KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Sapphire have released many cards in the last year targeting the HTPC audience. We had a soft spot for their HD5670 and HD6670 Ultimate Edition … after all they were completely silent while delivering media acceleration and modest gaming capabilities. The Sapphire HD6670 Low Profile card will be welcomed by a very broad media oriented audience, who have been waiting on this card now for quite some time.
The move to a low profile, single slot design has necessitated the inclusion of a small fan. Thankfully Sapphire have ensured that it emits very minor fan noise, only audible when gaming not when watching high definition movies.
The inclusion of a standard and low profile plate means it can be incorporated within any system on the market. Output support also covers full sized HDMI, DVI and VGA connectivity.
Other benefits of the Sapphire HD6670 low profile card include an immensely low power drain, demanding only 8 watts when idle, and 21 watts when utilized as hardware acceleration for Blu-Ray playback. When gaming, this rises to 42 watts, which is still a conservative demand. There is no doubt that this graphics card would be ideal for 24/7 operation within a media system or server. No fears of receiving a scary electricity bill next quarter if you used this on a daily basis.
Gaming prowess is actually surprisingly favourable, because it is perfectly usable at 720p with many modern game engines. At 1080p it can power a selection of titles released this year, such as F1 2011 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution … as long as anti aliasing is not a prerequisite.
If you are in the market for a low profile card to be used for high definition media duties, then this should certainly be a first choice. The card generates very little noise, demands almost no power at idle, and has the capability to power many leading gaming engines at 720p, or even 1080p if you are willing to run without anti aliasing and some settings reduced.#
Pricing should be around the £75 inc vat point, although at time of publication it is not yet available in the UK.
Pros:
- no power connectors needed.
- tiny power demand, ideal for a media center or server environment.
- produces little heat.
- almost silent for media duties.
- can handle most game engines at high definition resolutions.
- low profile, single slot cooler.
Cons:
- not ideal for heavy duty gaming demands
- not passively cooled, so always a little noise.
- higher resolutions demand the removal of Anti aliasing with some game engines.
- Sapphires ‘Ultimate Edition' cards are totally silent, this isn't.
Kitguru says: A great low cost, low profile card for highest quality images when connected to a 720p or 1080p high definition television
Another good card from the Sapphire team. Id like a new media center, just have never gotten around to building one.
The fan on that card must spin very slow cause its tiny and the noise levels seem very good.
If I was building a media center id opt for a passive card, like their ultimate series.
Shame they couldnt engineer it to be passive and low profile/single slot. Would have made a nice deal indeed.
Been waiting for a good review of this, thanks.
Fascinated with the power drain, 8 watts is very tempting. I wonder would it be possible to use another heatsink on the card for completely passive cooling without taking up much more space? I have a completely silent media center with an underclocked 2500 processor, undervolted. This would be ideal, but I dont want a fan in it. my case is small so the ultaimte cards dont work
Here is a score more realistic for a low profile htpc, A c2d E4700, DDR2 800Mhz 4Gb. I have never seen a low profile htpc / light lanbox with a i7 EE.
Min: 5.7
Max: 31.0
Avg: 14.8
Score: 372
Hi Nian,
I agree, but it is possible and a lot of people are doing it, Why? When combined with a decent graphics card the audience can also play all the latest games with high IQ at 1080p – as well as doubling up as a media center. Some of our audience are also performance freaks who just want the fastest possible system.
http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/zardon/building-a-core-i7-htpc-with-sapphire-mini-itx-h67/
I hate the anti spam box…. the refresh from an incorrect entry clears a comment. Ack.
Anyway I know there are speed freaks with high end lanbox/htpc systems that use i7, but its rare for them to ever use low profile cases, thats almost exclusively for those people who bought a budget pc or went for a very small case for the most basic of stuff. Many people would love to know how it performs on a low to mid level cpu and a <300watt psu.
I forgot to say that bench was for Unigine at 1680×1050 same settings as what you used. I have benched the hell out of this card and it is only ever a minor few fps worse than your own benchmarks with the i7.
We normally test graphics cards with the same system so they are interchangeable, although driver updates can change performance a little over time.
Your results are close because the card isnt that powerful and fps scores will be gpu limited, not cpu limited.
If you lose a comment in reply, dont hit refresh, press ‘back’.
Oh I understand why you reviewed the card in the system you have, its your standard test box and the best way to compare it to other cards.The thing tho is Its an unusual card released for a specific market, It wouldn’t have been a bad thing to include a couple of benchmarks showing what it can realistically do with low end systems that the card was targeted for. Still, I am thankful for your review, only two sites bothered and that’s a shame.
By the way, don’t you think its temperatures are alarming for such a small gpu? I am quite surprised how hot it gets, certainly a bother in such a space constrained low profile case.
Oh and yes the back button still wipes the comment if I enter the antispam incorrectly. (On Firefox atleast)
Hi nian, what case do you use?
Its actually an old Acer office pc. Picked it up for a htpc cheap, decided to play with it. The cooling is not the best but its hitting the same temps your review hit. I wouldn’t have expected under load to hit 80c like it does.
Hi Nian. Thanks. Yeah, the temperatures aren’t quite as low as maybe some people would expect. I had a few emails about it also.