GTX 670 EVGA, ASUS, or Other?

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Maplehamwich

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 14, 2011
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Hey Everyone,

I've decided I'm going to drop some money on a 670. I will be buying online from Newegg.ca, Tigerdirect.ca, NCIX.ca or locally from Memoryexpress.com (have stores in my town, website for price reference.)

I had my heart set on an ASUS Direct CU II TOP card, but Memory Express sold out.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39497

On top of that, I've been reading around and it seems the ASUS cards suffer from luck of the draw syndrome. So I started looking at other cards and found that in benches, the EVGA FTW actually goes toe to toe with the TOP.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/40613-evga-geforce-gtx-670-ftw/
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Add to that, at Memory Express the EVGA can be had for $419 after rebate and I am very tempted to go pick one up.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39671

Granted, there is a price premium on the ASUS DCU2TOP for the higher clock and back plate. However, I don't much care if the card has a back plate, and the EVGA seems to generally be within 4 frames of the ASUS.

What do you all think? Should I go for the EVGA, wait for the ASUS to return to stock (who knows when?) or go for another card all together? I'm looking for a 670 that will give me the highest stock clocks (not likely to overclock anytime soon) for the lowest price.
 
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Overclocks are always luck of the draw. The backplate is pretty meaningless. I'd go for whatever is in stock. :)
 
I have had bad experiences more than once with factory overclocked cards.

You have to ask yourself, are these factory OC'd cards , clocked beyond something that you couldn't achieve yourself? If not then whats the point in getting them.....
 
Well, I won't be overlocking it anytime soon. I may do so down the road, but for now I'm hoping to pay a little premium to get a stock overclock.

Here are my rankings clock-price wise.

Name Core / Memory / Price

Asus GTX 670 DCU2T 1058-1137mhz / 6008mhz / $459.99

EVGA GTX 670 FTW 1006-1048mhz / 6208mhz / $429.99 ($10MIR = $419.99)

Gigabyte GTX 670 OC 980-1058mhz / 6008mhz / $424.99

Asus GTX 670 DCU2 915-980mhz / 6008mhz / $449.99 (Cooler would be nice for down the road OCing)

EVGA GTX 670 915-980mhz / 6008mhz / $399.99
 
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It is indeed. Though the memory overlock on the EVGA seems to increase the effectiveness of it's slightly lower core overclock.

Turns out the M.E. location I could get to today won't have the EVGA FTW or ASUS DCU2T in stock for the next few days. So the ASUS DCU2 is an option as well, as it has the cooler that I could use to overclock... or I could wait a few days and see what comes in stock.

I'll have to see if I can find literature comparing the Gigabyte cooler to the Asus cooler.

-edit-
I've never had either cooler before, but it seems most things say the Asus DCU2 cooler has better build quality and better performance noise wise and temperature wise. I guess I'll now go read around to see if people with DCU2s are reaching DCU2T overlocks. Initial signs point to the DCU2Ts being "higher binned" than the non Tops. Though the EVGA FTWs apparently being high binned. And then again, some say "binning" is basically made up with these two manufacturers... So then it's up to the 680 blower cooler on the EVGA, or the ASUS DCU2 cooler...
 
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I ended up buying the ASUS DCU2 Non-Top. I figured the Tops are out of stock all over, or way over priced and with the Asus cooler and pcb I think I'll have better overclock possibilities for later.
 
Maplehamwich said:
I ended up buying the ASUS DCU2 Non-Top. I figured the Tops are out of stock all over, or way over priced and with the Asus cooler and pcb I think I'll have better overclock possibilities for later.
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You made the right choice. I've been quite satisfied with the noise levels.
 
I'm so happy with this card. Just installed it. Haven't even over clocked and the experience is soo much better than with my AMD Radeon 6870. Through and through the experience is better. Amazing.

-edit-

Not over clocked, I am getting GPU Boost speeds around 1200mhz.
 
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Yeah, they're nice cards, I was really impressed with the build quality on them.
 
Highly recommend a TIM replacement on 670 DCU2s. That stuff was caked on and dropped my temps enough that my cards don't hit the throttle threshold any more. Also, it was rediculously easy. 4 small phillips screws and you're in.
 
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