GeForce GTX 670 2 GB Review: Is It Already Time To Forget GTX 680?

[10tacle]

Two weeks ago one of my SLI 570s died. I should have waited instead of plunking down $520 for a SC EVGA 680 (and spending hours tapping F5 on the Egg). I knew the 670 would be closer in performance than the 470 to the 480 or the 570 to the 580. But not THIS close. Wow.

Not only that, but these friggin' things are IN STOCK which was the last thing I expected. Not that I'm disappointed in the 680 mind you, but I would have preferred to have saved $100 with this card for over 95%+ of the performance (and equal to or better when OC'd) and $200 ultimately on an SLI setup.

 

[xtreme5]

incredible mannn !! Nvidia love uuuuu... Keep it up..

 

[A Bad Day]

Well, it looks like one of my friends might buy a 7950 if the 670 has the same supply problem as the 680 or 690. Kinda gets annoying when you have to keep hitting refresh and try to be the first one to buy one, only to get one-upped by someone who simply lived closer to the server.

 

[Why_Me]

Well, it looks like one of my friends might buy a 7950 if the 670 has the same supply problem as the 680 or 690. Kinda gets annoying when you have to keep hitting refresh and try to be the first one to buy one, only to get one-upped by someone who simply lived closer to the server.

The key to beating that is don't follow the sheep to the same site to purchase that card.

 

[Mocs123]

Can u run 3 monitors off of one card with the 670 like you can off the AMD cards? I don't mean eyefinity but can I surf with 3 monitors running or game on one with the other two on the desktop? My GTX 460's will only run two monitors.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

[citation][nom]sarinaide[/nom]Thats rather naive, at the time when the 7970 was out the GTX 580 was the alpha card to beat and it cost $550, The HD 7970 smoked it in every regard, AMD had entitlement to putting the rate that high as it was the better card. .[/citation]

The 580 and the 7970 had identical "cost per frame" figures so don't really understand the "smoking" conclusion. But if ya gonna talk about "smokin", two 900 Mhz 560 Ti's (862 fps in Guru3D Game test Suite) in SLI toasted the 580 (616 fps) for $90 less and the 7970 (675 fps) for $140 less ... that's why they sold more 560 Ti's than all the 6850's, 6870's, 650's and 6970's put together [Source Steam Hardware Survey Feb 2012]. Buying the premium card will never be the "bang for the buck" choice on a single monitor ...two middle mainstream cards will always deliver significantly more performance. In SLI, the 580 delivered just 10% more performance... Can't list 7870's CF numbers cause many of the games wouldn't run in CF or had negative scaling.

The last two generations of GFX cards produced the same result....under $200 AMD had the better performance and cost per frame and above $200 was nVidia's world. It would appear that nothing has changed on the high end ..... my guess is AMD will rule the low end (< $150) again this time around but the middle ($250 - $350) is till up for grabs.

 

[boletus]

Bring on the competition, and about time, I say. Maybe soon there will be a compelling reason to upgrade my 5850 at the sub $250 price point. Personally, I just can't justify spending ~$300 for just a bit more eye candy or an extra 5 fps. Besides, for those not using multiple displays or giant monitors, there are not many games that need the extra horsepower that $400+ gets you. Once Sony and MS get off their lazy butts and put out their next toys, then we may see more games that can use these *expensive* products.

Of course, it's a matter of perspective; if I needed to dispose of a pile of Benjamins that were cluttering up the house, a couple of these cards would be an interesting diversion until the 690s are more available. And hey, those that can afford the monster rigs are the only thing that keeps this technology moving forward at the rate it does, so yeah, go buy one (or two or three) if you have that excess Benjamins problem.

 

[slomo4sho]

That's all fine but when can we expect Nvidia to topple the AMD choke of the sub-200 market?

 

[horaciopz]

Nvidia is striking back like a bersker troll in wow lol ! Dude those benchs makes a most expensive 7970 cry! AMD gotta do something, lower pricing will just let Nvidia stay on top end GPUs alone, which is good and bad at the same time. But well I'd like to know now what the GTX660ti or 650ti will be, if nvidia is taking it crown as the best top end market would be great having a powerfull card from 250$ at the speed of a 7950 or a card withing 160$ smashing any 7800 series.... AMD you gotta do something, SOMETHING! lol

 

[clindman]

great article! well-written, enjoyable to read, and easy to understand. hit all the salient points. i wish i had the money for a high-end card. someday...

