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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Vertigo2000 - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
That's some bad, bad math comprehension. 300 and 365 are already the calculated areas.300 mm sq. = 17.3205 mm x 17.3205 mm
365 mm sq. = 19.1050 mm x 19.1050 mm
365 mm sq. is 21.667% larger than 300.
chimaxi83 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Pay no attention to this known banned from the forums troll. Poor, sad little man you are lol, sucks to be you doesn't it?CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I agree, the targeted "forum trusted end user alpha males" amd's pr campaign handlers coddle and coach and follow and email and bribe with free amd hardware and event tickets are gonig to be sorely pressed making up enough fanboy lies to earn their freebies.They are sad, and muted, bringing down the entire amd fanboy morale - the lies need to be too big this time - and evil amd already scapled the crap outa their fanbase, lost in their power perf area, lost in frame rate, lost their 3G future fantasy ram argument - all they have left is blowing chunks about overclocking the unstable poor drivers 7000 series - not to mention the GTX570 slamming their 78xx series, and a single GTX680 outselling their entire 78xx series at the egg...
I've seen more than one reviewer mention the 680 back orders were so great and the 79xx and 78xx sales so stalled, that they hoped for some kind of change... now the egg is full of 670's...
amd fanboys need a whole wheel barrel full verdetrol just to not off themselves
Spunjji - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
What kind of weird conspiracy crack are you on? :SCeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I guess you're so ignorant you didn't read the fired AMD employees testimonies concerning and explaining their "use" of amd fanboys, preferably the "trusted alpha male" type from long established forums all over the web, including anand's here.If you're entirely clueless, as you are, you have a lot of homework to do to be able to understand.
Now, with your rude attack due to your personal ignorance above, I think all of us can fairly completely ignore your sad, pathetic, amd pro backing smack talk comment above that, where put down the entire comments section as an argumentative and sad place.
Kind of ironic that after trying to defend another amd fanboy who smarted back about not being sad, you wound up saying this place is sad, and yes we've all seen your amd favoritism for some time now.
You are sad, amd has lost, and has been forced down into shame by their superior, nVidia.
Galidou - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
LoL Cerise is still here launching inflammatory stuff at everyone who says something about AMD. Look at the mad Nvidia fanboy crying setting fire to the rain...Whoever loses, you don't have to get so MUCH mad when speaking of computer parts, they are freaking computer parts, not women intimate parts... get laid before speaking of ignorance...
Why is it always the nvidia fanboys who gets so mad, are they freaking lacking real life sex so they become obsessed by video cards. I don't even want to think at what kind of picture they look at when they try to evacuate the pressure.... NO I DON'T...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link
Amd lost, and lost badly, and all you do is attack me, so you lose too.Gastec - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Omg he's just a troll and you have fallen into his trap. Went me talking to the walls painted 6 months ago....Ah but maybe the troll reads this and replies. And if he's a mad troll he will copy my comments store it in a .txt. or .doc and use it "against" me in future ..."fights" Pfff! Sayonara suckers!Galidou - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
''Now, with your rude attack due to your personal ignorance''LOL, I wonder who's rude?
''your sad, pathetic, amd pro backing smack talk comment above that, where put down the entire comments section as an argumentative and sad place''
I think that just answered my last question. Just sad to see someone who gather this information to use it like you do, good job.
''You are sad, amd has lost, and has been forced down into shame by their superior, nVidia. ''
I think the only one who lost, it's you. You lost your sanity just for speaking about video card companies, according so much importance to it while it's so much irrelevant. 90% of the people will continue going to best buy and get a geforce 8600gt or a Radeon 2600xt for 120$ thinking they got the deal of the year because it has a 30$ rebate on it and allow them to run their game at 720p. GG
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Ah yes, another whose only "information" in 2 consecutive posts is 100% personal attack.Thank me when you grow up enough to realize rebutting lies and fibs by others is an adult and responsible thing to do. Something you obviously are absolutely incapable of, since expertise is not in your arsenal.
BTW - the gentleman who had to be corrected on his lackluster amd excuse concerning gpu core size vs amd's ability to for the 3td time in a few months, reduce prices, it has been pointed out, lied about the nVidia core size exaggerating it's dimensions (by mistake of course!).
ROFL hahahha - you pathetic amd fanboys have to lie all the time....
Not 300mm, 294mm sonny boy. ROFL
When it's so bad no lie is too big or too small, this is what happens - this is what we're (well not you of course, you're just an attacking troll) dealing with.