ATI Radeon HD 4350 and 4550: Great HTPC Solutions
by Derek Wilson on September 30, 2008 12:45 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
But Can You Really Game on Them?
So the short answer to this quesiton is not really. If you want to play casual games or older games, you'll be fine. Generally, you don't even have to run on the absolute worst settings. But you can't get near the quality even the 9500 GT is capable of delivering (let alone the 4670 which can deliver AA in some cases to low resolution gaming).
With our Crysis test, this time around we looked at everything set to medium quality. While the 4350 and 4550 performed alright at low quality settings, they really can't keep up when it comes to this step up. The 4670 really sticks it to all the other options here.
With the way the 4670 pegs the 60fps limit, we wanted to demonstrate just what the advantage can be. Running at our standard High Quality / Very High Shaders settings, it's clear that there is a fundamental difference in the type of performance you get from something like the 4670 and the 4550.
Under Enemy Territory we were actually able to run at the highest quality settings with 4xAA and still get playable performance at 800x600. This isn't that bad, but keep in mind this game is based on an older OpenGL Doom 3 engine. Above 800x600 and we would really need to dial back the settings. Disabling AA goes a long way to boosting framerate, but at these low resolutions it is a shame to lose that feature.
Finally, with Oblivion at our Ultra High defaults setting, we aren't really able to get above 800x600 and remain playable. We would really like to see north of 25fps for a playable experience in Oblivion, and we just can't pull that out at 10x7. Again, even with the advantage the 9500 GT cards have, the gap there pales in comparison to the performance increase shown by when moving to the 4670.
So while these really aren't gaming cards, they do reach up and touch the ability to enable high end settings at the lowest resolution in some cases. On modern games, higher powered options are needed for getting decent quality. But either way, these cards are quite a bit faster than current integrated graphics solutions.
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xeutonmojukai - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link
so let's get this straight:AMD has the best two-GPU-one-card solution on the market.
They have the best HTPC cards on the market.
They have the best single slot card on the market.
They have the best entry-level card for quality gaming.
They have the best integrated graphics...
Not only that, but their prices seem to remain very low...
I just hope all this inevitable revenue goes towards an excellent CPU line next generation.
whatthehey - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link
Given the above is pretty much what Anandtech has said during the past couple of months, I love how all the idiots out there still try to say this site is biased against AMD and is in the pocket of NVIDIA and Intel. I've been a reader for a LONG time, and let me tell you I've seen them praise any company with a superior product. Sorry folkds, but the AMD CPUs right now simply can't stand up to Intel. NVIDIA is also better in several areas, but at least it's a generally close match.In summary: A great big F U to all those Inquirer readers.
tuteja1986 - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link
Will it come in APG ?erikejw - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link
"For our comparison to integrated graphics, we looked at two games: Crysis and Oblivion. These games tend to cover the spectrum fairly well from DX9 to DX10, and they tell the same story: integrated graphics suck."So you really beleive that casual gamers will go out and buy the 2 most demanding games released(when new). That is quite hilarious.
A casual gamer might want to play a game someone bought them for christmas like a 3d golf game or a race game or a strategy game or even a good fps shooter, not that common for casual gamers though.
Why not compare those games instead of picking out crysis, hell, even last generation 500$ card have problems with that game.
How about making a comparison of "normal" games and see what resolution you can play them. Who cares if you get 4 or 7 fps in Crysis with 2 different IGP solutions. I wan't to know if I can play a game at all and in what resolution.
Of course IGP solutions is worthless for hardcore gamers, noone will claim anything else.However a good reviewer will have the ability to look beyond his own needs.
IGP are supposed to be slower than discrete cards, that doesn't make them worthless.
erikejw - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link
I was mostly wrong here.I didn't even care to read the end before I wrote my response.
I read the other review for a few days ago that the Shrimp did and this is directed towards that article and I thought you would do the same.
You used a weird choice of games but you did put in settings that made the games playable and you compared resolutions that would make the game playable, hats off for that.