NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTOC: Power, Temperature, & Noise
Our final task is our look at GTX 670’s overclocking capabilities. Based on what we’ve seen thus far with GTX 670, it looks like NVIDIA is binning chips based on functional units rather than clockspeeds. As a result GTX 670 could have quite a bit of overclocking potential, albeit one still limited by the lack of voltage control.
| GeForce 600 Series Overclocking | |||||
| GTX 670 | EVGA GTX 670SC | GTX 680 | |||
| Shipping Core Clock | 915MHz | 967MHz | 1006MHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Clock | 1084MHz | 1188MHz | 1110MHz | ||
| Shipping Memory Clock | 6GHz | 6GHz | 6GHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Voltage | 1.175v | 1.162v | 1.175v | ||
| Overclock Core Clock | 1065MHz | 1042MHz | 1106MHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Clock | 1234MHz | 1263MHz | 1210MHz | ||
| Overclock Memory Clock | 6.9GHz | 6.6GHz | 6.5GHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Voltage | 1.175v | 1.162v | 1.175v | ||
Because of the wider gap between base clock and boost clock on the GTX 670 we see that it doesn’t overclock quite as far as GTX 680 from a base clock perspective, but from the perspective of the maximum boost clock we’ve slightly exceeded the GTX 680. Depending on where a game lands against NVIDIA’s power targets this can either mean that an overclocked GTX 670 is faster or slower than an overclocked GTX 680, but at the same time it means that overclocking potential is clearly there.
We’re also seeing another strong memory overclock out of a GK104 card here. GTX 680 only hit 6.5GHz while GTX 690 could hit 7GHz. GTX 670 is only a bit weaker at 6.9GHz, indicating that even with the relatively small PCB that NVIDIA can still exceed the high memory clocks they were shooting for. At the same time however this is a luck of the draw matter.
The EVGA card meanwhile fares both worse and better. Its gap between the base clock and and maximum boost clock is even larger than the reference GTX 670, leading to it having an even lower overclocked base clock but a higher overclocked maximum boost clock. The real limiting factor however is that it couldn’t reach a memory overclock quite as high as the reference GTX 670 – again, luck of the draw – which means it can’t match the overclocked reference GTX 670 as it’s going to be more memory bandwidth starved more often.
Moving on to our performance charts, we’re going to once again start with power, temperature, and noise, before moving on to gaming performance. We’ll be testing our GTX 670 cards at both stock clocks with the maximum power target of 122% (170W) to showcase what is possible at validated clockspeeds with a higher power cap, and a true overclock with a maximum power target along with the largest clock offsets we can achieve.
Not surprisingly, since we’re almost always operating within the realm of the power target as opposed to the TDP on the GTX 600 series, our power consumption closely follows our chosen power target. Cranking up the power target on the GTX 670 for example to 170W puts us within 6W of the GTX 680, which itself had a 170W power target in the first place. This is true for both Metro and OCCT, which means power consumption is very predictable when doing any kind of overclocking.
This also means that power consumption is still 18W-30W below the 7970, which in turn means that if these overclocks can close the performance gap, then the GTX 670 still has a power consumption advantage.
As to be expected, with an increase in power consumption comes an increase in load temperatures. However the fact that we’re only able to increase power consumption by about 30W means the temperature rise is limited to 4-5C, pushing temperatures into the low 80s. This does end up being warmer than the equivalent GTX 680 however due to the 680’s superior heatsink.
Finally, when it comes to noise we’re also seeing the expected increase, but again it’s rather small. Under Metro the amount of noise from the reference GTX 670 rises by under 3dB when pushing the power target higher on its own, while it rises 3dB when adding in our full overclock. Again the smaller cooler means that the GTX 670’s fan has to work harder here, which means our gaming performance may be able to reach the GTX 680, but our noise is going to slightly exceed it. As a point of reference, in the process we’ll also exceed the GTX 580’s noise levels under Metro. Still, in both OCCT and Metro none of our GTX 670 cards exceed the Radeon HD 7900 series, which means we've managed to increase our performance relative to those cards without breaching the level of noise they generate in the first place.
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versesuvius - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Hey, what is your problem. I acknowledged general better frame rates of 680 over 7970 up front. And I am not talking about SLI setups either. It is single card performance which AMD delivers superior to NVIDIA over the years. Yes, NVIDIA has a way with video game engine makers. It has been like that for as long as anyone can remember.I said I am not going to insisting on NVIDIA skipping frames, but I am going to insist that you read the post correctly. Skipping frames is different from frame rate. A card can render as many frames as it likes and skip as many as it likes. A card that renders all frames is the honest one, while the card that skips is the frame rate can be the frame rate champ.
I am not a fanboy of anything. However, since you are so keen on numbers, AMD is the king of compute which is by far more important at this point in the evolution of the GPU than the few extra frames that NVIDIA can churn out. AMD should definitely keep a hefty price premium over NVIDIA cards for that reason alone. In other words it is up to NVIDIA how low it wants to go.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Go to Tech Report, they do a render time count on frames, which indicates according to theory, which cards offer "smooth" frame rates in which games.Your "feeling" might have something to do with that, although by your last post I'll go even more with amd fanboy for you now, than I had thought before.
