NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTOC: Gaming Performance
We’ll keep the running commentary short here, but depending on how shader bottlenecked any individual game is, it’s possible for GTX 670 to beat a stock GTX 680 with just an increase of the power target. Without that pesky 8th SMX drawing power this leaves more power for increasing clockspeeds, which helps games that are more bottlenecked by the ROPs and/or GPCs.
Conversely, if a game is extremely shader bound (such as Portal 2), then only a full overclock can make up for that 8th SMX on GTX 680.
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anubis44 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
4th fastest card, eh? Have a look at these benchmarks, that actually show what the 7970 is capable of if it's OC'd to 1250MHz on the core (1870MHz memory) -- something most 7970s will do, and very few websites have been showing. To be fair, they also OC'd the GTX670 pretty much as far as it would go, too, 1330MHz on the core (1542MHz memory).http://vr-zone.com/articles/gigabyte-gtx-670-oc-wi...
At 1080p, a resolution the GTX680/GTX670 cards often do better in than 2560x1920 or higher. The 7970 wins handily on all but one benchmark (Heaven), and it's only very slightly behind on that one.
I think all AMD has to do is release 1200MHz versions of the 7970 and maybe 1050MHz versions of the 7950 and price them at about ~$400 (you can already buy 7970s for ~$450 right now) and $350 respectively. That should take quite a bit of the wind out of nVidia's sails.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Not true.http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/radeon_hd_7970...
Average air OC on 7970 is 1,204 and average memory overclock is no where near 7,480 up from the stock 5,500
You've got a look at a golden sample there bub, and NO ONE is going to run that sustained clock in 24/7 gaming without some very expensive water cooling or the like and a really good warranty since burnout is likely.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
You're not going to run those overclocks on the cheapo $450 Powercolor 7970 card bub.Spin, spin spin.....
Assimilator87 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I've been rocking a 470 since it launched and there still isn't a card really worth upgrading to for F@H. 6% faster than a 580 for a supposed next gen part is abysmal. Where is REAL Kepler!?raghu78 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
RyanFrom your HD 7950 review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5476/amd-radeon-7950...
2560 X 1600 Extreme Quality 4X AA
HD 7970 - 52
HD 7950 - 47
1920 x 1080 Extreme Quality 4X AA
HD 7970 - 82
HD 7950 - 73
From your GTX 670 review
2560 X 1600 Extreme Quality 4X AA
HD 7970 - 59
HD 7950 - 47
1920 x 1080 Extreme Quality 4X AA
HD 7970 - 93
HD 7950 - 73
In the GTX 670 review the HD 7970 has improved its performance greatly while the HD 7950 has not moved a bit. This has got to be a mistake. AMD's latest 12.4 Catalyst drivers have improved 4XAA, 8XAA performance significantly. Please make the corrections.
just4U - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Perhaps he doesn't have a 7950 on hand to do that with? Anyway.. I think there is alot of untapped potential with the 7X top end cards that can only be improved upon down the road with future updates to drivers.bjacobson - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
What happens to the boost frequencies with V-sync enabled? This could help a lot with minimums in some games.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Uh... we can't test that, because amd can't do that, and amd stutters and crap with v-sync, and that would be an opressed amd card unfairly discriminated against if we did try that adaptive v-sync that ups the minimum frame rate of the nVidia card, heightens the overall frame rate, and smooths out the game. We do affirmative action here for amd.How mean are you trying to be to amd man ? No way man !
Menty - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Just wanted to say thanks for including the 5870 on most of the review graphs. I've got one and it's really nice to see if the upgrade is worth it. Not that I can decide, but it's nice to have the numbers anyway! :)SlyNine - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I upgraded to a 680GTX from 5870. The times that the 5870 struggled most is when this card is the biggest improvement.Cyrsis 2 when the walker shoots that bright light thing. That killed my 5870, like 5-10fps (DX 9, highest settings at release). But the 680GTX is around 30 FPS with much much higher settings. ( DX11, high res texture pack) Its def 2x the performance and more. When the performance dived on the 5870 seems to be where this card is more like 3x faster and more consistent.