AMD’s Sub-$100 Line-up: Radeon HD 6450, 6570 & 6670 Review

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by Rob Williams on April 19, 2011 in Graphics & Displays

Rounding out its Radeon HD 6000 series, AMD this month launched three sub-$100 graphics cards; the $55 HD 6450; the $79 HD 6570 and the $99 HD 6670. Despite being low-end options, all three support Eyefinity and are of course, extremely power efficient. Let’s see if they also have the gaming performance to boot.

Page 4 – Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 might not belong to a well-established series of games, but with its launch, it looks like that might not be the case for long. The game offers not only superb graphics, but an enormous world to explore, and for people like me, a countless number of hidden items to find around it. During the game, you’ll be scaling skyscrapers, racing through jungles and fighting atop snow-drenched mountains. What’s not to like?

Just Cause 2

Manual Run-through: The level chosen here is part of the second mission in the game, “Casino Bust”. Our runthrough begins at the second-half of the level, which requires us to situate ourselves on top of a car and have our driver, Karl Blaine, speed us through part of the island to safety. This is a great mission for benchmarking as we get to see a lot of the landmass, even if some of it is at a distance.

The top two cards could handle the settings we use for Dirt 2 at 1680×1050, but being a much more intensive game, Just Cause 2 made a total mockery of them.

Graphics Card
Best Playable
Min FPS
Avg. FPS
AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB
1680×1050 – High: Texture & Shadows; Medium: Water & Objects; Off: Anti-Aliasing, High-Res Shadows & SSAO
31
49.394
AMD Radeon HD 6570 1GB
1680×1050 – High: Texture & Shadows; Medium: Water & Objects; Off: Anti-Aliasing, High-Res Shadows & SSAO
25
40.86
AMD Radeon HD 6450 512MB
1024×768 – Low: Texture, Shados, Water, Objects & SSAO; 2x AF; Off: Anti-Aliasing, Decals, Soft Particles, High-Res Shadows & Point Light Specular
28
34.108

After decreasing the graphic detail quite a bit, each card was able to handle the game quite well overall. We topped out our settings with both the HD 6570 and HD 6670, so choosing the latter card will simply give you better performance, not improved detail. For the lowly HD 6450, the resolution had to be decreased all the way to 1024×768, with most of the detail turned all the way down.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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