Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate 512MB Passive Video Card Review

Passive Cooling in an Extreme Environment

Some of you may be wondering: what is extremely passive cooling? Well, for these tests we put the card in a closed case with very little internal airflow.


The case is a GMC Toast which has horrible airflow characteristics to begin with but we kicked things up a notch by installing a pair of Zalman 80mm rear exhaust fans with resistors attached which means they are running at a mere 800RPMs. In addition, there is no front intake fan. We then let the CPU (an AMD 5200+) and GPU work at full load (Prime 95 for the CPU and 3DMark Batch Size Test for the GPU) for an hour with the side panel closed and hope to God nothing fries itself.


To Sapphire’s credit, we received a whole reviewer’s kit explaining the proper enclosure environment needed to test this card’s passive cooling features but for our test here, it proved pointless. I really wanted to install the Ultimate into an enclosure that highlighted a worst case scenario and my girlfriend’s compact ATX case provided the perfect opportinity. Indeed, whether Sapphire likes it or not, the majority of HTPC cases their HD 4670 Ultimate will be installed into will have absolutely horrid internal airflow which can spell a quick death for any passively cooled GPU.

Personally, I thought that this test would be the straw that broke the camel’s back considering the ambient room temperature was pegged at 25 degrees Celsius but I was wrong. Even though the delta between the open test bench temperatures and these results was extreme for the passively cooled Ultimate, it still managed to edge out the reference card. This result is absolutely incredible and shows how well the diminutive heatsink on this card works in a low airflow environment. Great job Sapphire.