Asus Radeon HD 6670 1GB Graphics Card Review

Cards like this belong in the low to mid-range market, and that's down to price and performance on paper, but every so often a card surprises us by offering something a little bit different. If you're a frequent reader of eTeknix, you'll know that we're not fans of reference products, because being sent the same product with a different sticker and packaging on defeats the object of writing a unique review. When we get a product that has a unique patented cooler or offers different clock speeds against a reference card, then we'll be happy to take a look and give our two cents on it. This is the case today, although it only offers the stock clock speed, we were asked to take a look at the HD 6670 from Asus with their dust-proof fan design. Now we have had a look at an Asus graphics card with this fan before, but our testing procedure was a lot different back then, so we were keen to see how this card did, not so much in performance, though this is still important, but more in terms of cooling efficiency, acoustics and general power usage. Also being a card that's in a certain segment such as this one, sometimes sees some surprising results as we delve further in, but will the HD 6670 from Asus do that? Let's find out shall we? PackagingA look at the front shows a brightly coloured box with the main features listed, some that are unique to AMD whilst others are unique just to Asus. The back of the box goes into more details onto the main features including the dust-proof fan and super alloy power. A diagram is also shown as to how your displays can be connected to the card. On the side of the box reveals the recommended system requirements in a variety of languages. Opening the packaging up and looking at the bundle inside, we are given a DVI>VGA adapter. Also among this is a user's manual which talks through the initial setup of the card. Lastly is the driver installation CD, though the latest drivers can be found in the eTeknix download sectionand are always advised to be used over the bundled version. A Closer LookWhen we write graphics card reviews, it can all seem very repetative, and that's mainly down to three or four different partners sending us the same reference design, and their isn't a lot to end up saying. Asus have finally given us something special with the 6670 as it features their patented dust-proof fan which we've looked at in the past and found it to be truly efficient at dispersing heat and is also said to offer up to 25" extra lifespan. The cooler design on this card follows a ROG style theme with black and red colours, though it's not part of the ROG branding. The card is very low profile and though the card only takes up one expansion slot in your case, the cooler protrudes out slightly and will overlap into a second expansion bay ever so slightly. From this view it allows us to see the aluminium fin designed heatsink that sits over the GPU core. Slap bang in the middle of the card is an Asus branded fan featuring 9 translucent blades, which you will see from our acoustic tests further on as to how it compares in terms or noise levels as well as when we take a look at cooling efficiency by monitoring the temperatures at idle and load. The back of the card is fairly bland with a dark brown PCB. Their is nothing too significant from this side apart from the mounting screws for the cooler but we can also see that no CrossFire connector is present and that the card doesn't require any extra power source other than that of the PCI-Express slot that it will sit in. So I'm sure we all know what Eyefinity is, but for those who don't; it allows you to connect a certain amount of displays from a single graphics card to enjoy the most extreme gaming experience. This particular graphics card can support up to 3 displays through use of the HDMI port, DisplayPort and DVI port. Test SystemThe test the performance of this card, we use the latest drivers direct from the manufacturer and run each test three times to obtain a fair average set of results. Test System: Asus Crosshair V Formula AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GB Kingston HyperX 1800MHz Asus HD 6670 1GB Noctua NH-C14 Thermaltake ToughPower Cable Management 1200W Games used: Batman: Arkham Asylum [LIST] 1920x1080 8xMSAA 16xAF [*]Dirt 2 1920x1080 4xMSAA 16xAF [*]Dirt 3 1920x1080 4xMSAA 16xAF [*]Just Cause 2 1920x1080 4xAA 16xAF [*]Mafia II 1920x1080 AA On 16xAF [*]Metro 2033 1920x1080 4xMSAA 16xAF [/LIST]Hardware used: Plug-in electricity usage monitor Sound level meter Software used: 3DMark 11 [LIST] Extreme Pre-set [*]3DMark Vantage Performance Pre-set [*]FurMark 1920x1080 [*]HWMonitor [*]Unigine Heaven Benchmark 1920x1080 4xAA 16xAF [*]Windows 7 Professional 64-bit [/LIST]3DMark 113DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online. 