AMD Launches Mainstream HD 4600 Series

By now, I’m sure most everyone is aware that AMD’s latest graphic card launches are stellar… something NVIDIA really wasn’t expecting. Up to now though, all cards launched have been higher-end and pricey (although that’s change a -lot- since launch with the HD 4850), so it’s now time for AMD to dedicate some resources to the vast majority of their customers… the mainstream.

Welcome the HD 4650 and HD 4670 to the fray, models that will retail for $69 and $79, respectively. Each card features 320 stream processors, 256MB and 512MB of GDDR3 (the 4670 is equipped to also handle 1GB). The primary differences between the two cards are raw clock speeds. While the HD 4650 runs at 600 Core / 667 Memory, the HD 4670 gets a healthy boost up to 750 Core / 1000 Memory.

HotHardware has taken the HD 4670 for a spin and are quite impressed overall. In all cases, the card outperformed both the HD 3850 and 9600 GSO and sometimes came close to even the 9600 GT. That’s some amazing performance for the price. The downside? As Marco found out, some 9600 GT’s can be had for $95 after a mail-in-rebate, so it complicates the purchasing decision. Still, there’s no fault with the price as it is… it’s a killer card for the cash, and it’s amazing to see such great performance nowadays for under $100.

In our synthetic 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage benchmarks, the Radeon HD 4670 trailed cards like the Radeon HD 3850 and GeForce 9600 GT/GSO, but handily outperformed the ATI Radeon HD 3650 and GeForce 9500 GT. However, in our actual in-game tests, which use anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the Radeon HD 4670 was able to outpace the Radeon HD 3850 and GeForce 9600 GSO more often than not and finished close behind the more expensive GeForce 9600 GT.