NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTCivilization V
Our final game, Civilization 5, gives us an interesting look at things that other RTSes cannot match, with a much weaker focus on shading in the game world, and a much greater focus on creating the geometry needed to bring such a world to life. In doing so it uses a slew of DirectX 11 technologies, including tessellation for said geometry, driver command lists for reducing CPU overhead, and compute shaders for on-the-fly texture decompression.
On our final test the 7970 sees a slight resurgence compared to the past few games, preventing NVIDIA from sweeping the whole back half of our tests. In any case it’s just enough to leave the GTX 670 trailing the 7970 by 3%, or about 2fps.
It’s interesting to note however that this is one of a couple of games that GTX 670 doesn’t do particularly well at compared to the GTX 500 series. At 2560 it has a 29% lead on the GTX 570, but that’s still the smallest lead out of any game we have tested. More than anything else it seems Civ V really needs more shader performance.
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Spunjji - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Sick burn ;DyankeeDDL - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Why would AMD fans be sad?AMD enjoyed a multi-months lead in performance, over-charging for their cards that had, substantially, no competitions at their price levels.
Now NVIDIA made a move, and it's a very good one: AMD will need to drop the prices and I see really no reason why they couldn't, as they have just a marginally larger die size (300mm2 vs 365mm2) on the same fab/technology.
Price drop is always a win for the customers, be that an Nvidia or an AMD fanboy (or just an enthusiast).
MrSpadge - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
That's right. With some more pressure and HD7950 at 300€ GCN may actually start to become a real option! Saying this as a Cayman owning AMD-preferer.andrewaggb - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
It's not like the 7970 is a bad card, it's somewhat slower at games, has more ram, is much faster at gpu compute, and is still a relatively low power offering.There's always something better just around the corner. Buy what's best when you need it, and be happy about it :-). Give it 6 months to a year and there will be something better than the 670 as well.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
If the 7970 is much faster at gpu compute, why did it lose 3 of 5 compute benchmarks in this review ?Hmm... loser but better, loser but better...
Also amd power loser but "still relatively a low power offering", loser but relatively a winner, loses but it's a winner anyway...
I've got it ! The loser is better and wins !
SlyNine - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Seriously dude. I MIGHT could give you the first point, if it wasn't riddled full of biased.But the second point doesn't even make sense.
"Also amd power loser but "still relatively a low power offering", loser but relatively a winner, loses but it's a winner anyway..."
Now you're just throwing words in his mouth he didn't even use. What a fail!
GTX680 owner speaking.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
" and is still a relatively low power offering." (his words I responded to)Okay, maybe I went overboard.
On the other hand, we haven't heard this going the other way at all, and the 7970's loss in the power envelope is loss of a reason to buy an amd card.
Relatively, it's a high power offering, we are after all comparing the two brands, and it's high power usage allows the claims for victory in compute (even when the software base does not).
Galidou - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
''Okay, maybe I went overboard.''You do that all day long going overboard...
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
You do nothing but lie and attack, so you have zero room to talk.Galidou - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
And I am the one who attack, I attack but not you? LOL you're so fun, don'T make me copy and paste every word lack of respect the abuse of words such as massive ignorance, stupid, everyone lies but not you... and everyone lacks of respect but not you... OMG that's extreme