3dMark11 gave very similar results to the Sapphire 6670 that we tested for comparison, showing that the Asus edition has no extra performance in this particular test. 3DMark Vantage3DMark Vantage is the industry standard performance benchmark for DirectX 10 gaming PCs. It includes two graphics tests, two CPU tests and six feature tests. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark Vantage is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 10 under game-like loads. The position in comparison to the other cards is where we anticipated, slightly above the 6570 and a fairly reasonable score from a card of this value and market segment. Unigine HeavenHeaven 2.1 is regarded to be one of the most intensive Benchmarking utilities about at the moment along with the likes of 3DMark. It makes use of highly comprehensive tessellation technology, advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion) and a highly defined light algorithm to produce ever changing light conditions amongst other items. Heaven gave results as we had predicted which is on part with the other low to mid-range cards that we tested, giving no out of the ordinary results. Batman: Arkham AsylumBatman: Arkham Asylum is an action-adventure stealth game that uses the Unreal Engine 3. It relies heavily on nVidia's PhsyX engine to give improved physics throughout if available. and uses lots of textures and polygons to build the character. The graph shows it all with this benchmark to be honest, with a confident 70FPS, it flew past the 6670 from Sapphire as well as the older 5700 series cards and this was using maximum settings. Dirt 2The physics engine from within Dirt 2 is a good test of a card and it's rendering capabilities with fine details such as dust trailing from the rear of the car. There is also the aspect of light and reflections from the cars bodywork and the ability to work with the in game physics and damage rendering engines to produce a realistic gaming experience. Dirt 2 shows the true potential behind this card with the settings we chose giving us 33.3 FPS which is fantastic, and with a few tweaks of the graphics settings, you'd be able to squeeze more frames out of this by compensating for quality. Dirt 3Dirt 3 was released in May 2011 and is the third in the Dirt series offering a complete overhaul in terms of graphics for the DirectX 11 platform which extreme lighting effects and reflections as well as showcasing fast moving graphics and using in game physics to bring the most extreme quality in terms of video rendering. Dirt 3 only saw a slight increase over the 6570, leaving us wondering if the extra £10 for this card is really worth that extra couple of frames. Obviously by lowering the quality settings, we are able to gain an easy 30FPS which is a playable frame rate. Just Cause 2Just Cause 2 is an open world action-adventure video game that was released at the beginning of 2010. The game uses the Avalanche Engine 2.0 and runs on DirectX 10. Several graphics effects and features are used to give a thorough workout to new and even older graphics cards. Just Cause 2 showed that whilst it's able to run at a reasonable frame rate with the settings almost maxed out, the older 5700 series are able to handle the game a lot better. Mafia IIMafia II is an older game and therefore it does have older graphics engines, however this is is still a good all-round in game benchmark that combines the terrain and explosion rendering of Crysis with the dust and dirt particle rendering test of Dirt 2. It also takes into account the changing light conditions albeit not in quite the same detail as the others, but none-the-less still proves a cards capabilities on slightly older games. Mafia II saw similar results with this card as we did with the Sapphire version albeit by 0.2 FPS, which shows that if you can sacrifice a few image quality settings, you will be able to play Mafia II at a comfortable frame rate at a 1080p resolution. Metro 2033Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game based in the Russian metro system. Metro 2033 is very similar to the much loved game STALKER as it is developed by the same programmers. The game utilises DirectX 11 and relies heavily on tessellation features and is considered to be one of the most graphics intense games on the market. Metro 2033 was always going to be harsh on a card like this but it was still able to hold its own against some of the older generation cards which are still selling for a little bit more money, though it does make you evaluate if the extra cash may be worth going for an older 5770 instead. AcousticsNoise is generally