nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Pro Reviews

The GeForce GTX 670 is a bundle of performance wrapped up in a small, light, and quiet package. The GeForce GTX 670 is able to provide a better gameplay experience than the HD Radeon 7950 with both being at the same basic ~$399 pricing level and similar power profiles. The GeForce GTX 670 also proves to be an upgrade from NVIDIA's last generation fastest single-GPU card, the GeForce GTX 580. When it comes to performance per dollar, the GeForce GTX 670 looks to be a solid winner. While the MSRP of this video card starts at $399, add-in-board partner video cards with custom features will range from $400 upwards. We have Galaxy's GC Edition GTX 670 testing now and it will retail from $429-$449. This pricing still falls in-line with Radeon HD 7950 pricing which also ranges up to $429-$439. NVIDIA's "Kepler" architecture has proven to be extremely competitive with AMD's GCN architecture. The GeForce GTX 680, and now the GeForce GTX 670 are dominating AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series in price and performance. NVIDIA’s downfall currently is getting GTX 680 GPUs into the AIB’s hand so those companies can in turn put video card stock on shelves. While there has been a constant supply of GTX 680 cards to market, it has been little more than a trickle. We have heard promises of stock from AIBs but that has not yet transpired. Will the GTX 670 share the same fate? We have given up on promises. Show us the GPUs NVIDIA, because your AIB’s customers are tiring of the flaccid launch. The GeForce GTX 670 looks to be a hell of a video card delivering the best performance per watt we have ever seen in the category while trouncing the competition. And given the GTX 670 card's overclocked performance, shown on page 7, encroaching into stock clock GTX 680 territory, we would suggest that we have somewhat of a "new Ti 4200" on our hands.

Looking at this data I’m reminded a great deal of the Radeon HD 6900 series launch. AMD launched the 6900 series after the GTX 500 series, but launch order aside the end result was very similar. NVIDIA’s second tier GTX 570 and AMD’s first tier Radeon HD 6970 were tied on average but were anything but equals. This is almost exactly what we’re seeing with the GTX 670 and the Radeon HD 7970. Depending on the game and resolution we’re looking at the GTX 670 reaches anywhere between 80% and 120% of the 7970’s performance. AMD sails by the GTX 670 in Crysis and to a lesser extent Metro, only for the GTX 670 to shoot ahead in BF3 and Portal 2 (w/SSAA). Officially NVIDIA’s positioning on the GTX 670 is that it’s to go against the 7950 and not the 7970, and that’s a wise move on NVIDIA’s behalf; but the GTX 670 is surely nipping at the 7970’s heels.

The introduction of NVIDIA's third desktop-based Kepler GPU, GeForce GTX 670, brings the firm's latest architecture goodness to a slightly lower price point. Set to retail from £330 and with performance just a few per cent shy of the £400-plus GTX 680, this latest GPU shakes up the high-end graphics market. GTX 670 cards simply harness GPUs that don't quite make the 'gold' grade mandated by GTX 680. Clocked in a little lower and with a slight reduction in architecture, high-resolution gaming performance remains very good. Indeed, given what we've observed in our benchmarks, partner-overclocked GTX 670s are sure to pose a significant, immediate threat to the vanilla GTX 680 boards: we'll leave NVIDIA and its cohort of partners to sort out this particular positioning headache. But more than give NVIDIA another foothold in the premium GPU market, GTX 670's arrival forces arch-rival AMD's hand. The red team has already wielded the financial axe on Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 cards, now available for £350 and £300, respectively, down by almost £100 apiece from just four months ago, and GTX 670 is as much about eroding AMD's profit margin as it is about giving the enthusiast more choice.

A quick card with strong performance for its price - the GTX 670 is the best graphics card at the £300 mark

Nvidia's latest card brings Kepler to a lower price point with stunning results

Considering Nvidia's pricier GeForce GTX 680 has been notoriously hard to find in stock since its launch a couple months ago, many anxious gamers who wanted to pick up a GTX 680 might not have had the chance yet. For once, we think stock shortages may have worked in gamers' favor here. If budget is at all a consideration for you, the GTX 670 is clearly the smarter choice over Nvidia's pricer GTX 680, offering nearly the same performance and the same set of features for $100 less. Unless you feel an absolute need to have the highest-performing single-chip card on the market (for however many months that lasts), the $100 you'll save by opting for the GTX 670 is probably better spent on a roomier solid-state drive for installing more cutting-edge games or, for that matter, simply on more games. In our book, variety of gameplay is a whole lot more enjoyable than eking out a few extra frames per second.

GeForce GTX 670 cards should be available immediately, with prices starting at $399 for 2GB models. The EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Superclocked edition we looked at will be priced at around $419, but EVGA has a lower-priced stock model coming at $399 too, along with a couple of 4GB versions that come in around $469 (stock) and $489 (superclocked). The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC Version with Windforce cooler should be priced in the same range. Availability for NVIDIA’s high-end Kepler based parts has been less than stellar since their release, but we suspect that those users that have been able to get their hands on cards have been pleased with their performance. All things considered, we think those that spring for a GeForce GTX 670 will be quite happy as well. For around 400 bucks, the GeForce GTX 670 offers better performance than the similarly priced Radeon HD 7950 and the GTX 670 also competes very well with the $480 Radeon HD 7970. AMD has also lowered prices recently and has begun offering a trio of free games with their GPUs, but those that focus mostly on the price vs. performance equation have to give NVIDIA a clear edge at this point. You simply get more performance for your money with the GeForce GTX 670. In addition, we also found the GeForce GTX 670 to be highly overclockable, relatively quiet, and its power consumption characteristics are best-in-class.