If "smoothness" is your problem, and hence you "feel" nVidia is cheating, you perhaps should get the 301.24 driver and then use it's CP adaptive v-sync ( on non 6000 cards back to 8 series) or less so possibly the prefer full power setting. Beyond that use the EVGA precision frame rate target.
On the other hand, you think nVidia is cheating, so don't do any of the above and go with that thought. I'm sure no one has discovered nVidia skipping frames (roll eyes)
Furthermore, there is a new tech designed by the Israeli company called LucidLogix for z68 sandy bridge boards that allows one to use their discrete GPU card in conjunction with the onboard SB gpu core (HD3000) outputting the frames, and it uses an algorithm software and a certain cache/computing portion of the SB gpu to eliminate extra frames and parts of frames that would not be fully rendered and be cut off by the refresh rate - reducing or eliminating tearing for instance in frame rates higher than the monitors resolution -
It COUNTS frames it throws away - resulting in a higher on screen FPS score, smoother gameplay, and a higher frame rate overall, although not as high as it's counter claims. So THAT would be something akin to your suspicious amd fanboy complaint, but it works on amd and nvidia alike.
That would be very nice, BTW, if amd "kept" a hefty price premium over nVidia, but first they'd have to currently be priced higher - and since they are not because they suck in comparison, good luck with that. :)
If you need your dream fulfilled, go check the Cuda and Stream high end Commercial rendering cards and maybe you'll have a glow of red pride.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
It's like your idiotic "feeling" that people who need high end GPGPU cards are going to buy the stupidly cheap and driverless gaming card by amd called the 7970 or the 7950.The COMPUTE CARDS cost THOUSANDS of dollars each.
You people have turned into drooling idiots repeating dummy of world talking points.
I mean the absolute stupidity is really irritating.
HERE PLEASE SAVE US FROM FUTURE STUPIDITY !
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
That's one, ONE ONLY, amd HD79xx in COMPUTE CARD form - it's Was: $2,149.99
Now: $2,139.99
Save: $10.00
plus shipping....of $7.87
OK, well whoop die doo - you won't be gaming with, and the cards here reviewed WON'T be COMPUTING LIKE IT.
versesuvius - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
You have failed miserably. I can assure you of that. That is, by displaying fairly and squarely in a public forum that you do not know anything about GPU computing and when you are wised up to it, you go ahead and sample workstation graphic cards. NVIDIA has that class of cards, too. It is called Quadro. Both Firepro and Quadro brands where there long before GPU computing took off, and both brands where equally proportionally priced far higher above the mainstream gaming cards. Those cards use the same chips that mainstream cards too, with wider io capabilities and most important of all highly tuned drivers. And surprise, surprise, the compute prowess of a Firepro or Quadro card is the same as the gaming mainstream cards . It is in the control that those cards exercise on what gets out of the card, that sets them apart. So, there you go. Blow off all the air you can. It is not going to change anything. You have no idea about what you are talking about.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
You didn't say anything I didn't already say, you idiot.versesuvius - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
You fail again, you miserable know nothing. Just because you talk too much, way way over your coupon, doesn't mean you have said anything of significance. What imbecile would cite Firepro as a computing GPU! Oh, you just did, and even fail knowing what you, your very self, said. GPU computing with Firepro or Quadro. That is stupid. How did you come up with that?CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
" Anyway, 7970 is a superior product over 680 if only for the compute performance it offers. "The 680 whomped the 7970 winning 3 compute benches over your superior if only for compute amd loser card.
Congratulations on another great teaching lesson for all of us, boy you are really on top of things.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Firepro is a compute GPU you moron.versesuvius - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
You fail again, you know nothing imbecile.All modern GPUs come with compute capabilities. You fail again in reading and absorbing basic facts. You fail in reading and remembering what you have said on this very thread and yet expect to be taken seriously.
Read up thread once again. Firepro and Quadro use the same chips that are used in mainstream, consumer cards. It is the drivers and outside of the chip, i.e. on the board, where the differences emerge. 7970 is far, far superior to NVIDIA for HPC and compute heavy applications. 580 is a lot better than 680 when it comes to GPU computing. That is what Anandtech called " What is left behind" with the 680. 680 is more power efficient than 7970 by about 10% on load. On idle power efficiency is about the same, with 7970 even better. Yet 7970 is about twice faster than NVIDIA. That means having half the number of 7900 chips in an HPC application will achieve the same result at half the cost. And since 580 is discontinued, NVIDIA is in a lot of trouble. They will have to rely on 570 chips for any competition with 7900 chips. That is NVIDIA's crowning achievement in the retro computing department.
Frankly, HPC is not the domain of gamers, and I am not surprised that you are totally ignorant about it.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Well you have no point just more amd fanboy rhetoric, and you've been wrong how many times in a row now ?Let's just add up your number of posts here and we'll give you a big break and count one "WRONG!" for each of your posts.
I'm (not) looking forward to you explaining the 7970 loser status on the benches compute page in the review, because you won't, you can't and amd lost, and you're sad and pissed and frankly you don't understand why, obviously, ever lessening is the outside chance you could actually bring yourself to admit it's loss.
Have a nice day fella.