Tried it: Radeon HD 6670 vs. GeForce GT 440 - lightning test!
We are living in a period these days that we have wanted to live for a long time. The page shift is approaching, the new HOC is coming, which we hope will prove not only a design change, but also a real renewal. There’s a better time outside, one would go outside and there’s a lot of work to do, it’s not easy to put everything together well on the site’s work, so as long as they last, the tests will be a little lightning test as the topic allows.
Our site already had a lot of video cards from the upper and middle categories this year, but a little less from the lower. With this writing, we are trying to provide guidance in the category close to or slightly below HUF 20 with a duel between a Radeon and a GeForce model. The debut of the GeForce GT 000 didn’t stir up too much port, nor did the arrival of the Radeon HD 440, but these models could gain a lot of popularity at home due to the extremely affordable price. Of course, as always, you have to sacrifice performance for the price altar, so no one should look for these cards to play in Full HD, but they can be good for many other things, from work to home cinema to playing within limits. So let's see the "mevvék"!
NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 (ASUS ENGT440)
Another Fermi-based solution went through a thorough diet, accordingly with GF108 core on board. The chip is, of course, made at 40 nanometers, the number of CUDA cores is 96, so you can count on a pretty cool operation. The memory interface is 128-bit, to which the manufacturers typically associate 1GB of DDR3 or 512MB of GDDR5 (neither of which makes too much sense, but then the latter) RAM. The GPU reference recommendation is 810, so the shaders tick at 1620 MHz. For DDR3, the chip frequency is 1800 MHz, while for GDDR5 it is 3200 MHz.
So the GT 440 isn't just a muscle colossus by specification, but that's exactly what's good about it, as it consumes little and barely heats up. And in technology, everyone knows what the big ones are: DirectX 11 and Direct Compute 5.0, PhysX, OpenCL, CUDA, OpenGL 4.0, 3D Vision, PureVideoHD. NVIDIA’s reference design is pretty “cautious,” giving the appearance of a true low-end card, with some manufacturers sticking to this approach, others endowed it with an exterior that makes it easy to think more about it than it can actually offer.
ASUS is present in both ways, that is, it offers a more modestly cooled version with DDR3, as well as an edition with a more serious cooling solution that attacks GDDR5. With us, this is a guest that is none other than the ASUS ENGT440 / DI / 1GD5. From this, it can already be seen that not only was the faster type of RAM chosen for this model, but also doubled its amount.
The size of the PCB is quite large compared to the reference PCB, as is the cooling, which is actually a simple aluminum rib with an 8cm fan and a pretty cover plate. The card is 25,5 cm long and 13 cm high, the former being a very high value for the GT 440 - NVIDIA's reference PCB is less than 15 cm. The ENGT440 offers VGA (d-Sub), dual-link DVI and native HDMI connectors to customers, no different from the recommendation. However, it is true that ASUS has faithfully implemented some tuning, which can be classified as negligible, as it runs on 810 MHz instead of the GPU 822…
In terms of consumption, the manufacturer has set a maximum value of 65 watts, with the recommended power supply being 300 watts. If we choose the ASUS model, we have the opportunity to use the manufacturer’s own technologies such as Splendid, Gamer OSD and Smart Doctor, and the ASUS GT 440 is built in the spirit of the Super Alloy Power philosophy, which could be most easily translated to quality and consists of durable components. No PCI Express power connector is required for power.
AMD Radeon HD 6670
The HD 6670, along with its little brother, the HD 6570, is based on the fresh Turks seed that replaced Redwood. The HD 6670 features the more powerful version, built on 40nm manufacturing technology with 480 stream processors. The memory interface on this model is also 128-bit, and it is recommended that all models work with GDDR5 RAM, only the amount of the variable, which can be 512 MB or 1024 MB. The GPU works at 800 MHz, while the GDDR5 chips work at 4000 MHz.
In the case of Radeon cards, striving for low power consumption is no stranger to anyway, so we can think that the prospects are good for cards with a Turks GPU as well. According to AMD, the HD 6670 consumes 12 watts at rest and 66 watts at high load. The cards can have four types of outputs: DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 1.4a, dual-link DVI and d-Sub. The reference model displays DisplayPort instead of HDMI.
What we said at the GT 440 is also true for the little Radeons: it’s perfect for office, home theater purposes, and you can play with it with some compromises. The good thing is that they also inherit the arsenal of the big ones - DirectX 11, DirectCompute 5.0, OpenCL 1.1, AMD APP Acceleration, OpenGL 4.1, AMD HD3D, Eyefinity support for 4 displays (for DisplayPort), UVD3 engine with advanced video acceleration capabilities.
The reference models at AMD are also quite "modest", let's see what transformation our HIS product has gone through! The HIS card is less interesting than the ASUS GT 440 variant. Although it is a PCB of its own, the dimensions of the card (13 × 4 × 18,3 cm) have not changed much compared to the reference PCB, but as we have seen so many times with HIS, the PCB itself is brilliant in blue.
Cooling is not overcomplicated, a simple aluminum rib with a blue fan and a little garnish, no more, no less than what is needed for this model. In terms of outputs, HIS chose the best variation, as it provided native HDMI 1.2 in addition to DVI and DisplayPort 1.4. Follow the factory recommendations for clocks, no additional PCI Express power connector required.