the bain of most consumers lives and in the hope of finding the quietest operation, we feel it's necessary to show you the audio level of components. We use the same components throughout this test and use a sound level meter to record the audio level of the system with a passive graphics card installed. Once we have the level recorded with the passive card, we continue to change the graphics card for the one that we are testing. Due to us having the audio level recorded before installation, it gives us a guide to work with and shows that anything over our initial level is an audio gain. Noise levels on this card were where we expected, below that of the reference cards with smaller fans but slightly louder than some of the specialist cards like the 6970 IceQ MIX. Power ConsumptionTo test power consumption, we monitor the overall power of the system through a plug-in electricity usage monitor at an idle and load state. This allows us to show the fluctuation between how much power draw the graphics card takes at idle and at load. By monitoring the overall usage of the whole system, it gives an easy comparison if you wish to do the same yourself as opposed to buying very expensive individual testing equipment. Power consumption for the card showed that even with the lesser powered 6450 and 6570 that on idle it is clearly the most efficient. Even at load it put up a good fight against the 6450 and only lost out by 2 watts. TemperaturesMeasuring temperatures is all about being consitent, therefore we keep a steady eye on monitoring the ambient room temperature to make sure that it stays the same. While this is constantly being monitored, we measure the idle temperature of the card using HWMonitor over a 15 minute period. Once this has been recorded, we set FurMark into motion for 15 minutes and record the results again. Temperatures for the card were pretty low on idle, and load kept it well below the rest of the cards we tested which included some higher and lower spec, leaving us with a satisfied look on our face and knowing that the Asus cooler really is up to the job. Final ThoughtsFirstly talking about the design, which I have to say is very nice, it offers a ROG style theme, even though it's most certainly not part of it with the black and red cooling design. The dust-proof fan isn't something that we've tested to the end because we simply can't. It is said to offer up to 25% longer lifespan, but who knows how long that could be. All we can say is that cooling wise, we saw some fairly quiet results whilst using a VERY low amount of power and at the same time keeping heat to a minimum. Just looking back at the temperatures on the previous page, we're quite astounded by the 53 degrees we recorded at load, and that is EXTREMELY low for any card in this market segment, so kudos definitely goes out to Asus on that one, they sure know how to develop a cooler and how to implement it fantastically. Moving on to the performance, whilst the results were quite surprising in some tests, as we received some very reasonable scores and frame rates, especially based on the settings we used, we were somewhat disappointed that the 5700 series still pulled ahead in a lot of games, but that's not the fault of Asus, or AMD for that matter, as the 5700 series of cards were aimed at a completely different market and originally had a higher price when new. Sure you could pick one up second hand for not much more than the 6670 new, but I'd rather have a full warranty and retailer support, than compensating for slightly better performance. Overall, we feel that Asus have made a really great card that has a competitive price of around £55 with a very efficient cooler. The thing that we like about Asus more than anything else is they set out to do something and just simply seem to do it, and the HD 6670 is no exception. Well done Asus, you've done it again! Pros: Competitively priced Reliable manufacturer Stylish design Low-profile cooler Eyefinity ready Dust-proof fan Variety of connections Reasonable performance Cons: The older 5750 still outperforms in some benchmarks but is a slightly more expensive card Attached files 3dmark11.png (77.3 KB) 3dmarkvantage.png (35.4 KB) acoustics.png (41.5 KB) batman.png (80.1 KB) dirt2.png (79.4 KB) dirt3.png (32.5 KB) hd6670.jpg (68.9 KB) heaven.png (78.7 KB) IMG_1280.jpg (99.4 KB) IMG_1281.jpg (87.3 KB) IMG_1282.jpg (112.9 KB) IMG_1284.jpg (117 KB) IMG_1285.jpg (141.6 KB) IMG_1286.jpg (131.4 KB) IMG_1288.jpg (174.4 KB) IMG_1289.jpg (86.4 KB) IMG_1291.jpg (73.8 KB) IMG_1293.jpg (183.7 KB) IMG_1297.jpg (116.7 KB) justcause2.png (84.7 KB) mafia.png (79.9 KB) metro.png (78.7 KB) power.png (45.5 KB) power.png (45.5 KB) silver.jpg (12.4 KB) temperatures.png (40.4 KB)