Item: Mid-range mayhem: Sapphire's exclusive Radeon HD 4650 and HD 4670
Author: Tarinder Sandhu

Review: Mid-range mayhem: Sapphire's exclusive Radeon HD 4650 and HD 4670

Final thoughts and rating

Sapphire takes two mid-range Radeon HD 4000-series cards and adds its own magic in the form of significantly faster memory on both products, made possible by the use of GDDR3 memory on the HD 4650 512MB and GDDR4 on the HD 4670 512MB, along with a custom cooler.

We're fans of the Radeon HD 4600 range because they offer a decent mix between performance and multimedia features. Sapphire also adds some more goodness to both by having a sensible array of outputs on the back of the cards - VGA, HDMI, and dual-link DVI.

Our performance numbers show that both cards are reasonable performers at 1,280x1,024 resolution, albeit with the HD 4670 enjoying a ~33 per cent frame-rate advantage. That's why the HEXUS.bang4buck favours the faster SKU, because it provides real, perceivable benefits as resolution and image-quality are increased.

Broadening the picture, NVIDIA bookends the Sapphire's performance by the GeForce 9600 GT, a more-expensive part, and, on the lower end, with the GeForce 9400 GT, so, now, there really is no bad card at between £40-£90: competition at this level is very healthy indeed.

Coming to a close, Sapphire has done enough with the HD 4650 512MB GDDR3 and HD 4670 512MB GDDR4 to make them stand out from the crowd. Out of the two, taking into account the identical connectivity options, we'd favour the Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDD4, because it offers a significantly better gaming experience for around £14 more. Add to that the near-silent cooler and healthier bundle, which are both appreciated extras in this class, and it's a good, safe bet at around £75.

HEXUS Rating

HEXUS.net scores products out of 100%, taking into account technology, implementation, stability, performance, value, customer care and desirability. A score for an average-rated product is a meaningful ‘50%’, and not ‘90%’, which is common practice for a great many other publications.

We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.

HEXUS Rating

Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR4

Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 512MB GDDR3

HEXUS Awards

Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR4
Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 512MB GDDR3

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR4 can be purchased on pre-order from Ebuyer.com at a cost of £75.99.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 512MB GDDR3 should be available for around £61.99

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!

Nice to see Sapphire boost the 4670 effectively (although why didn't we get the comparison to reference the 4650/70? That would've been more use…) - and at £75 it's probably still got enough of a gap to the £90 4830 to make it a sensible option.

Unfortunately, I don't see the use of a GDDR3 4650 @ £62 - for about the same money you can have a stock 4670, with an identical architecture but faster core and memory clocks. A GDDR3 4650 has to be under £60 to make sense; other you might as well just buy a 4670 (yes, at this end of the market I really believe that £3 (~ 5%) can make a huge difference to your saleability)…

Nice review. I just want to know why the chick on the cooler is wearing swimming googles :O_o1:

Deleted
Nice review. I just want to know why the chick on the cooler is wearing swimming googles :O_o1:

future water cooling option i reckon ;)

That 4670 is very good value, with that ram, that cooler and good power. Nice card.

Deleted
That 4670 is very good value, with that ram, that cooler and good power. Nice card.

True on the surface, but without a like-for-like review (i.e. against a GDDR3 4670) there's not much you can really say. So, after bemoaning the lack of one, I checked back against the previous 4670 test (a pretty-much-reference Sapphire card), carried out on the same mid-range test system, and the numbers paint an interesting picture:
Game - 4670 GDDR4 / 4670 GDDR3 / 4650 GDDR3 - at 1280 x 1024
COD4 - 50.7 / 50.2 / 38.7
COH:OF - 41.9 / 39.9 / 31.5
ET:QW - 65.8 / 64.5 / 48.2
GRID: - 48.0 / 47.0 / 35.1

Yes, that's an increase of 0.5 - 2 FPS - a *maximum* 5% - for the 15% hike in price. The GDDR3 4650 gets nowhere near a stock 4670, although it costs almost as much. Nice idea, these cards are. Good value for money? Only if you *really* like the big cooler on the 4670…

Deleted
True on the surface, but without a like-for-like review (i.e. against a GDDR3 4670) there's not much you can really say. So, after bemoaning the lack of one, I checked back against the previous 4670 test (a pretty-much-reference Sapphire card), carried out on the same mid-range test system, and the numbers paint an interesting picture:
Game - 4670 GDDR4 / 4670 GDDR3 / 4650 GDDR3 - at 1280 x 1024
COD4 - 50.7 / 50.2 / 38.7
COH:OF - 41.9 / 39.9 / 31.5
ET:QW - 65.8 / 64.5 / 48.2
GRID: - 48.0 / 47.0 / 35.1

Yes, that's an increase of 0.5 - 2 FPS - a *maximum* 5% - for the 15% hike in price. The GDDR3 4650 gets nowhere near a stock 4670, although it costs almost as much. Nice idea, these cards are. Good value for money? Only if you *really* like the big cooler on the 4670…

The HD 4670 GDDR4 should also be put higher in the reckoning as it features HDMI on the back - a useful feature if a competitors' package doesn't ship with the appropriate dongle.