Introduction

Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 4650 and 4670 cards. Both cards are based on the same RV730 graphics processor which is a derivative of the RV770.
Compared to the RV770, the number of shaders and ROPs has been reduced. Also the memory bus interface has been halfed from 256 bit to 128 bit. The only difference between the HD 4650 and the HD 4670 are the clock speeds.

AMD is positioning their cards in the lower midrange segment with a price point well below $100. The media PC features have remained the same as on the HD 48xx Series with UVD2, HDMI via adapter, HDCP and UVD2 video decode acceleration.

Packaging & Contents

PowerColor uses their established package which clearly shows the major specs on the front and has additional info on the back.



You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Manual + Driver CD
• DVI adapter, HDMI adapter
• Video out cable
• CrossFire bridge

The Card

PowerColor has chosen to go with their own heatsink design which is very silent yet offers solid cooling performance. The cooler is a dual slot design which may be a limitation for some media PC users, for everybody else it is a good choice because it offers better cooling.


The card has two DVI ports which is the standard output configuration nowadays. If you need a VGA port you can use the included DVI adapter. When using a HDMI adapter (included as well), you will also have access to HDMI+HDCP+Audio, which allows easy setup of a media PC. AMD has integrated a Realtek 7.1 audio device inside the GPU which means that the sound card's HDMI output shows up as sound device in Windows. In my opinion this is an easier solution than on NVIDIA's cards where you have to route an audio cable from your motherboard to the VGA card.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

Even though the cooler uses a very basic design without heatpipes it handles the heat output of the card very well.


You may combine two, three or four RV730 cards in CrossFire for increased performance or better image quality settings.


An external power connector is not needed. The card will draw all its power from the PCI-Express bus.


The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Qimonda (formerly Infineon) and carry the model number HYB18H512321BF-10. With a latency of 1.0 ns they should be good for at least 1000 MHz. PowerColor uses an extremely strong thermal tape on their memory chips, please do not try to remove it as you will probably rip off the memory chip together with the heatsink.


This is AMD's new RV730 graphics processor. It is made in a 55 nm process at TSMC using 514M transistors.