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Sapphire serves up the silently-cooled Radeon HD 4670 ULTIMATE

by Parm Mann on 22 January 2009, 12:30

Tags: Radeon HD 4670 ULTIMATE, Sapphire

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaqr7

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Sapphire Technology appears to have taken a liking to AMD's mainstream Radeon HD 4670 GPU - a card we're rather fond of ourselves.

At around £65, a stock-clocked card provides very decent 2D or 3D performance without leaving a gaping hole in the wallet. Improving on AMD's design, Sapphire introduced a suped-up Radeon HD 4670 derivative late last week featuring a custom SKU and quicker GDDR4 memory. Today, it's at it again with another SKU, the Radeon HD 4670 ULTIMATE:

Despite the ULTIMATE branding, the card is underclocked and aimed directly at the HTPC crowd. Its key feature is the silent dual-heatpipe passive cooling solution, which, says Sapphire, must only be used in a system with good ventilation. We're always happy to see silent cards, but the heatsink design on this one may infringe certain low-profile HTPC chassis - be sure you've enough headroom before you take the plunge.

The card's GPU is clocked at the standard 750MHz, but to help keep cool its 512MB of GDDR3 memory is clocked at an effective 1,746MHz - down from the reference 2,000MHz. As with the Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 GDDR4, the ULTIMATE edition sports VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs, highlighting the card's HTPC credentials and effectively covering all the latest HDTV sets.

We're yet to receive word on pricing, but we'd hope to see this one below the £70 mark.

Official press release: SILENT SAPPHIRE HD 4670 IS THE ULTIMATE!



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Is it just me, or is the most telling thing here not the lower memory clock but the lack of Crossfire fingers? I'm pretty sure there aren't any in that picture - clearly this card is not meant for people looking to push their performance up…
It does seem very daft fitting a cooler that hardly any htpc case will accomodate (except fot the really big ones which don't blend in that much).
I need a good, quiet card to fit in my antec fusion, something I've struggled to find at a decent price.
Best option I've really seen so far is the iceq3 cooled 3870 which goes for around 50 notes on ebay but that's a dual slot cooler.
The “green” 9600gt posted on hexus the other day is looking tempting if the price is right.
It depends if you require gaming from your HTPC. If so you would expect someone to have a bigger case like an Antec fusion/ NSK2480 which this should fit no problem. If you only need media play back then IGP's are generally fine these days.

I have a passive 8500GT in my P182 and if I ever felt the need for some gaming performance I might very well consider something like that. So it has a purpose for me at least :)
staffsMike
It depends if you require gaming from your HTPC. If so you would expect someone to have a bigger case …
That's kinda my point. If you're *just* after an HTPC card I don't see why you'd choose this over a 4350 / 4550 that has *exactly* the same media decoding set but already comes in low-profile, passively cooled versions, and if you want gaming performance I don't see why you'd go for a passively cooled 4670 with lower memory clocks…
Well silent PC enthusiasts, who don't want to change the cooler themselves, who only need a bit of gaming oomph and do have the case to sup…

I get your point :D