Introduction

If you’ve bought a typical pre-built system from any large chain electronics retailer, chances are it is only equipped with an integrated graphics solution that is barely capable of playing any 3D game that came out in the last 2 years. The next heartbreak comes in the form of a power supply that is not rated to run any mainstream video cards that require 6-pin or more power connectors. OEMs are notorious for including only a power supply that has very little headroom for upgrading to a more powerful component. If upgrading or replacing the power supply is beyond your budget, the best bet is to get a video card that consumes little power while actually delivering playable framerates in games.

With the introduction of new high level cards, the mainstream segment also moves up and, hopefully, the lower end segment follows in performance, as well, providing more powerful cards than the previous generation while having a slightly lower or similar price point. We’ve met AMD’s 6900 and 6800 high end video cards and AMD has also recently announced that the HD5770 and HD5750 are getting a fresh rebrand and a UVD3 upgrade for the mainstream segment, dubbed HD6770 and HD6750, respectively. For the entry level market, AMD is introducing the new 6600, 6500 and 6400 gaming GPUs that do not require additional power from the PSU.

The Radeon HD 6670 and HD 6570 video cards are based on AMD’s 40nm “Turks” GPU. The Radeon HD 6670 and HD 6650 are entry level cards aimed at the sub-$100 price point. Both the Radeon HD 6670 and HD 6570 have 480 Stream processors, 24 texture units, 8 ROPs and come with a 128-bit memory interface. The Radeon HD 6670 clocks in at 800MHz and is equipped with 1GB of GDDR5 memory at 4000MHz, while the Radeon HD 6650 has a 650MHz core clock with either 512MB of fast GDDR5 or 1GB of DDR3, which consumes less power. The new HD6670 and HD6570 series Turks-GPUs were designed to continue AMD’s lead in providing low-cost, high-definition playback and DirectX11 support, perfect for OEM systems and HTPC builds.