NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Video Card Review @ [H]

Wow. Nice card. Totally destroys the 7950 at the same (or lower) price point.

Nice review as always.
 
XamediX said:
The next question to ask yourself is this: In a year or two wouldnt you be looking to buy the latest and greatest anyway? What is the average amount of time you keep your GPU's between upgrades? When you get that answer, I think the decision will be made easier for you.
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Indeed, sir. I ended up with a 2GB ...

Just off my personal experience, I find their support for GPU's lacking. I had a less than pleasant experience dealing with a SuperClocked 560ti that keep crashing due to low volltage settings (stock). It took a great effort from the community for me to even find a fix. The fix for me ended up downloading MSI Afterburner to manually change the voltage settings.
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... Gigabyte OC. :rolleyes: Yours isn't the first RMA/tech support nightmare I've read of, involving Gigabyte. To be fair, one can find such stories involving all the major board partners. I guess I'm rolling the dice!
 
Man I wish I had waited for these.. Would look killer with water blocks lol Look like little water cooled sound cards :) Guess I'll just pick up anoughter 7970 when they drop the prices again on them damn it.
 
Particleman said:
Although it is quiet, I have a Lian Li A05B, and the case ventilation is not the best on those cases. I much prefer my video cards to vent the hot air out the back.
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Same here, got the PC-V354 and I think external exhaust are a must. When the 560Ti came out I was ready to buy, but not a single company made one with EE.

I would have more than enough with a 660Ti and 300$ but looks like they are 6 months away so I may just plunder 100$ more and go with a 670.
 
mekkanic said:
Did you have to adjust your fan speed to get 60c?
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Yes, unfortunately, I need 85% fan on my MSI ref 680 to keep the card around 60C. I can hear that if I am not wearing headphones, but I wear them often so it is not a big deal.
 
Wow this is an excellent read. This review is good for readers such as myself who do not upgrade every cycle. Currently, I am still running a 5870. When I saw the 6000 series, I was not interested in the upgrade. 7000 was the same feeling. This review on 670 is appealing to me. I would seriously think about returning to the green team for this card. The $400 price tag is a bit much but maybe in a few months we will see a drop in price from a price war between ATI and Nvidia. I will think of snagging one then. Afterall, I do not game as much as I use to.
 
Fixed, thanks for the extra eyes. - Kyle

This looks like a nice card. I haven't gone with NVIDIA since ... GeForce 3/ATI 9700Pro wars. It looks like I may just make the switch. I'm looking to upgrade my monitor next month to a much higher resolution, and my current video card would catch on fire and die with it (ATI 3850?). This is a little out of my budget, but I feel that if I spend more now, it will last me quite a long time (a couple years) before requiring another upgrade. And, I'll be happy out of the box, rather than wanting more and bitching that I should have bought the better one.

Another great review from [H]. I like ATI, but lately, I've been wanting to see what the competition brings. They brought something that is better at a price I can afford (I'd like the 690, but I doubt I could explain that to my wife...).
 
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Rhialto said:
Same here, got the PC-V354 and I think external exhaust are a must. When the 560Ti came out I was ready to buy, but not a single company made one with EE.
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Hmm. So the Gigabyte takes in air through the top and vents out the side? I wonder if a side exhaust is warranted, especially for SLI? I have a 200mm side intake atm.

EDIT: Nevermind me. I'll start a new thread on the subject in the Cooling forum ...
 
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BTW: Are there any hardcore FSX gamers here? Anyone use a crapload of textures and scenery add-on's? I'm curious as to how it handles extra VRAM... I'm real interested in seeing it in 2560x1600 resolution. It's gotta be beautiful.

I can probably assume that the FPS would be playable, as it has been pretty good with an older card at 1920x1080 with a lot of add-on's.
 
I think you should be fine with a Corsair 500R, that case has venting all over the place. It has side grills, a front grill with fans and a top grill fans. If you look at the Lian Li A05NB, they went for style over functionality, it looks great with the brushed aluminum in the front, side and top, but there is very little venting. I bought it because it was the smallest case I could find that supported a full ATX motherboard, and I do like its sleek looks as well, but it does limit me to Video Cards that vent out the back especially since I always go SLi.

