After much anticipation and countless rumors, the Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro and its graphics subsidiary, ATI, have finally unleashed the latest addition to the Radeon graphics cards, with the new ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series. Designed to provide an impressive graphics quality for mainstream desktop computer users, the newly announced cards will be available in two flavors, namely HD 4670 and HD 4650. Either of these has been build taking advantage of the company's successful technology featured on its HD 4800-series, which was released earlier this year.

 

With AMD having claimed the performance crown from NVIDIA, it also had a chance to work on its new graphics chips targeted at the mainstream market, which, until now, was the main “battlefield” where the company would compete with Santa Clara-based rival NVIDIA. Now that AMD has finally introduced its latest Radeon graphics cards, it can deliver a new level of graphics performance, with two products specifically designed for gamers on a budget.

 

“Today, AMD is providing mainstream users – one of the largest segments of the market – with superior graphics products and performance at previously unheard of prices,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “The success of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series validates that AMD’s shift away from the traditional means of producing large, hot, monolithic graphics chip continues to be a successful strategy AMD continues to execute against its timelines and deliver leading graphics performance at every price point.” Bergman added.

 

The new ATI Radeon HD 4670 and ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards feature the company's TeraScale graphics engine, and deliver 320 stream processing cores, based on AMD's advanced second-generation 55nm process technology. The cards ensure a minimum power draw, with the Radeon HD 4670 capable of working at under 60W, while the HD 4650 card operates at 50W under full load.

 

The new HD 4670, equipped with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, is available immediately with an MSRP of US$79, while the 1GB model will go on sale later this month. The other new Radeon graphics card, the HD 4650, comes with 512MB of GDDR2, and will also become available later this month, for an estimated retail price of US$69.