Features
- RV730 core
- 320 Shader Processors
- 55 nanometer process
- 514 million transistors
- 4x AA 16x AF supported
- Z Stencil 32
- Textures 32
- Memory Bandwidth 32GB/second
- Terascale Graphics engine
- DirectX 10.1 Support
- Pixel Shader 4.1
- Vertex Shader 4.1
- Universal Video Decoder 2
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory
- 128-bit memory interface
- 2000MHz memory speed
- 750MHz Core Clock
- CrossfireX
- 16 Gigatexels a second texture fillrate
| Brand Name |
MSI |
| Part Number |
R4670 2D512/D3 |
| Graphics Chip |
RV 730 |
| Core clock |
750MHz |
| Shader Clock |
750MHz |
| SPs |
320 |
| Fabrication Process |
55 nm |
| Transistors |
514 Million |
| Memory clock |
2000MHz |
| Memory Interface |
128-bit |
| Memory bandwidth |
32GB/second |
| Memory Size |
512MB |
| ROPs |
16 |
| Texture Filtering Units |
32 |
| Texture Filtering Rate |
16 Gigatexels/second |
| HDCP Support |
Yes |
| HDMI Support |
Yes (via adapter) |
| Connectors |
Dual DisplayPort, DVI, TV-Out |
| RAMDACs |
400MHz |
| Bus |
PCI Express 2.0 |
| Form Factor |
Single Slot |
| Power Connectors |
N/A |
MSI's HD 4670 is based upon ATI's RV730 graphics chip which is in turn based upon TSMC's 55 nanometer process with 514 million transistors and a die size of 146 square millimeters. The 4670 HAS 320 Stream Processors which is 40% of the total that is on the HD 4870 cards. Comparing the HD 4670 to the HD 3650 which it replaces, it has doubled the transistor count on a 20% larger die size on the same process.
The HD 4670 has 8 SIMD cores each of which has 40 Stream Processors to make up the 320 SPs on the card. This compares with the HD 4870 which has 10 SIMD cores with 80 Stream Processors. The HD 4670 has 32 texture filtering units compared to the HD 3870 which had 16. The previous generation HD 3650 had 8 texture filtering units meaning that the HD 4670 has four times the filtering rate of its immediate predecessor.
Crossfire bridges
ATI has been making graphics chips that support DirectX 10.1 since the launch of the HD 3870 video card. DirectX 10.1 was released with Microsoft Vista SP1 earlier this year. To date there are few if any games that require DirectX 10.1 but as we move forward into 2009 games will support the new features in DX 10.1 including better Global Illumination and improved anti-aliasing. One of the big technologies that a minority of enthusiasts has been embracing is multiple graphics cards in a single system. ATI's version of this is called CrossfireX and the MSI card has two Crossfire bridges to allow the card to work with up to three other 4670s on compatible motherboards.
Card
Card
Fan
Fan power
Capacitors
MSI modified the reference design slightly to include a different cooling system than was found on the ATI reference board. The R4670 uses a modified version of MSI's trademark metal heatsink that is shaped like a circle. The fan on the card is an 11-fin fan. The RV730 chip on the card does not run very hot and the card does not require external power like its bigger brother the HD 4870 card does.
Memory chips
GPU Mount
Memory chip under heatsink
Front Capacitors
The card has four 1 Gigabit memory chips for the memory chips. To get the total memory on the board you divide the 4 Gigabits by 8 to get 512MB of onboard Framebuffer memory on the MSI HD 4670 card. MSI decided to clock their 4670 at the same clock as ATI's reference design card so performance should be in the same league.
Rear capacitors
PCI Express
Back circuitry
IO
As a mid-range card, the HD 4670 has the standard two Dual Link DVI and TV-Out combination on the IO back plate. Note that the HD 4670 can do HDMI but requires an adapter to do so. The MSI card can do dual monitors in various combinations including dual DVI monitors, dual CRT, single HDMI+DVI or dual CRTs depending on what kind of monitors you run.
Bundle
- MSI R4670 2D512/3D video card
- Driver CD
- DVI to VGA adapter
- ATI Standard Installation guide
Box
Rear of box
Card in box
Bundle
MSI decided to bundle the card in a small black box. In fact it's one of the smallest retail boxes I've ever seen for a video card. Companies have tended to include everything and anything that a user will want and bundle them in a box. MSI chose to go the minimalist route with no bundled game included. Few manufacturers include a game with their $80 video card but it would have been nice to play a DX 10 game with the card. A single DVI to VGA adapter is included as well as Quick Start Guides for installing video cards and the HD 4670.
