NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The GeForce GTX 670
Because of the relatively low power consumption of GK104 relative to past high-end NVIDIA GPUs, NVIDIA has developed a penchant for small cards. While the GTX 680 was a rather standard 10” long, NVIDIA also managed to cram the GTX 690 into the same amount of space. Meanwhile the GTX 670 takes this to a whole new level.
We’ll start at the back as this is really where NVIDIA’s fascination with small size makes itself apparent. The complete card is 9.5” long, however the actual PCB is far shorter at only 6.75” long, 3.25” shorter than the GTX 680’s PCB. In fact it would be fair to say that rather than strapping a cooler onto a card, NVIDIA strapped a card onto a cooler. NVIDIA has certainly done short PCBs before – such as with one of the latest GTX 560 Ti designs – but never on a GTX x70 part before. But given the similarities between GK104 and GF114, this isn’t wholly surprising, if not to be expected.
In any case this odd pairing of a small PCB with a large cooler is no accident. With a TDP of only 170W NVIDIA doesn’t necessarily need a huge PCB, but because they wanted a blower for a cooler they needed a large cooler. The positioning of the GPU and various electronic components meant that the only place to put a blower fan was off of the PCB entirely, as the GK104 GPU is already fairly close to the rear of the card. Meanwhile the choice of a blower seems largely driven by the fact that this is an x70 card – NVIDIA did an excellent job with the GTX 560 Ti’s open air cooler, which was designed for the same 170W TDP, so the choice is effectively arbitrary from a technical standpoint (there’s no reason to believe $400 customers are any less likely to have a well-ventilated case than $250 buyers). Accordingly, it will be NVIDIA’s partners that will be stepping in with open air coolers of their own designs.
Starting as always at the top, as we previously mentioned the reference GTX 670 is outfitted with a 9.5” long fully shrouded blower. NVIDIA tells us that the GTX 670 uses the same fan as the GTX 680, and while they’re nearly identical in design, based on our noise tests they’re likely not identical. On that note unlike the GTX 680 the fan is no longer placed high to line up with the exhaust vent, so the GTX 670 is a bit more symmetrical in design than the GTX 680 was.
Note: We dissaembled the virtually identical EVGA card here instead
Lifting the cooler we can see that NVIDIA has gone with a fairly simple design here. The fan vents into a block-style aluminum heatsink with a copper baseplate, providing cooling for the GPU. Elsewhere we’ll see a moderately sized aluminum heatsink clamped down on top of the VRMs towards the front of the card. There is no cooling provided for the GDDR5 RAM.
Note: We dissaembled the virtually identical EVGA card here instead
As for the PCB, as we mentioned previously due to the lower TDP of the GTX 670 NVIDIA has been able to save some space. The VRM circuitry has been moved to the front of the card, leaving the GPU and the RAM towards the rear and allowing NVIDIA to simply omit a fair bit of PCB space. Of course with such small VRM circuitry the reference GTX 670 isn’t built for heavy overclocking – like the other GTX 600 cards NVIDIA isn’t even allowing overvolting on reference GTX 670 PCBs – so it will be up to partners with custom PCBs to enable that kind of functionality. Curiously only 4 of the 8 Hynix R0C GDDR5 RAM chips are on the front side of the PCB; the other 4 are on the rear. We typically only see rear-mounted RAM in cards with 16/24 chips, as 8/12 will easily fit on the same side.
Elsewhere at the top of the card we’ll find the PCIe power sockets and SLI connectors. Since NVIDIA isn’t scrambling to save space like they were with the GTX 680, the GTX 670’s PCIe power sockets are laid out in a traditional side-by-side manner. As for the SLI connectors, since this is a high-end GeForce card NVIDIA provides 2 connectors, allowing for the card to be used in 3-way SLI.
Finally at the front of the card NVIDIA is using the same I/O port configuration and bracket that we first saw with the GTX 680. This means 1 DL-DVI-D port, 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 full size HDMI 1.4 port, and 1 full size DisplayPort 1.2. This also means the GTX 670 follows the same rules as the GTX 680 when it comes to being able to idle with multiple monitors.
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CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
The amd 7850 is getting beaten in sales by the low supply GTX680 - not only that - add in the 7870 and it's still getting beaten in sales.What you see "on the amd 7870 and 7850" is FAIL.
Now, I will go to NewEgg and CHECK the 560Ti sales, which my guess now is they are actually more than the GTX680, which beats the 7870 and 7850 sales combined...
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Yes, the 560Ti wins against 7850 by a MASSIVE amount of sales. amd is failing, or pick some other cards from amd, because 7870 and 7850 are really sucking for sales.
Ananke - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
How are you exactly going to CHECK the sales? Because, you know, I am using distributors' and retailers' sales out data, and I can tell you that sales action is in the $200 and lower tier, where NVidia has nothing new yet.NVidia makes A LOT of money in the HPC market, this is their major focus now, hence we wait to see the GF110. But that will be pro card with a pro price, and no consumer application.
