NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTPortal 2
Portal 2 continues the long and proud tradition of Valve’s in-house Source engine. While Source continues to be a DX9 engine, Valve has continued to upgrade it over the years to improve its quality, and combined with their choice of style you’d have a hard time telling it’s over 7 years old at this point. Consequently Portal 2’s performance does get rather high on high-end cards, but we have ways of fixing that…
With this latest generation of high-end cards Portal 2 performance is so high that it’s more than practical to play with SSAA, and that’s where we’re going to focus today. At all resolutions and anti-aliasing options the GTX 670 can surpass the 7970, but this is especially the case with SSAA. At 2560 the GTX 670 is just shy of 60fps, while the 7970 manages only 48fps and the 7950 39fps. SSAA is the ultimate lavish feature, and although Portal 2 is perfectly playable on AMD’s cards without SSAA, SSAA is also the ultimate option for image quality and there’s no good reason not to use it with cards that perform this well.
At this point it’s not entirely clear why the GTX 600 series does so well here (both AMD and NV use SGSSAA), especially given the fact that the Radeons have a memory bandwidth advantage. But regardless of the reason at 2560 the GTX 670 is looking pretty good. For that matter this also happens to be one of the stronger games for EVGA’s GTX 670 Superclocked; the performance gain at 2560 pushes past 4%.
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Samus - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I'm just pissed I bought a GTX560 448 Core (basically a GTX570) just four months ago, and now its completely outdated lol.SlyNine - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Then I'd recommend never buying videocards.On the other hand a GTX 560 may not be the newest card in its price bracket, outdated seems to be a harsh word. You still get the same performance you paid for, it's not going to drop just because something newer came out.
My 5870 was 2 1/2 years old, cost me 384$ at the time, The price/performance stayed relevant right until the 680GTX came out.
Papaspud - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Exactly, I was running a GTX 285, and it didn't { slow down} when the new cards came out. Decide what card you want and be happy, the next new card is always on the way, and your card won't be the bestest forever.I was lucky and camped newegg when the GTX 680's came out and scored, very good card, but that being said AMD's cards are very nice too and I would be more than happy with one of those too, but I invested in a 3D setup so I am kind of stuck in Nvidia land for now.
As far as I can see, all of the high end cards are really nice, decide which one is for you and be happy, don't feel like you need to justify your purchase to unknown people on the internet.
will54 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Finally someone that doesn't put down one brand over the other just to justifiy his purchase. In the end these cards are plenty enough for most resolutions and games. If 3d and physx and such is something important to you go Nvidia and if Compute and zero core tech is important go AMD. The fact that both companies are strong only improves the product and price.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
you won't be using 7970 and 7950 for compute, those cards are thousands of dollars and have special configs and special drivers, and don't even carry the same card name, although the cores are similarhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Way over 2 grand baby. That strikes down the one lie for amd, no points amd fan.
Onto the second talking point - zero core - it shows about 3 watts difference at idle, but once a person uses the card, the 7970 loses hours of advantage doing nothing in a few minutes, hence it's power bill cost will be much more anyway. That's another zero points for amd.
I'll wait till you think of something that isn't a big fat lie and trick to claim the amd cards are "good too"....
If you're going to be a good fair and peaceful person willing to bring together the forum you had better come up with something solid for amd.
We don't get to just say it's all even steven because amd loses so miserably, and then pretend it's true, while (you) spewing an outright lie and deception (firepro) and a secondary loss as a win (power).
SlyNine - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
There are plenty of people using consumer grade cards for compute.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Sure, plenty, plenty, plenty here never use it, and now they have one thing they can use it for with an amd card - winzip-Count your many blessings amd fan.
What a joke you people are.
There are nVidia driver hacks available BTW - whereby you can increase perf of the many released nVidia gaming cards and attempt some grand performance, but of course you guys have done that already for the past 3 generations like your opposition here, huh....
Yes, you're so well versed.
Galidou - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
And here comes the fanboy to break the dream of neutrality, we will never be alone. We just said we were happy that someone commented about whatever brand people buy, as long as you are happy with your purchase.''Perception is what matters, someone who buys a honda civic can be as happy as someone who buys a Ferrari, sure the feeling of driving it will be different. But in the end, it's the perception towards life that matters.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Someone who had to buy Nvidia for the 3D, since amd sucks so badly at it, owned nVidia (285) prior, and thus, essentially has zero amd experience.Yes, be happy, ignorance is bliss, in even the face of epic fail (no amd 3D use worth crap).
I mean is that what you want, someone kissing your inner feeling child so the lie you live can remain ?
It seems so.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I see SlyNine.... so the jump from your 5870 to the next tier, the 6970 was crap, and then to 7970 was crap, only becoming relevant when the 680GTX hit:" My 5870 was 2 1/2 years old, cost me 384$ at the time, The price/performance stayed relevant right until the 680GTX came out. "
So according to you, the last 2 amd flagship releases even combined were not of sufficient jump percentage...
I guess that's another giant mark in the destruction of the recently popularized complaint about this release "being the smallest jump we've ever seen".