Nvidia's latest GPU equals the performance of its high-end predecessor, the GTX 580, with a less rarified price. It's almost as quiet and power-efficient as a GTX 680, too.

After having looked at both the GTX 690 and GTX 680 and now the GTX 670, it is clearly evident that Kepler-based GPUs deliver a higher level of gaming performance than the competition at a better price point. Priced at $399 it is equal to or less expensive than HD 7950 offerings at more than a few etailers. Sure you can find bargains with rebates but for the most part the $399 price point is at the low end for an HD 7950. HD 7970s are still at the $499 price point. Why is this such a big deal? Well the NVIDIA GTX 670 cleans house with the HD 7950 in just about every benchmark and game tested. There are a few wins for the HD 7950 at 5760x1080, but at 1920x1080 where most players will be gaming, it's a no win situation. What's even more impressive is that in the majority of tests it beat out AMD's $499 single GPU powerhouse HD 7970, all the while using less power and running cooler. Both of these bonuses can't be overstated since you won't have to mortgage the kids' futures to pay the power bill for your gaming fix. As impressed as I was with the GTX 690, the GTX 670 is even more impressive because it takes a Kepler GK104 with one less SMX and delivers performance levels almost on par with the GTX 680.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 is a great little card. The size of the PCB is impressive and will make for some interesting small form factor cards in the future. It's almost GTX 680 performance for £100/$100 less, but at £330/$400 it still prices itself out of most pockets.

Due to the long wait for the GTX 670, the key question we need to answer is whether the GeForce GTX 670 is worth the $399 price tag. To try to answer this question, we try to put ourselves in a consumers point of view. The card definitely has the performance to outperform AMD's latest high-end video cards like the HD7950 ($399) and the HD7970 ($479), and it also has the power to put NVIDIA's last generation flagship Fermi architecture to shame. Therefore, if we look at the card from its performance point of view, it is definitely worth the price. But once we take a look at its overall design quality, we're kind of left asking for more. Due to the poor quality of the cooler, a small heatsink that performs worse than the reference cooler on the GTX 680, and a noisy fan at higher RPM settings, we truly believe the card should have been priced around $349 for its base price. We're not trying to say that the GTX 670 is a bad video card. As a matter a fact, we would still run the GTX 670 in our system 24/7 for the most efficient gaming experience we had so far. However, we still expected a bit more from NVIDIA when it came to bringing us an all around high-quality product to the table at a $400 asking price.

It looks like NVIDIA took their highly successful GK104 graphics processor and tried to reduce cost of all the other components as much as possible. We see a tiny PCB, low-cost cooler and conservative component selection. Normally this should be a recipe for disaster. But that's not the case with the GeForce GTX 670. While the card feels like a wimp, it becomes a champ once you feed it some graphics. In our testing we see excellent performance, matching AMD's much more expensive Radeon HD 7970. This puts the card just 7% slower than GTX 680, even though the difference gets bigger at higher resolutions. In terms of gaming resolutions the card can easily handle all games at maximum settings at 1920x1200. 2560x1600 works great in most games, only the most demanding titles might be more playable with slightly reduced settings. NVIDIA improved energy efficiency again, leaving behind AMD's HD 7900 Series. Compared to the last generation GTX 570 we see twice the performance per Watt, at significantly reduced absolute power consumption numbers. GTX 670 will happily power a high-end gaming rig with a 400 W power supply, thanks to its efficient design. Typical gaming power draw is around 150 Watts for the card alone, which should be no problem for any decent power supply. The lower power consumption also reflects in cooling performance. Given NVIDIA's cheaped out cooler I didn't expect much, but temperatures are fine and noise levels are OK, they are certainly lower than AMD's HD 7970.

While the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 may be the reigning champion, GTX 670 saves gamers $100 while delivering incredibly similar performance. NVIDIA's 28nm GK104 'Kepler' GPU has made a huge difference in power consumption and heat output, features that really have my attention. It won't surprise me if enthusiast find themselves devided on their purchase: overclock the GeForce GTX 670 to perform like a GTX 680 (which we're going to test in a follow-up article), or combine two into an SLI set. Regardless, the performance is there and it reinforces value. Still, I think most people are waiting to see what GeForce GTX 650/660 will offer.

