ATI Radeon HD 4670, Redefining The Mainstream

We'd like to cover a few final data points before bringing this article to a close. Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we monitored how much power our test systems were consuming using a power meter. Our goal was to give you an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the motherboards alone.

Total System Power Consumption
Tested at the Outlet



The Radeon HD 4670's power consumption fell somewhere in between the Radeon HD 3650 and Radeon HD 3850.  Despite offering somewhat better performance than the Radeon HD 3850 in most of our in-game tests, the 4670's peak power consumption was actually slightly lower than the 3850.

In terms of its acoustics, there isn't much to speak about in regard to the Radeon HD 4670.  While the fan on the card does spin-up to a high speed that is easily audible during the boot-up process, the fan quickly spins down to near inaudible levels and it didn't spin up significantly during testing.  We should also note that the Radeon HD 4670 is much cooler to the touch than Radeon HD 4800 series cards, which should bode well for its long term reliability.


Marco Chiappetta

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

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