ATI has released a new driver set called Catalyst 8.12 in the last few days. The driver set improved performance in some of the games that have been released in the last few months including Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space and others that have favored the NVIDIA based cards in that same price category. ATI releases a new driver set every month to fix issues with games, applications, and improve performance. Unfortunately, I was unable to overclock the card with ATI's Overdrive utility as it was unable to initialize the overclocking utility.
Driver screenshots
Gaming on the MSI R4670 2D512/3D Card
With the holiday season upon us one of the uses for the new video card is to play the latest and greatest games. I've taken a selection of the latest games including Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty World at War and STALKER: Clear Sky out for a spin on the HD 4670 card from MSI. The system used was our video card test bench including the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770, 2GB of DDR3-2000 memory, a XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI board and two 74GB WD Raptor SATA drives in RAID 0 mode.
Crysis Warhead is the prequel to the most frustrating game of all time in terms of graphics hardware, Crysis. The original Crysis game played horribly on the HD 4670 from MSI with frame rates bordering in the mid-teens at 1650x1080. Crysis Warhead plays better with higher frame rates throughout the game when in 1280x1024 the highest playable setting on the MSI HD 4670 card. If you want higher frame rates and settings you'll need to get a HD 4870.
Far Cry 2 is the sequel to one of the first games to fully support DirectX 9.0, Far Cry. The game uses a completely new graphics engine called the X-Ray engine that is designed to work with graphics cards better than the Cry Engine 2 used on Crysis. Far Cry runs beautifully on the HD 4670 with frame rates in the 20s throughout the game even at high resolution like 1600x1200. Turning on anti-aliasing caused frame rates to be playable only up to 1280x1024.
Left 4 Dead is a kind of Resident Evil game. In this game you are a survivor of a mutant virus that has turned Earth's humans into zombie like creatures. The game engine is a newer version of the Source Engine used in Half Life 2 but updated to support multi-core processors like the Core i7 and QX9770 CPUs and some updated visual effects. Left 4 Dead plays very well on the HD 4670 with consistent framerates in the 60s at maximum resolution and settings.
Game screenshots
Test Setup & Performance
The constantly changing computing landscape means that today's hottest most feature-rich games are yesterday's bargain bin games. The fact is that today's games are starting to take advantage of DirectX 10.0 and 10.1 due to the developers having time with DirectX 10.0 and later hardware. Our next video card test platform will likely focus on games that use DirectX 10.0.
Test System
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 running at 3.2GHz
- 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-2000 memory running at 1333MHz
- XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard running latest nForce drivers
- MSI R4670 2D512/3D running Catalyst 8.12 drivers
- 2 74 GB WD Raptor SATA HDDs running in RAID 0 Mode
- Windows Vista 32-bit Business with SP1 installed
Tests
DirectX 9.0
- COD4 Modern Warfare 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF
- STALKER 1280X1024, 1920X1200, 4x AA 16x AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough of the beginning Car Park mission
- Enemy Territory Quake Wars 1280x1024, 1920x1200, 4x AA 16x AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough of Africa mission
- Unreal Tournament 3 1280x1024, 1920x1200, 4x AA 16x AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough of the Single Player map Heat Wave Max settings 8 bots
- PCMark 05
- PCMark Vantage
- 3DMark05/06 1280x1024, 1920x1200 default settings
- SpecViewPerf 10
DirectX 10.0
- Crysis Patch 1.2.1, 1280x1024, 1920x1200, Max settings custom FRAPS walkthrough of the first area of the game Contact
- Lost Planet DX10, 1280x1024, 1920x1200, Performance Test
- Bioshock DX10 1280x1024, 1920x1200, 4x AA 16x AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough of beginning level
- 3DMark Vantage 1280x1024, 1920x1200 Performance runs GPU score
Performance: DirectX9
DirectX10
3Dmark
Specviewperf 10
Conclusion
MSI's R4670 card is an interesting card in that it closely follows ATI's reference design in almost every respect. The new drivers from ATI have improved performance in some areas and lowered performance slightly in other areas when compared to the reference design running Catalyst 8.10 drivers. MSI's card is available online for a price of $79 with a $15 rebate, making it a viable video card for the inexpensive system that the economic climate has forced many to adopt while providing performance that rivals the high-end HD 3870 of last year. As always when making a new computer equipment purchase, one has to realize that it is ever evolving. For now, the MSI R4670 is a great card for the price it is available at.
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