EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW SIG2 Pro Reviews

For around £340 (about AU$535, US$515), you can pick up Sapphire's HD 7970 GHz Vapor-X, which will beat the overclocked GTX 670s pretty much across the board. They're a bit more power-hungry than Nvidia cards, but for outright performance, the Tahiti GPUs have it in spades. And if you're looking to spend less than £300 (about AU$470, US$455) on a card, the HD 7950 is around £260 (about AU$410, US$395), only a bit shy of OC GTX 670 performance. Unless you're looking at the top with the GTX Titan, or the bottom with the GTX 650 Ti Boost, then it's surely AMD all the way. The EVGA GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 is good, but it's not clear that there's a place for it in the market.

Although it's a little late to the party, the EVGA GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 is an excellent implementation of a GTX 670 custom design. While the PCB design is heavily inspired by that of the GTX 680, the cooler is EVGA's in-house design. The Signature 2 dual-fan cooler uses four heatpipes to draw heat from the GPU, and they do an excellent job at keeping the card cool. Noise levels are at a minimum to ensure a quiet experience, no matter if you are browsing the Internet, working, or gaming, but other custom-design GTX 670 cards are a bit quieter. The EVGA GTX 670 does, on the other hand, generate slightly lower temperatures, but they are, in my opinion, not as useful as lower noise levels. Sadly, the Signature 2 cooler doesn't directly cool the memory chips or MOSFETs.

Non-reference coolers are quite popular and EVGA’s Signature 2 series has always been a standout product in that respect. GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 runs at the same clocks as the GTX 670 FTW. The GPU is clocked at 1006MHz while the memory is at 1527MHz (6108MHz effectively). Note that reference clocks are 915/1502MHz for the GPU/memory. Higher clocks of course translate into better performance, but overclocked or not – the GTX 670 delivers a lot of bang for your gaming buck. EVGA did a great job taking the GTX 680’s design for its GTX 670 FTW and GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 graphics card. This ensures advanced power management, something that can be usefully when overclocking. Using the GTX 680’s PCB allowed us to push the Power Target on EVGA’s GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 all the way up to +145 percent. In comparison, the reference GTX 670’s Power Target went up to +122 percent. Added power and higher clocks don’t mean much without proper cooling. The Signature 2 cooler delivers a great balance between noise and temperature. The card is cool and almost inaudible when working at factory overclock. The old GTX 670 FTW card is also silent, but there EVGA sacrificed a few degrees Celsius in order to keep noise down. EVGA GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 is priced about €15 more than GTX 670 FTW which can be yours for €330. If you are looking for silence and also have in mind overclocking, than the added investment in the Signature 2 version is justified, as it will get you a very quiet graphics card that can support your 2560x1600 gaming habit.