Best HD 6670 to pair with a AMD A8

[Juggernaut321]

Hello everyone.
I bought a HP Pavilion p7-1174 Desktop PC from Best Buy for $343 after using some of my Best Buy reward Zone points. I want to upgrade to dual graphics, so I know I will be looking at a HD 6670 card. I've looked all over the internet to try to find in peoples opinon on which 6670 is the best one. Can't find that, keep coming up with fixes. I been looking for a few weeks now and seem to be liking the XFX or Sapphire cards. I don't need the best graphics on the block. I will be playing Blu Rays with this PC and playing games from time to time. It dosent need to be able to play the latest games on max setting. I have this PC hooked up to my 1080p 50" Samsung HDTV.

Specs:
ATX Case Hight-15.55 inches, With-6.89 inches, Depth-16.4 inches.
Motherboard: Pegatron AAHD3-HB
Power Supply: Currenly stock 300 Watt. (Ordered XFX Core Edition PRO550W, will be here soon, got it for $55 after rebate)
Processor: AMD A8-3800 (Down the line will upgrade to 3850 unlocked, when the system feels old in a year or so.)
Memory: 8GB G.Skill Ripjaw PC3 12800 1600 Ram. (This was a upgrade from the stock Ram. Can go as high as PC3 14400.)
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Black as main, upgraded from stock 1.5 TB WD Caviar Green, now a backup HD.
External WD My Book 1TB hard drive.
ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM is on order.
Built-in High Definition 7.1 channel Beats audio.

So whats the best 6670 to pair up with this A8 to do dual graphics?

 

[jessterman21]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102935

This one has 1GB GDDR5 and is extremely cool and quiet.

I had the Sapphire HD 5670 for a while - same PCB and cooler. It was amazing.

 

[Juggernaut321]

Now correct me if i'm wrong. Scince the onboard APU's GPU uses DDR3 ram (512MB). If I install a gfx card that uses GDDR5 ram, wont the GDDR5 just dummy down to DDR3 ram to match the onboard GPU's DDR3 ram?

 

[jessterman21]

The onboard GPU does not have dedicated RAM - it uses your system's DDR3 RAM. The HD 6670 uses its own RAM, and Hybrid CrossfireX will use the faster GDDR5 RAM. It's like having two GPU chips on your HD 6670. Should give you a good boost, and HD 6770-like performance.

 

[refillable]

DDR3 system memory which the onboard graphics use as graphics memory, it does not matter when paired with GDDR5. Because The onboard graphics will only use the GDDR5. Here is a nice 6670 I recommend:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121442

 

[Juggernaut321]

Thank you guys for clearing up my confusion with the memory. I Got my XFX 550w PSU today. I think after all the searching I been doing I think I am going to pop on the XFX HD-667X-ZWF4. They have it for $69.99 after rebates at CompUSA.com. I can't find any info on any 6670 card as to weather it will work in dual graphics mode with my AMD A8. Guess I just have to try. Any know for sure if it will work in dual graphics mode with my A8 APU?

 

[jessterman21]

Yes - that's the hybrid crossfirex I referred to.

 

[refillable]

Wait, in HP's site they said:

*Integrated video is not available if a graphics card is installed.
Radeon HD 6370D, 6410D, 6530D or 6550D Graphics (model dependent based on processor)
Supports PCI Express x16 graphics cards
Two DVI-D ports (Both ports can be used at the same time)

I don't think it's going to work really, because they stated that the it's not going to work with you, sorry for this really, but maybe HP did a mistake, you may try HP support anyway. You can however replace the motherboard if it's not supported:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128517

 

[Juggernaut321]

Vary interesting. Thank you for that find. I will contact hp and see if what I am trying to do will work or not. It I can't do dual then I may just go back to looking into the 6870 cards. Kind of hurts buying a new motherboard on such a new pc. When I do buy a new motherboard I will prob go with pci 3.0 and move out of the APU line of processors.