Introducing AMD’s “Turks” – HD 6670 and HD 6570

Conclusion

Price to Performance

The HD 6670 and HD 6570 lead the GT430 in all of the benchmarks and it is a solid improvement over that mostly HTPC card.  As cards that require no external power besides the PCIe slot, these new Radeons would be excellent for low power usage.

We note that the GTS 450 and HD 5770 stand out as performance wild cards to put up against the two new cards since they are all priced similarly at about $80 to $100. Leaving the GTX 450 and the HD 5770 off of our chart would have made a completely different impression of the new Turks Radeons. The HD 6670 does succeed as a good-quality successor to the HD 5670 although it is totally eclipsed by the GTX 450’s strong price to performance ratio.  It makes it impossible for us to recommend the new cards based on their suggested price as performance alone does not redeem them with so many other good choices available.  However, as low-power cards suited for light gaming, they are excellent choices for HTPC!

Let’s take a look at current suggested and very general USA etail pricing.

• HD 6570 – $79
• HD 6670 – $99
• GTX 450 – $80-$100 ($80 after MiR for the stock versions to around $100 for the highly overclocked version)
• HD 5770 – $119 minus $20 rebate

We have to wait and see how street pricing affects the new cards before we can make a strong recommendation for them based on performance.

Did AMD succeed with HD 6670/6570?

It appears that AMD succeeded in doing what they set out to do. They succeeded in beating the GT 430/440’s performance; something the aging HD 5570/5670 was unable to do even super-overclocked. However, it also appears that AMD was somewhat troubled by the GTS 450 pricing and Nvidia’s willingness to discount it to gain market share. If this card did not exist and the HD 5770 was not priced about the same price as the HD 6670, we would have no trouble recommending it. However, they do exist and they make it hard to recommend less powerful and similarly-priced new cards unless you have low-power requirements.

It is pretty clear from our 28 games and three synthetic tests that the Turks GPUs make for quality mainstream video cards. The new HD 6670/6570’s success will depend on market pricing and also what Nvidia does with their GeForce pricing as the two companies respond to each other. Basically, the HD 6670/6570 is an improvement in every way over the HD 5000 series that it replaces.

The HD 6670

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• The HD 6670 is much faster than its predecessor, HD 5670 and is it faster than the GT 430.
• Low power usage!
• There is further room for overclocking and good scalability.
• New architecture brings support for GPU computing and a level of performance way beyond the last generation.
• DX11 and greatly improved support for tessellation, 1 GB vRAM and a 128-bit pathway brings more performance over the older series and the GT 430.
• CrossFire-X technology allows you to harness two or more GPUs for faster gaming at higher detail levels and resolutions.
• Enhanced AA and more control over settings
• Experience 3-panel Eyefinity for much less expense than with Nvidia’s competing Surround.

Cons:

• It is expensive at $99 – same as the HD 5770 after rebate or the highly overclocked GTS 450, both of which are faster; the market will ultimately decide the pricing

The HD 6570

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• The HD 6570 is much faster than its predecessor, HD 5570 and is it faster than the GT 430.
• Low power usage!
• New architecture brings support for GPU computing and a level of performance way beyond the last generation.
• DX11 and greatly improved support for tessellation, 512MB vRAM and a 128-bit pathway brings even more performance over the older series and the GT 230/430.
• CrossFire-X technology allows you to harness two or more GPUs for faster gaming at higher detail levels and resolutions.
• Enhanced AA and more control over settings
• Experience 3-panel Eyefinity for much less expense than with Nvidia’s competing Surround.

Cons:

• It is expensive at $79 – same as the stock or mildly overclocked GTS 450 – a faster card; the market will ultimately decide the pricing
• Overclocking potential is unknown and limited by Catalyst Control Center.

We do not know what the future will bring, but these new Turks HD 6670/6570s brings decent low-power performers to the Radeon family. Look for them immediately at an etailer. This editor believes that AMD brings a very full-featured complete DX11 GPU lineup to the market that will find good acceptance among customers and their fans alike. The new Turks architecture is a solid improvement over Redwood and it translates to higher performance in gaming.

If you currently game on an older generation video card, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to a Turks-based video card will give you better visuals on the DX11 pathway and you are no doubt thinking of CrossFire-X if you want to get even higher performance. Perhaps you want to use Eyefinity’s multi-panel display (which we are going to explore in a future article versus 3-panel Surround).

The competition is hot as the prices on even the new video cards have softened and Nvidia offers their own set of features including PhysX, CUDA and 3D Vision. Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT. Stay tuned for a further evaluation of HD 6990 versus GTX 590 at 5760×1080 and 2560×1600 and also an evaluation of 3D Vision/Surround and HD3D.

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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