[First Review] AMD Radeon HD 3450 128MB
Features of RV620
architecture of RV620
RV620’s architecture is almost the same with RV610. The core supports Unified Shader Architecture, integrated with 40 Streaming Processors, one texture Unit(8 Texture Address Unit and 4 Texture Filter Unit bulit inside) and one Render Back-End. Because of the entry/HTPC market doesn’t need intense GPU performance so the GPU only supports 64bit memory interface, can equip GDDR2 and GDDR3 memory chips.
key features of HD 3400 series
New Feature: 55nm process technology
The new process technology is not only can shrink the GPU die, but also can lower the production cost, power consumption an TDP. In other aspect, the new process tech can higher the limit of the working frequency and raise the performance. For example the default RV610 Pro is clocked at 525MHz, and RV620 LE becomes 600MHz.
New Feature: DX 10.1/SM 4.1
AMD’s DirectX 10.1 demo
DircetX 10.1 is an incremental update of Direct3D 10.0, NVIDIA said it is not important and won’t support this feature even in the upcoming GeForce 9 series. The feature is useless for now, but after Vista updated to SP1, we may see the feature’s actual performance.
RV620 new feature: PCI Express 2.0
The same with other cards of HD 3000 series, RV620 supports PCI 2.0 standard. PCIe 2.0 providing more than 300W
power to vga cards, and dual bandwidth for PCIe slots(from PCIe 1.1’s 2.5bps boost to 5Gbps.)
But RV620 is not a performance-intensive card so even a PCIe 1.0 won’t be bottle-necked.
RV620 new feature: integrated DisplayPort output
AMD think HD video playback should be the biggest feature beside gaming of the future’s VGA cards. So HD 2000 series can output HDMI signal directly from GPU.
In RV620 and RV635 AMD also did the same thing. GPU outputs DisplayPort signal directly, no need for extra convert chips. That’s a good news for HTPC lovers: Some of them think an extra chip will weaken the signal.
Radeon HD 3470 have dual DVI, D-SUB and Video-in slots. It also can provide HDMI and DisplayPort for advance users. The new HD 3400 series DVI to HDMI converter doesn’t capable with Radeon HD2900XT、2600、2400 VGA card.
According to AMD, only RV620 B403 version supports DisplayPort.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Great card for HTPC and great review from expreview pointing out everything worth pointing as always. ATI seems to be on the right track! Also i hear that the new R700 will be more than 50% faster than todays cores so i guess ATI will manage to kick harder nvidias butt this year, like the arrogant bastards deserve.700USD for the 9800GX2? Get the hell out of the industry you stupid jerks!
January 16th, 2008 at 3:38 am
@psolord: excellent post
January 16th, 2008 at 9:27 am
RV620 Very worthwhile choice…..
January 16th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
hey PSOlord, no flame, please.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Sorry jeff. I will restrain myself next time (at least i will try
). But generally in forums, flaming against companies is allowed but not against persons or other posters. These guys at nvidia are funny, really. Thats what happens when you keep your nose up. Give people the half baked gt at 200euros but when serious performance comes into play go ahead and chop their heads off. I wonder how much they will ask for the GT200. I will curse at ATI too if they start taking their prices sky high.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Plz…someone…try hybrid SLI / crossfire?
Good job to use low end CPU to test cpu usage!
Please try the AGP version with lowest prosesor, like pentium III or Via to show how great the UVD and pure Video HD.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:18 am
@Hok,
be patient， both of the driver is not done yet.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:34 am
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