example, ATI's RV770 based cards were released in June while the RV730 based cards, like their Radeon HD 4670's were released in the fall. These lower end cards create massive revenue for companies like ATI and NVIDIA especially when they are chosen to be used in systems by major manufacturers. Moving on, the Radeon HD 4670 finds its place right underneath the Radeon HD 4830 in an already competitive video card market. At first glance its specs may seem very similar to the more expensive series. - Overclockers Club

MSI Radeon HD 4670 512MB Graphics Design Review

What makes the card cheaper than its bigger brothers are a narrow memory interface and a reduced shader count. Specifically, the Radeon HD 4670 has a 128-bit memory interface and 320 shaders while the Radeon HD 4830 has a 256-bit memory interface and 640 shaders. Looking from an economic standpoint the Radeon HD 4670 is in direct competition with the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT and ATI's previous generation Radeon HD 3850 video cards. But will these two major design differences leave the Radeon HD 4670 with enough performance to battle its competitors? At least it has the means to make a very good stand.

The packaging for the Radeon HD 4670 is just slightly larger than the overall size of the graphics card. And the front of the packaging lists the basic technical specifications of the video card. Flip the box over and you'll see an expanded list of features and the minimum system requirements. After opening the box we get our first view of MSI's Radeon HD 4670. The card is secured in an anti-static, bubble wrapped bag and placed inside a cardboard support. The documentation and driver CD can be found underneath the graphics card. The only hardware accessory packaged with it is an HDMI to DVI adapter which is quite standard.

The MSI Radeon HD 4670 card uses a RV730 core which is built using a 55nm manufacturing process with the factory GPU frequency is set at 750MHz. The GDDR3 memory, provided by Hynix is clocked at 2000MHz and runs through a 128-bit interface. The Radeon HD 4670 features 320 shaders and solid capacitors are also used to maintain reliability and power control. The factory heatsink is seaweed style and is made of a single piece of machined aluminum. What you should take into account is that the memory chips are passively cooled since the heatsink doesn't come into direct contact with these.

Relative to other Radeon HD 4670's, this MSI card was a good overclocker. In the end we were able to increase the RV730 core and memory clock by 100MHz and 300MHz respectively. The Radeon HD 4670's clocks were adjusted using ATI's control center. Temperatures were monitored as well. To reach our final overclock we started by increasing the core and memory speeds by 25MHz until we hit system instability on anything above 849MHz on the core. And we were able to increase the memory speed by another 50MHz from there however. In the end, any clock above 849/2298MHz caused instanteous and massive artifacting.

The MSI Radeon HD 4670 placed exactly where we expected it to in our gambit of benchmarks. Performance was smooth in all of our test games at lower settings and the Radeon HD 4670 managed to maintain playability at some of the higher settings. By no stretch of the imagination is the Radeon HD 4670 a multimedia monster. However, it still maintains a good bang for the buck factor by providing enough power for light gaming and playing high definition video. Since the Radeon HD 4670 requires no additional power supply and provided smooth video playback it would work perfectly in a home theater PC.

The ability to siginificantly overclock the GPU and memory was an additional bonus. In the end, the Radeon HD 4670 hit 849MHz on the core which is very impressive for a $80 video card. Thermal control was impressive as well as idle temperatures just in check. We were dissapointed by the bundle accessories though. In the end the Radeon HD 4670 is a good performer and is perfect for a casual gamer or high definition video enthusiast.