So yeah, I expect prices of consumer GPUs to keep going down, because now there are no products where the volume sales is.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
The gtx560 is already below $199, not sure where you've been for a long time. After you name one in the price tier, you claim there are none in the price tier, and you left out the entire 460 line up as well, just to name another quite easily.You already have an answer to your other question and your credibility is zero in any case.
" in reality sales happen under the $200 mark...I see only AMD 7850 and NVidia 560ti where the actual money is made "
The 7850 is $250+, and it's not selling. You're another clueless person who repeats talking points they heard from someone else, and of course you heard the pro card talking point from me earlier in the thread.
You scored a zero. You're a TP repeater.
versesuvius - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I am certain that this point is very irrelevant to an enthusiast's frame of mind, but based on personal experience, AMD cards live longer. GeForce cards just stop being useful after a while. It has always been the case, ever since early ati cards. AMD gives a playable frame rate, while GeForce just gets stuck. And another point that I am not going to insist upon is that with NVIDIA cards I always get the feeling that a few frames are skipped on random, but it is done in such a smart way that the game play is not hindered, nonetheless it is always there.Anyway, 7970 is a superior product over 680 if only for the compute performance it offers. You are really not missing much losing 5 frames per second at ultra high settings, which at best estimates only 5% of users have the required hardware for, and super frame rates, but the almost 100% gain in compute performance is nothing that those who need compute power can ignore, and there is more of them each day. Accordingly, AMD can sell a lot of GPUs at current prices and if inclined can trounce NVIDIA if it chooses to lower the prices on the strength of its sales.
just4U - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I disagree.. Cards live longer based upon cooling designs and overclocks. In my experience cheap low end cards don't last all that long, Nor do some of the overclocked products.. and it don't matter Amd/Nvidia .. it's all the same. Depends on what the partners do with the chips is all.Ananke - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
In my experience with electronics, the most likely to malfunction thing is the bearing of the fan, regardless of the price of the GPU card...Hence, it is sad to pay $500 for something that in reality should've been $200, and will eventually crap out within 2-3 years anyway.I work for such a company, I live across AMD campus, all my friends are in the semiconductor business, including at NVidia, etc...so a lot of experience/
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Clean the dust, dismount the fan, clean the shaft (by pulling the little white split plastic retaining and shoving the fan out of the armature bearing) - clean the thick black grime, add a drop or two of $1.29 motor 3 in 1 walmart available oil, and put her back together.There's another 3 years of running, silent bearing and like new.
Crapping out means you forgot to clean the radiator and change the oil - so burning out a $25,000.00 brand new overpriced car is just as easy.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I don't like all you people who wind up killing so many cards that you go off on an insane tangent about this or that card companies cards crapping out. You're the reason we have to pay for two freaking cards when we're buying one - because a bunch of knotheads like you destroy cards and then turn them in for a replacement, driving up all our costs to near double what they should be.I further cannot stand the endless number of persons who squirm and squiggle demanding someone on the other end of the phone for "tech support" and instant turn around after destroying the cards they've bought with their own stupidity.
I have two close friends, one always destroys amd cards, and the other always destroys nVidia cards.
I'll fire up several functioning Voodoo2 cards and ati mach 64's right now - along with an endless stream of both in between, stll functioning, including many agp models.
If you overclock your card, forget to turn the fan to 100%, crank up the voltage, fire up furmark, then jam the dang thing into extreme burn mode, and red eye pass out drooling on the desk, don't expect anything but a burned out card when you wake up your hangover kicks in.
It's not that hard to figure out.
versesuvius - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Sorry guys, but I do not mean the fan not working anymore or overclock burnout. I am not a fan of overclocking the GPU at all. The gains are not worth the trouble. At best is like overclocking the memory which at best give you a 5% advantage overall. I am talking about the chip. I said that GeForce cards get stuck. That does not mean that it has burned or that the fan is gone.Yeah, go ahead and fire up old cards. NVIDIA cards do play the games that were out when the card came out, but not the games that came out three years after. Not the case with AMD cards. AMD (ati) card still start the game, and play, with lower frame rates.
I said that I have always had the feeling that GeForce cards skip frames, and I still do. Is there a way to count for frames that should be there and are not?
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
The problem is, it's "your feeling", instead of reality.NVidia drivers often increase frame rates for older nVidia cards and often add features prior unavailable to those same cards.
I've seen it since the first nVidia Ti series, which had some awesome driver upgrades even back then, that allowed them to play games they couldn't properly render since they were so old by the time games came out.
Now for instance, let me give you a modern example.
I just recently installed and played BF3 on an nVidia 9500 just for kicks.
It was 12-15 fps about on one of the extra core 2 systems.
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Your "frame skip" feeling is just that, your fanboy feeling, and not reality.
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Another example is the 7600gs SLI - that plays everything there currently is that I tried on it ( just goofing around) - not only that, but the SLI ran flawlessly in XP, win7 32 and win 7 64 bit.
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All 8 series nvidia + cards are still valid from all my experience, and some 7 series.
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Count frames ? Count it with fraps.