Amd hd 6670

[Dirk Broer]

Though the AMD HD 6670 is a card that might get sneered at by hard-core gamers and crunchers as giving not enough performance -and by HTPC builders as giving just too much of it,
it is actually THE card to have for crunching on the FM1 and FM2 platforms, preferably in the company of a full-sized ATX board (which at the outbringing of both the FM1 and FM2
boards gave headaches to the HTPC builders (it's too big!) and hard-core gamers (it does not deliver enough performance!): who has need for ATX-sized A75 or A85 mobo's? We do!)
Together with a 65 Watt APU you can build a system that hardly eats power as compared to a solution using a Phenom II or FX chip and a card/cards comparable to the combined power of the APU and HD 6670(s), and compared to the solutions offered by Intel for the same price you are bound to have found yourself a real winner in the Fusion combo, especially crunching-wise.

But which HD 6670 is good for you? There is roughly four choices: DDR3 or DDR5 and Active vs Passive cooling (and any combination of those)
The only difference in the DDR3 models seems to be the speed at which the DDR3 memory is clocked, the GPUs are all at 800 Mhz (though I've had a MSI HD 6670 that was clocked significantly lower, at 666 Mhz and with suffering performance as compared to my ASUS model).

If I compare the models I can buy here in the Netherlands, ASUS seems to offer the best models in DDR3 format, both in active and passive version, as their DDR3 memory is clocked at 2x 900 = 1800 Mhz.
P_500 (1).jpgP_500.jpg
They also have a 2 GB model with active cooling, which might be useful when you crunch more than one WU at the same time on your video card.

In the DDR5 field all memory seems to have been clocked at 4x 1000 = 4000 Mhz, giving more bandwidth (64 vs 28.8 Gb/s) at the expense of a slightly higher energy thirst.
The difference here is the GPU clock, which runs highest with the ASUS EAH6670/DI/1GD5, 850 Mhz
P_500 (2).jpg.
Mind you: the almost similairly named ASUS EAH6670/DIS/1GD5 runs at 810 Mhz and has other video outputs (and does not need an extra 6-pin PCIe power connector as well).
Sapphire has here the best (the only?) DDR5 model with passive cooling: the Ultimate HD 6670 1GB GDDR5.