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 5 – Mafia II

For fans of the original Mafia game, having to wait an incredible eight years for a sequel must’ve been tough. But as we found out in our review, the wait might be forgotten as the game is quite good. It doesn’t feature near as much depth as say, Grand Theft Auto IV, but it does a masterful job of bringing you back to the 1940’s and letting you experience the Mafia lifestyle.

Mafia II

Manual Run-through: Because this game doesn’t allow us to save a game in the middle of a level, we chose to use chapter 7, “In Loving Memory…”, to do our runthrough. That chapter begins us on a street corner with many people around, and from there, we run to our garage, get in our car, and speed out to the street. Our path ultimately leads us to the park, and takes close to two minutes to accomplish.

Similar to Just Cause 2, Mafia II wasn’t too playable on any of the cards, but oddly enough, the HD 6670 did come close. Despite what appears to be a brutal framerate, 26 FPS was actually rather playable, verified by my gamer brother.

Graphics Card
Best Playable
Min FPS
Avg. FPS
AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB
1680×1050 – High: Shadow & Geometry; Off: Anti-Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion & PhysX
39
47.244
AMD Radeon HD 6570 1GB
1680×1050 – Medium: Shadow & Geometry; Off: Anti-Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion & PhysX
35
44.183
AMD Radeon HD 6450 512MB
1680×1050 – Low: Shadow & Geometry; Off: Anti-Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion & PhysX
17
22.061

Remarkably, the HD 6450 could handle the game just fine at 1680×1050 if all of the graphical detail was dropped as much as possible. The HD 6570 retained playability with medium detail, while the HD 6670 could handle high detail, with the alternate settings, such as AO and AA, turned off.

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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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