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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CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
28 isn't playable and yes, the nVidia card really wins that game, as we see in the 680 test, which I had to point out as you, the amd fanboy despite your claim to own a 680, never noticed like all the rest, including the author to a large degree, in the 680 release review here.So take your temporary Gaming Evolved amd game driver hack that disabled nVidia's winning sweep across all resolutions and celebrate, a fool of course needs to do so, you're welcome for pointing it out.
(roll eyes at the immense ignorance, again)
Now enjoy the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0eZEdpsgjk
I know amd told us many, many times, as did so many little named posters here for so many years, that nVidia was evil for TWIMTBP work and what they did to the amd cards performance in those efforts.
Maybe they should note this little problem that developed ?
ROFL
Galidou - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
''(roll eyes at the immense ignorance, again)''Such a troll again, such a lack of respect, indirect attacks, most useless comment on earth... immense ignorance, comon we're speaking about video cards, someone not knowing that you can change a buck for 4 quarters might be an ignorant... unless he's a tribal that lived in africa all his life... and then the ''again'' omg the inflammatory stuff you're able to say in 7 words sentence... I'm unsure you realize what you do... you're being really mean...
All that and I could only say you're mean... I guess respect ain't give to everyone, sad it can't be bought, because it must be the most important value, ALL AROUND, a man can have. Everything starts with respect, real wisdom is acquired through respect.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
All you do is attack, this is the last response you get from me unless you're on topic with a point, and as respectful as you demand others be, which you are not, you're the worst so far, a pure troll with no points at all.The other posters are trying to make points, not you. Attention for you is over.
Galidou - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
He mentions the puny 1,25gb because the card CAN'T run it and is usually a good performer against the competition at that resolution. You say it beats the 7870 in the next page, by 1-2 fps, I don't even call that a beating. Plus in a game that favors Nvidia.''This is the kind of crap we have to put up with here, at least we who have a brain and can see what's going on.''
I think you meant ''we who are Nvidia's fanboys''
It may not be the most neutral of comments but it's not the worst, you're just looking to find things against Nvidia and enumerate them because that's what Nvidia's fanboys do. What do they do, get mad as soon as there's a little reason to.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
No other card can run it with gaming frame rates in his test.Since he didn't point that out, I DID.
I guess he'll have to work harder to find a valid reason to dis the card since he has claimed nVidia is keeping it on, and the egg sure looks like that is correct - a lot of stock present.
Now, you validated my point, but want to call it petty, but a similar thing happens on nearly every gaming page.
At least what I point out is some pathetic grammar nazi problem, huh, which all of the rest of you seem to love to do so much, in every review posting it appears to be a contest for that, and I agree with the reviewer that PM'ing him to offer a correction is actually adult like and responsible.
That of course is different than what bothers me, and we shall see, a valid complaint is usually responded to in a good way, so there may be some thought ahead, I certainly expect positive results for my efforts.
As is so often claimed here by those in charge they respond to readers and what they want, so this fits that case fine.
On that note along those lines I already advocated a single gaming chart with the collated data of the various cards in their overclocked performance states, as it seems to me that would be a nice added feature to reviews and would settle some of the rancor on the reviewed cards sometimes having OC'ed versions added in their release.
SamsungAppleFan - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
first of all, thanks for the article, but you guys (anandtech) take wayyyyyy too long between new articles. get on it guys, seriously. and i'm still waiting on my gs3 full review lol.GlItCh017 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
This card can really shine if it likes what you like. I'm a huge FPS fan, so in scenario's such as BF3 the GTX 670 vs. Radeon HD 6970 is a no brainer.Morg. - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Sure, like most FPS's won't be on Unreal4 instead of frostbite ;)That engine, for some reason, favors nVidia and I don't think it's a good GPU performance metric, although if you're going to play frostbite content, it's clearly important.
Morg. - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Nevermind, I knew why but I hadn't seen it mentioned yet.http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/johan-an...
So .. buying a graphics board because it is favored by a botched graphical engine which is temporary - meh. If you plan on keeping your pc 2 or 3 years, fck the marketing, get raw power instead ;)
antef - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Are you saying AMD has the better GPU for most FPS titles outside ones running Frostbite?