Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate Edition Review

Introduction:

When it comes time to build your new computer choosing the graphics card usually is a source of frustration and agony over just what do you need, versus what you want and what fits your budget. It's easy to blow a big chunk of your budget on a graphics card and then short yourself on the rest of the peripherals, such as the motherboard, processor and power supply. Ultimately you have to make a choice! That choice usually involves some form of compromise. Do you game? If so, at what level? What's the maximum resolution you will play at? What level of eye candy is right for you? All valid things to consider! You say you don't play games (blasphemy), but are more interested in building a nice quiet running computer that will serve as the family computer/media center. You want something powerful enough to play some not too intense games, while being able display the latest High definition content on that new plasma screen television you just bought.

Well, Sapphire has you covered on all fronts with the HD 4670 Ultimate Edition video card. It can play most of the latest games with some eye candy on running at clock speeds of 750MHz on the GPU core and 873MHz on the memory, but better yet, it can do so without the noise penalty associated with the latest video cards from ATI. The Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate Edition is equipped with a custom passive cooling solution that helps cool the RV 730 XT core and 512MB of GDDR3 memory. This cooler uses two heatpipes running to an over sized fin array to have the heat dissipated via the airflow through the chassis. Let's find out if this rendition of the HD 4670 from Sapphire really is the Ultimate Edition HD 4670!

Closer Look:

Sapphire has gone and changed the packaging on this rendition of the HD 4670 from the black boxes seen on the majority of cards I have worked with, to a silver on white background. It does not have the visual pop that the black boxes have, but does contain all of the pertinent information about the Ultimate Edition HD 4670. The front panel shows that there are several software applications included, as well as the fact that this card has an HDMI output and CrossfireX capability.

Pulling out the box containing the Ultimate Edition 4670 you can see that it is not packed in foam, as is the case with just about all of the Sapphire cards I have used. Instead, the Ultimate edition comes in a plastic shell with cardboard wrapped around it for support. Soon enough the reason for this becomes evident. The bundle of accessories for this card is limited to the Ruby Rom CD, the software from Cyberlink, the driver disk and the instruction manual. Pretty slim from what I am used to seeing from Sapphire, but again the reasons become evident once the card is pulled from the shipping box.

Let's see just what the HD 4670 Ultimate edition from Sapphire has to offer in terms of usability, as well as performance.