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 HIS HD 4670 IceQ Native HDMI 1GB DDR3 AGP
No, that's not a typo. HIS have sent over an AGP card, which being based on the 4670, should give a good boost in gaming and video playback duties to older systems without breaking the bank.
Manufacturer:
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Price: Check
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I would imagine that more than a few of you have clicked on this link just out of curiosity. No, it's not a typo, this is an AGP card. It may seem strange that we have just seen the launch of ATI's 58xx cards with DX11 and Eyefinity, and yet here we are looking at a card that is not only the previous generation, but based on an ageing interface that no motherboard manufacturer makes boards for anymore.
But the fact of the matter is, many folks do still use AGP motherboard based setups. And why not? If the system is running fine, and the games you play are not overly intensive, for many there is little reason to upgrade. It would be a significant (read expensive) upgrade too. If you're still using an AGP system, it's likely you'd need to replace pretty much all the main parts just to make use of a new graphics card. And then there is the old parts for second systems argument to think about.
are helping you stretch your AGP system just that little further with their card. This card is aimed to be a relatively cheap but powerful upgrade for your AGP system, and it's based on a pretty good GPU too. Let's check it out.
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Specifications
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Model Name
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HIS HD 4670 IceQ Native HDMI 1GB (128bit) DDR3 AGP |
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Chipset
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Radeon HD 4600 Series |
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Pixel Pipelines
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320 stream processing units* (Unified) |
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Vertex Engines
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320 stream processing units* (Unified) |
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Memory Size
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1024MB |
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Memory Type
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GDDR3 |
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RAMDAC
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400MHz |
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Engine CLK
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750MHz |
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Memory CLK
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1746MHz |
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Memory Interface
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128bit |
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Bus Interface
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AGP 8X/ 4X |
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Ports
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1x VGA, 1x DVI, 1x (Native) HDMI |
The box for the is actually pretty big. This is despite the fact that the card itself isn't. There is a clear window on the front of the box showing off the IceQ cooler and the card is little bigger than that. As is usual for HIS, all the pertinent information is easily seen at a quick glance, with some more extensive features and specifications on the rear.
That said, I do have to question the wasted space once you get inside. The box could be half the size and still have plenty of room for the contents. With everyone thinking more 'green' and trying to keep waste to a minimum, this does seem a little 'wrong' and I admit to not being the most green minded person. What you actually get is the card itself and a pamphlet/folder with the driver disk, manual and HIS badge.
If you've seen a PCIe 4670, you will see that the is no bigger. HIS have of course added their IceQ cooler, making this a double slot device, but it does keeps things very cool and quiet; something that will be of interest to anyone wanting to create an HTPC from older parts.
As always, HIS have carefully cabled the coolers fan connector, and it's kept neat and tidy. At the rear of the card we find a 4 pin female Molex connector. The 4670 PCIe doesn't require extra power, because the PCIe slot is capable of 75w, but AGP's maximum is 40w. The 4670 GPU requires 59w according to ATI and therefore, this AGP version needs a little extra help.
The back of the card is pretty uneventful but the IO ports give us something to talk about. There are a total of 3 outputs on the which cover pretty much all the common connections used today. There is a DVI-I port, a standard 15pin VGA D-Sub port and a Native HDMI. Yes, this card is capable of 7.1 sound output just like it's PCIe counterpart.
Overall this is a compact and nicely specified card. The cooler is certainly attractive but do keep in mind this is a double slot cooling setup. I don't think the 4 Pin Molex will pose many problems; I'm sure that everyone will have a spare Molex to use with this card in their AGP system.
Testing
Testing the consists of putting it through it's paces in a few games and testing during HD Video playback. Being an AGP card, obviously the system used is going to be based on older parts. The system in question is actually my 10yr old daughters system, and the motherboard in it is the Gigabyte GA-8VT880P Combo which has both an 8x AGP slot and a 16x (4x electrically) PCIe slot.
For comparison, I'm using an HIS X1800GTO IceQ3 256MB PCIe Card and a MSI 4670 512MB PCIe Card. Obviously the 4670's are going to be the faster cards here, but the X1800GTO will give us a reference to compare how much of a difference there is between (very) old and new. Also we can hopefully see what sort of a difference there is between a PCIe and an AGP 4670 card. There are however a few caveats here; the first being that the MSI card only has 512MB of ram compared to the HIS cards 1GB, and that the PCIe interface on the Gigabyte board is only 4x. Also, the HIS card is running with memory clocks lower than that of the PCIe based MSI card. Still, this is a relatively low end card so the extra ram shouldn't make all that big a difference. Also, the Gigabyte board's 4x PCIe interface brings the bus bandwidth closer to that of the 8x AGP interface (4x = 4,000MB/s, AGP 8x = 2,128MB/s). Should be a pretty interesting comparison.
Test Setup : Intel P4 3.2Ghz, 1GB of Ultra DDR Ram, Gigabyte GA-8VT880P Combo, Maxtor Diamondmax 10 7200 250GB HDD, Tagan 480w PSU, All latest drivers as of September 2009; Catalyst 9.9 AGP and PCIe was used for the 4670 cards and the 9.3's* used for the X1800GTO, Windows Vista 32bit.
*Support for older cards such as the X1800GTO stopped at version 9.3.
Software
Left 4 Dead – Recording a custom demo on the No Mercy – Sewers level (outside in the rain), we used FRAPS to record frame rates as we played back the demo on highest possible settings for each card.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars – ETQW gives us our OpenGL test results as we run through a recorded demo on the Slipgate level. Settings for all cards were the same.
Devil May Cry 4 (Benchmark) – DMC4's benchmark provides a nice way of testing that anyone can do. Results are all from the benchmark itself, and include average framerates as well as 4 graphs for each level tested. Settings for all cards were the same.
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