The performance of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB and the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC 2GB are impressive at there default clock speeds and even more so when overclocked. For example the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 reference cards comes at 915MHz on the GPU base clock and can Boost up to 980MHz. The EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC that we got is factory overclocked to 967MHz on the base clock and can boost up to 1046MHz. Thanks to the EVGA Precision X overclocking utility we were able to increase the base clock up to 1097MHz (1176MHz Boost) for a healthy overclock! We increased the power target +122%, so in games we were able to hit 1280MHz on the core and that gave us some insane performance numbers. We are talking about over 10,000 points in 3DMark11 here and performance that rivals the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 and AMD Radeon HD 6990 dual-GPU monsters that were the fastest cards in the world back in 2011!

Unless you need the absolute fastest single-GPU card on the market, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 delivers a dazzling combination of performance, power usage, and pricing.

Really, it’s hard to argue against the qualities of the GTX 670 2GB. Despite costing 25 per cent less than a GTX 680 2GB, it delivers frame rates that are only between 5-10 per cent lower, and which still manage to largely surpass those of the Radeon competition. It’s also a smaller, more power efficient card into the bargain. At £330 for basic models, the GTX 670 2GB also asks some hard questions of AMD when it comes to value; the HD 7970 3GB still sells for around £400, while the HD 7950 3GB will set you back around £330 at time of writing; we’d regard the GTX 670 2GB as superior to both at single-screen resolutions, and even equal to the HD 7970 3GB when it comes to three-screen performance. In short then, it’s another win for Nvidia, although it’s still only the high-end customers that are seeing these benefits. We’re still waiting for that £200 mid-range 6-series card, but if the GTX 670 2GB is anything to go by, it’ll hopefully be worth the wait.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 SLI is an amazing pixel-crunching solution. Priced at around $800, or 20% cheaper than NVIDIA's Kepler flagship GeForce GTX 690, the solution is found to be just 2% slower. Since the GTX 690 performs near-identical to GTX 680 SLI, the inference carries on: it's just 2% slower while being 20% cheaper. As a result, the two other costlier solutions are smoked in the price/performance equation. Even for some its earliest drivers, GeForce GTX 670 SLI provides near-linear performance upscaling over single GTX 670. With a power draw of just 28W in idle, and 250W average load, the GTX 670 SLI, for the first time, makes a dual-GPU flagship card look silly, in terms of performance/Watt. Even an efficient 600W PSU should handle the GTX 670 SLI just fine. Gaming at 2560x1600 is smooth on the GTX 670 SLI, and importantly, a large majority of the games in our test-suite are playable at 5760x1080 (3D Vision Surround 3x 1080p). All said and done, the GeForce GTX 670 SLI is an unbelievably good graphics platform. NVIDIA will face a different kind of problem now: that of being able to sell GTX 690 for all its premium mojo, and GTX 680 by the numbers.

NVIDIA has pleasantly surprised us yet again. Their new GTX 670 hits nearly the same performance level as the GTX 680 but costs significantly less, causing a potential issue for the GeForce lineup but undoubtedly making this the go-to card for gamers. More importantly, the GTX 670 effectively slaps AMD while they’re down, necessitating another price drop on cards that are becoming increasingly marginalized in a competitive market. If you are looking for incredible performance and haven't made the jump to a GTX 680 yet, this is currently the card to have.

Gaming was really a great experience with the GTX670 as it was able to play every DX11 title with ease even with the games settings to their Highest or Ultra setting, which knocks some cards right to their knees. 1920X1080 is still the standard resolution for the PC gamer, but we also tested in 2560X1600 to give users a taste of what the 670 performs like at a higher resolution and the fact that having a 30’’ inch monitor is not all that uncommon now. My favorite new feature though has to be the adaptive VSync technology as this just makes gameplay a much better experience minus the stuttering we used to see onscreen when VSync previously failed. NVIDIA strikes yet again at the heart of the gamer as the new GTX670 not only plainly kicks ass in every known game title it also surpasses the expectations of many people coming to market with such panache at $399.99 it’s a serious Hot Product for the advent enthusiast!

NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 overclocking numbers aren't as impressive as we'd hoped and talking to a couple of partners about these OC results, the numbers seem consistent. What we tend to be hearing is that while getting to GTX 680 speeds aren't a problem, moving much higher is a little bit of an issue. Of course clocking the video card at GTX 680 speeds doesn't mean we'll get GTX 680 performance due to the reduced CUDA core count on the GTX 670. The slightly higher clocks over the 680 help close the gap, though, and most of the time sees the GTX 670 come out ahead. As we see companies offer us new coolers and different PCBs over the coming weeks, we might see higher overclocks, but the general word from companies is that the GTX 670 just isn't a massive overclocking video card. To be honest this doesn't surprise us all that much as the GTX 680 doesn't seem to be the biggest overclocking part either.

My personal issues with NVIDIA and the issues that TweakTown on a whole have pushed right aside, the GEFORCE GTX 670 is just an awesome video card that is going to be a serious headache for AMD. The performance of the video card is really quite crazy and the fact that this is the second option for NVIDIA when it comes to single GPU video cards is bad for AMD when it has no issue competing with their strongest option; the HD 7970. This is actually our second GEFORCE GTX 670 we have on hand as well, we've got a full retail option from someone that we'll show you on the 10th when the model officially launches. The reference based design, though, is looking good for NVIDIA and could be a clear option for people who don't want to spend big money.