Deeky said:
Hmm. So the Gigabyte takes in air through the top and vents out the side? I wonder if a side exhaust is warranted, especially for SLI? I have a 200mm side intake atm.
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Are these in stock anywhere yet? I have 7 days to return my Gigabyte WF3 7950. Even though with my OC, im getting 680 speeds, I tend to get some stuttering in some games I play (NBA2k12, and skyrim) in certain areas even though it's showing a solid 60 fps. I would RMA refund and buy a 670 immediately or maybe sell it on the forsale board for a decent price. Anyone have the scoop on availability?
 
NickJames posted a couple of charts, but not the one I wanted to see, so I made one up. The review, as always was excellent, but to play devil's advocate for a minute I wanted to point something out.

The review, even in the overclock session, is using the numbers from a stock reference HD7950. Granted, this is a reference GTX670, but we all know the HD7950 is massively underclocked in order to avoid it competing with the HD7970.

With this in mind, I went and compared numbers from the closest clocked HD7950 review I could find on [H] and that is the XFX Black Edition HD7950. This card is clocked at 900 core and 5.5 memory which is as close as we can get to the same clock for clock performance on the GTX670. The overclocked portion is as close as we can get too, from reviews on this site.

670vs7950ApplestoApples.png
[/IMG]

Bear in mind that in the Battlefield 3 results, [H] used 2X MSAA on the XFX BE HD7950 and they didn't on the GTX670 review.
 
Particleman said:
I think you should be fine with a Corsair 500R, that case has venting all over the place. It has side grills, a front grill with fans and a top grill fans. If you look at the Lian Li A05NB, they went for style over functionality, it looks great with the brushed aluminum in the front, side and top, but there is very little venting. I bought it because it was the smallest case I could find that supported a full ATX motherboard, and I do like its sleek looks as well, but it does limit me to Video Cards that vent out the back especially since I always go SLi.
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That's my hope. I'm thinking maybe 200mm side exhaust the vent the GPU heat, turn rear fan to intake, add a new intake to the bottom mount.

I've posted my setup in more detail in a separate thread should anyone have additional input.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1692363

Lian Li are absolutely the most gorgeous cases around, btw.
 
heatthegreat said:
Are these in stock anywhere yet? I have 7 days to return my Gigabyte WF3 7950. Even though with my OC, im getting 680 speeds, I tend to get some stuttering in some games I play (NBA2k12, and skyrim) in certain areas even though it's showing a solid 60 fps. I would RMA refund and buy a 670 immediately or maybe sell it on the forsale board for a decent price. Anyone have the scoop on availability?
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Return it and get the 670 they are in stock at Amazon and Newegg, and appear to be in abundant stock. The EVGA superclocked edition has been in stock on EVGA's webite for 3 hours now, so the stock at least appears healthy at the moment.
 
Thanks for review..

My new GPU until gtx 680 Lightning comes out. Very nice perf. and everything.. DC2 is great GPU, dual slot, sam perf as 680, great temps and no noise..

Waiting was very good move for gamers, 7970 was 550$ and it will have to go close to 400$..
 
Robstar said:
I dual boot as I do work in Linux. I haven't yet had an Nvidia card that can do 3+ monitors without xinerama. Anyone know if this will? If so this might be worth it for me....On a 6850 now...
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The problem is in Xinerama and the Nvidia drivers not the card itself. You can do 3 screens with Xinerama but you will give up 3d acceleration. The best dual monitor functionality for Nvidia under linux is using Twinview which I believe somehow uses or emulates Xinerama's features but only for you screens.
 
It seems I can finally shut my mouth about the price of the GTX680.

I could still argue that $399 is the price the 680 should be, but the GTX 670 more than fits the bill.

Rant is over.
 
So pretty much same results as 7970 vs 680. AMD underclocking hurts them at stock clocks but at same clock and max OC's they trade blows. Very nice card and price though. Would like to see a more comprehensive review of OC 670 vs 6950 OC.
 
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Love how tiny this card yet the performance that can be gotten out of it! :eek: :D Hope this continues to be a trend in future cards.

Too bad it's "still" $400. Its size made me wanted to think it was cheaper :(
 
I saw other reviews comparing this to the 7970 and it was almost identical performancewise...yet $100 less.

I guess ati will have a hard time with this.
 
The 600 series is definitely shaping up to be the best from nVidia since the 8800. Now if nVidia can get supply going AMD will be forced to lower prices. Looking to put a 670 in my backup rig once I sell my spare 480 and 580.
 
Cruiza said:
WTB Radeon 7950 for $300 PST
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You should be able to get a 7970 for that price. If AMD wants to sell any more 7970s they will need to drop the 7970 to at least $350, which means a used one will be far less than that.
 