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]godfather666[/nom]The list of games is very unfair to AMD cards. Techpowerup's review, which featured a much longer list of games, had the Radeon HD 7970 faster than the GTX 670 at all resolutions 1080p and higher.Nvidia has had a big lead in Dirt 3 and WoW for a very long time. This skews the results.The GTX 670 is a fantastic card, don't get me wrong. Just pointing out that it's being slightly overrated here.[/citation]
Then please feel free to offer some suggestions on others!

 

[randomkid]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]Please feel free to suggest games you'd like to see added! I've been running this collection of what I consider to be pretty-popular titles, but am always happy to add more, time permitting. Getting this piece finished in time was hard enough after the requests to re-run all of the cards using the latest drivers in the GTX 690 story, but we did what we could to address that one. As mentioned, though, the German team does use a different suite on the charts with a more spread-out emphasis that includes older titles, too.[/citation]
You can save time by omitting those 1680x1050 benches. After all, which enthusiast who looks at $400 cards will play at this low resolution? 5760x1080 should be the norm at these card levels to show how single cards like this will play in triple monitors.

 

[tomfreak]

such a broken review? no SLI 670 vs GTX690? common on....thats $200 bucks saving there if the performance is about the same.

 

[wayneepalmer]

Given the capability here ... and I know its apples and oranges ... I'm trying to figure out why the corporates are shelling out a couple thousand dollars for a Tesla card - that can only display one monitor. I looked at the Tesla specs - its core is the 448 version of the 560ti attached to 6gb of Ram with ONE DVI out.

A couple of these in SLI should be able to match any capabilities of that for a whole lot less. Somebody please explain.

 

[blazorthon]

Given the capability here ... and I know its apples and oranges ... I'm trying to figure out why the corporates are shelling out a couple thousand dollars for a Tesla card - that can only display one monitor. I looked at the Tesla specs - its core is the 448 version of the 560ti attached to 6gb of Ram with ONE DVI out.

A couple of these in SLI should be able to match any capabilities of that for a whole lot less. Somebody please explain.

The Tesla is a compute card, not a gaming card.

 

[dalauder]

Anyone notice the GTX 580 is bringing up the rear on this list? And we still are using Metro 2033 from early 2010 for benchmarks.

I'm gonna stick with my GTX 570 until developers make more than 3 games that it can't max out.

 

[Timendo]

Told all my friends and my brother to wait for the 670, glad I was correct in this
Only 50 bucks off my guess I was hoping for a 350$ MSRP

 

[Why_Me]

AMD is going to be in a world of hurt when the 660 ti is released. That's going to crunch the 7870 and the 7850.

 

[jaquith]

Hmm...noticed something weird, EVGA atleast on their box says 'their' GTX 670's can 4-WAY SLI?!

EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW - http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=02G-P4-2678-KR
EVGA GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked - http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=02G-P4-2672-KR
EVGA GeForce GTX 670 - http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=02G-P4-2670-KR

Previously I said:

Nvidia is limiting its GTX 670s to three-way SLI

Ditto on the GTX 570 so no surprises there.

nVidia says 3-WAY SLI - http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-670/specifications

SLI Options * 3-WAY
* - A GeForce GTX 670 GPU must be paired with another GeForce GTX 670 GPU (graphics card manufacturer can be different). SLI requires sufficient system cooling and a compatible power supply. See the list of SLI-Certified components for more information.

So what gives?! Is EVGA 'special' or have they pooched all of their boxes not to mention aggravating forks who ordered 4?!

 

[cangelini]

Hard to say--the 3-way limitation is a quote straight from Nvidia. I'll ask!

 

[jaquith]

Also noted the following on EVGA's site (from an email) - http://www.evga.com/articles/00678/

"1 GeForce GTX 670 supports PCI Express 3.0. It operates properly within the SIG PCI Express Specification and has been validated on multiple upcoming PCI Express 3.0 platforms. Some motherboard manufacturers have released updated SBIOS to enable the Intel X79/SNB-E PCI Express 2.0 platform to run at up to 8GT/s bus speeds. NVIDIA is currently working to validate X79/SNB-E with GTX 670 at these speeds with the goal of enabling 8GT/s via a future software update. Until this validation is complete, the GTX 670 will operate at PCIE 2.0 speeds on X79/SNB-E-based motherboards with the latest web drivers."

So I assume since you 'can' force the SB-E to run PCIe 3.0 on nVidia, the likelihood is strong that it "should" be validated...an ass-u-me thing.

 

[monsta]

What a great card, great performance at a good price.

 

[RyQril]

awesome card for 100$ less than 680, i think am gonna wait for the GK-110

 

[_Pez_]

they just finished killing the HD7970 by price and performance. I wonder what's the next move on AMD side ? now being mediocre with Gaming Graphics ?

 

[Guest]

when will the real GTX 680 aka GK110 appear???!!!