NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even four years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a 60fps is still beyond the grasp of a single-GPU card.
If GTX 680 had one weakness in particular it was Crysis, and that certainly hasn’t changed with GTX 670. The good news is that the GTX 670 does relatively well compared to the GTX 680 because of its memory bandwidth – GK104 in general seems to be memory bandwidth constrained here – but that’s where the good news ends. GTX 670 can’t otherwise tie the Radeon HD 7950, let alone beat it or threaten the 7970.
Overall performance isn’t particularly strong either. Given the price tag of the GTX 670 the most useful resolution is likely going to be 2560x1600, where the GTX 670 can’t even cross 30fps at our enthusiast settings. Even 1920x1200 isn’t looking particularly good. This is without a doubt the legitimate lowpoint of the GTX 670.
As for gamers looking to upgrade, the GTX 670 looks decent here compared to the GTX 570, but nothing fantastic. The memory bandwidth limitations mean that performance has only gained 33%, which isn’t particularly great for an 18 month span.
Finally, EVGA’s first performance here is decent, but nothing spectacular. Thanks to a combination of being TDP limited and Crysis’s memory bandwidth limits, the GTX 670 Superclocked is at best 3% faster here.
The story with minimum framerates is much the same. The GTX 670 can closely trail the GTX 680, but it’s still not up to the caliber of the 7950 let alone the 7970.
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chizow - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Except in this case, the "underdog" AMD initiated this pricing debacle with the terribly overpriced 7970 and the "leader" Nvidia was content to follow, selling their mid-range ASIC GK104 as a high-end SKU.While Nvidia did improve the situation with their GK104 pricing, its still by far, the worst increase we've seen from a price:performance perspective in the last decade of GPUs.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
You're in the GTX670 review, it's $399, it has come out fast, and it's awesome and beats the more epxensive flagship 7970, and destroys and historical price/perf you've got handy.Utter decimates it.
Best in years, best in a decade is now the line you should be using for the GTX670.
Crazyeyeskillah - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
don't buy it if you can't afford it, other people will gladly take your place in line. I'm just glad we have some next gen products from both companies to choose from. If anything we are very fortunate to have so many products available that can max out all our games at present.chizow - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Its not a matter of being able to afford it, its about standards and expectations, which I'm not willing to lower for substandard offerings for products that are neither essential for survival nor expire on their own due to wear.They're high-priced toys and nothing more and there's *PLENTY* of other distractions in that endless category of entertainment to compete with, especially when these new offerings don't offer compelling reasons to upgrade over my last-gen $500 GPUs.
The other consideration is buying these parts at high premiums sets a bad precedence, where the consumer gets *LESS* for their money and similarly gives Nvidia free reign to set a new bar for premium price and performance in the future.
We've already gotten a taste of this with the GTX 690 for $1000!!! What do you think is next with GK110? Why don't you look historically at the reaction to the 8800 Ultra at $830? Nvidia is *STILL* trying to downplay that part and justify their pricing decisions, but with a mid-range ASIC like GK104 selling for $500 premium flagship prices, Nvidia is once again positioned to sell an "Ultra" part at ultra-premium pricing. For what? A part that performs as you would've expected from a $500 flagship to begin with, roughly +50% more than the last-gen flagship.....
Crazyeyeskillah - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
i don't buy any of that wahhhCeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Charlie D from semi-accurate buys it 100%, why no U ?chizow - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Yeah I know, you're too busy blithely buying overpriced GPUs to understand what I'm talking about.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Maybe if you provided a percentage with a simple texted chart, heck you don't need to do ten years, the doubter could gauge the level of your sourness properly - after all .01% less of a jump in performance below the worst jump in the last ten years fits all of your descriptions 100%.So why are you moaning about .01% ?
SlyNine - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Well when the 7970 came out that was by far the worst. Its alot better now, but I agree this jump hasn't been one for value at all. People don't remember the great videocards I guess. The 5870 was the last one in my eyes.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
5870 jumped from the 4890. Now please, let's see this enormous perf increase somewhere... as compared to the current.No less than that, the 5870 was replaced by the 6870, also not so great a leap.
We keep hearing about these ephemeral perf increases, but so far NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE has provided even a simple percent increase chart - and you know why ?
Because you people love to quaff out moaning fantasies like "double performance" and says things like "the great GTX880 !" (after of course bitching for a four years it was extremely overpriced and not ever worth it).
So let's see it my friends, where pray tell is this great alluded to but never actually defined gigantic performance increase now not seen ?
4890-5870-6970 ????
Come on now, let's have one of you true believers gum up the work and give us a good percentage comparison we don't have to rip apart for immense biased game picking.
Should take one of you all but 10 minutes. Charts are everywhere.
Use the anand bench for cripes sakes, I'm sick of hearing the moanings and fantasies with no simple effort of a comonly available percentage - and you know why - because I'm calling BS !
Now - let's see it !