Well I fixed the stuttering problem in skyrim and nba 2k12, my question is, is it worth it for me to switch? Like I said, I'm at 680 speeds with my OC (1150/1650) and I only paid $415 for my 7950 and I'm only at 50% fan which is quiet. I don't want to lose performance and go through an RMA process just to get the same speeds. Anyone chime in? I guess I need some convincing lol.
 
Not been keeping up with this latest batch o' cards. Got a 1 GB Radeon 5870 on a 1920x1200 monitor. Been debating moving up to something with more speed/power/features. Would this GTX 670 be a bit of overkill? Running on a i7 920.
 
Beakerman said:
Agreed, these current gen cards still too expensive. Give us a kick ass card for $250-$300, they'd sell millions!
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I'm in the same boat. I'm bout to send [H] some money so they can run some tests using my old 560TI card so I can see how it compares under their testing environment.

One thing I will mention is that Nvidia's adaptive v-synch tech is a deal clincher for me and why I don't see myself going ATI anytime soon. That has solved almost every stuttering issue I had with games.


ir0nw0lf said:
Not been keeping up with this latest batch o' cards. Got a 1 GB Radeon 5870 on a 1920x1200 monitor. Been debating moving up to something with more speed/power/features. Would this GTX 670 be a bit of overkill? Running on a i7 920.
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I would say it would future proof you for awhile. Maybe guaranteeing maximum AA levels in upcoming games. How long ago did you purchase the 5870?
 
Holy shit that's a fast non-flagship GPU!

Come Black Friday/Christmas, I'll probably get one. Or two. :D
 
BBA said:
I saw other reviews comparing this to the 7970 and it was almost identical performancewise...yet $100 less.

I guess AMD will have a hard time with this.
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Fixed that for you. ;)

AMD shareholders are not going to be happy about this. Two price drops on the 7000 series in a single quarter? That is going to cut into their profit margins for sure. Assuming nVidia doesn't have a problem with stock in the long run of course. AMD will probably have to release some sort of GHz edition of their cards but with both cards having similar overclocking capabilities I wonder if that really is going to help their bottom line. The 8000 series might have to come sooner rather than later :p.
 
Thanks for the review [H], I knew it would be up when I got to work.

NickJames said:
New chart including stock. (All numbers taken from [H] reviews)

11tl7d2.png


Skyrim gives some wacky results.
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Outstanding chart Nick, thanks. However as I was reading through the comments, I couldn't help but to wonder what were the game settings for those comparisons. [H] doesn't just use the same settings for every card, they find the highest playable. (nvm Skyrim and Dues though :))

In short, it is easier for me to ask you instead of verifying it all :)


Phrogman said:
NickJames posted a couple of charts, but not the one I wanted to see, so I made one up. The review, as always was excellent, but to play devil's advocate for a minute I wanted to point something out.

Bear in mind that in the Battlefield 3 results, [H] used 2X MSAA on the XFX BE HD7950 and they didn't on the GTX670 review.
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Here's what I'm saying. Thanks for your chart also Phrogman.


Looks like Kyle eluded to a 670 vs 680 showdown coming, so we can have that same system testing that we're accustomed to. In the meantime, thanks again for the charts.
 
Godmachine said:
That is MIGHTY impressive. I was going to get 2 GTX 680's when they went down in a price a bit but I think I'll just skip that and grab some 670's and overclock the shit out of them.

Are there any water cooling blocks for the 600 series cards yet?
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Watercool & Aquacomputer have had blocks out for a while. The other vendors do as well, but they're the same relative price and there's no point in going for lower quality.
 
JohnleMVP said:
I'd like to see a comparison to the 680.
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Yeah, this product seems to cannibalize nVidia's 680 line. The 670 pricing is pretty good at $400 considering the current market conditions, and performance difference between it and the 680 is just not that big from what I read around so far - maybe around ten percent or so, give or take. That's certainly not big enough to justify a $100 premium imho.

Good show.
 
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So the real question here is will people be distracted by the 670 long enough so the 690 doesn't go out of stock instantly? Still on my quest for getting a GTX 690.
 
Considering the GTX 690 uses the same chips, with the same capabilities, as the GTX 680, probably not.
 
I would still wait for price drops as many of these cards are way too expensive. My AMD 6870 did not cost me $400. Its an upper mid range card and should not be over $250 for these cards.
 
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