The Budget Minded Sapphire Radeon HD 4670

Sapphire HD4670 512MB

The video card market is an ever-expanding one that sees new cards from ATI and NVIDIA alike month after month. Granted, some are just core refreshes or ‘re-branding,’ but there is always something new. Usually cards that are released in between series updates offer a good price/performance ratio, and lower the price of main cards as well; two of those cards will be compared today. Up on the review block are the ASUS GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB and the Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB.

ATI came out with the 4600 series cards some time ago; these are basically the mid-range offering, lower than the 4770 and 4800 series but above the 4300 and 4500 series. With so many new cards out there, this 4670 fits in nicely to the sub $70 market, which seems to be offering better and better performance every month. The Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 that we are looking at today can be purchased online for $69.99 shipped, for example.

Looking at the pictures of the cards we will be reviewing, the GeForce 9600 GSO seems a lot burlier. Though both of the cards’ fans are effectively dual-slot sized, the GeForce 9600 GSO is approximately 2 1/4 longer and requires a 6 pin power connector which the Radeon HD 4670 GPU does not. Let’s take a closer look at the Radeon HD 4670 video card and see if it’s more powerful than it looks.