NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Looking at this data I’m reminded a great deal of the Radeon HD 6900 series launch. AMD launched the 6900 series after the GTX 500 series, but launch order aside the end result was very similar. NVIDIA’s second tier GTX 570 and AMD’s first tier Radeon HD 6970 were tied on average but were anything but equals. This is almost exactly what we’re seeing with the GTX 670 and the Radeon HD 7970.
Depending on the game and resolution we’re looking at the GTX 670 reaches anywhere between 80% and 120% of the 7970’s performance. AMD sails by the GTX 670 in Crysis and to a lesser extent Metro, only for the GTX 670 to shoot ahead in BF3 and Portal 2 (w/SSAA). Officially NVIDIA’s positioning on the GTX 670 is that it’s to go against the 7950 and not the 7970, and that’s a wise move on NVIDIA’s behalf; but the GTX 670 is surely nipping at the 7970’s heels.
With that said, there are a couple of differences from the 6900 series launch which are equally important. The first is that unlike last time the GTX 670 and Radeon HD 7970 are not equally priced. At MSRP the GTX 670 is $80 cheaper, while at cheapest retail it’s closer to $60. The second difference is that this time the competing cards are not nearly as close in power consumption or noise, and thanks to GK104 NVIDIA has a notable advantage there.
Much like the GTX 570 and the Radeon HD 6970, if you’re in the market for cards at these performance levels you need to take a look at both cards and see what kind of performance each card gets on the games you want to play. From our results the GTX 670 is doing better at contemporary games and is cheaper to boot, but the Radeon HD 7970 can hold its own here at multi-monitor resolutions and games like Crysis or Metro. Or for that matter it can still run circles around the GTX 670 in GK104's real weakness: compute tasks
On the other hand if you’re buying a gaming card on price then this isn’t a contest. For the Radeon HD 7950 this is the GTX 680 all over again. NVIDIA can’t quite beat the 7950 in every game (e.g. Crysis), but when it loses it’s close, and when it wins it’s 15%, 25%, even 50% faster. At the same time gaming power consumption is also lower as is noise. As it stands the worst case scenario for the GTX 670 is that it performs like a 7950 while the best case scenario is that it performs like a 7970. And it does this priced like a 7950, which means that something is going to have to give the moment NVIDIA’s product supply is no longer in question.
Outside of the obligatory AMD matchup, interestingly enough NVIDIA has put themselves in harm’s way here in the process. At 2560x1600 the GTX 680 only beats the GTX 670 by 7% on average. NVIDIA has always charged a premium for their top card but the performance gap has also been greater. In games that aren’t shader bound the GTX 670 does very well for itself thanks to the fact that it has equal memory bandwidth and only a slight ROP performance deficit, which means the GTX 680 is only particularly strong in Metro, Portal 2, and DiRT 3. The 7% performance lead certainly doesn’t justify the 25% price difference, and if you will give up that performance NVIDIA will shave $100 off of the price of a card, but if you do want that top performance NVIDIA intends to make you pay for it. Of course this is also why the GTX 670 is only priced $100 cheaper rather than $150. Potential buyers looking for a $350 GK104 card are going to be left out in the cold for now, particularly buyers looking for a meaningful GTX 570 upgrade.
Finally, the nature of NVIDIA’s power target technology has put partners like EVGA in an odd place. Even with a moderate 6%+ factory overclock the GTX 670 Superclocked just isn’t all that much faster than the reference GTX 670, averaging only a 3% gain at 2560. Since the GTX 670 virtually always operates above its base clock the culprit is NVIDIA’s power target, which keeps the GTX 670SC from boosting much higher than our reference GTX 670. Once you increase the power target the GTX 670SC can easily make an interesting niche for itself, but while this isn’t true overclocking it isn’t stock performance either. In any case it’s clear that for factory overclocked cards to really push the limit they’re going to need to go fully custom, which is what a number of partners are going to do in the coming months.
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eachus - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
"I would like to see a 7970OC comparison? I was trying to find a 680 but gave up and got an 7970oc for $499 it's running at 1025Mhz and should be faster than a 680."No need really--unless you want to use the latest and greatest benchmarks in an on-line pissing contest. Let's face it. ANY high-end card, including now what AMD calls mid-range (the 7800 series) will run a 1920x1200 display with no trouble. Upgrade to three displays (5760x1200) or one 2560x1600 display, and now the high-end cards make sense. But keep track of the evolving drivers...the original 7970 benchmarks are now dead letters given the 12.4 drivers. Fixing lots of little gotchas in the drivers means that now you don't need two cards to drive a three screen display. This is true of both nVidia and AMD. (Compare the benchmarks here with the launch benchmarks for the 680. The 7970 wins several benchmarks now, which will last until nVidia has some non-launch drivers. Since you are getting more performance than you originally paid for, just sit back and enjoy it.)
Oh, and one other point which is starting to become an issue: 3d graphics. When I find a 3d display that doesn't give me headaches with a few hours use, I'll buy one. Right now though, it is already clear that 120 fps displays will be needed for that, and AMD has been considering 90+ fps out of the ROPs as sufficient--at least with 2560x1600, non-Crossfire. :-(
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Well eachus amd fanboy friend, instead of calling him and idiot owner of the 7970 in a useless pissing contest, why don't you just tell him the truth ?The 7970 LOSES @ 1,025 core clock to the stock 680.
+
And yes, amd sucks when it comes to 3d gaming, while nVidia is the king and has the market absolutely cornered.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Here's a comparison dunce.http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/37209-gefor...
The amd card loses with just it overclocked.
Enjoy that amd fail.
Chris Simmo - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Excellent review. Excellent card! One thing I didn't see was image quality. Both in game and video/HT capability. I know its not a common thing amoungst gamers and self builders, but we do complete systems and always found that AMD does a better job with video than NVIDIA. Most noticable are old TV show rips or youtube videos. Do you have any opinion? Just want to know if its a good allrounder or only good at games.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Well, you must have enjoyed the years long amd youtube issues with constantly crashing adobe flash, having to turn off the HW acell, etc.I sure hope your customers didn't mind.
Chris Simmo - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Actually we have had few reports, and they have been pretty even on both sides, but the only time I have had to turn off hardware acceleration is with TMT5 SIMHD engine with any HD7000 card, and I have seen the flash problems you are talking about, but strangly only on notebooks, not desktops. I do believe a fix is in the works for TMT though. I really hope so. Anyway, I am not looking at it from a fanboy point of view. I will give my customers what they want, but will push the most capable product for their application and for a long while now this has generally been AMD graphics with Intel CPU's. This has come up well as we have had an incredibly low failure rate.Support is important and in the last 6 months I have worked with both ASUS and AMD support to correct issues in motherboards and driver bugs, and as long as they get fixed I am happy, providing it’s not a really big issue to start with.
I’m sure you have worked with 1200 graphics cards in the last 4 years and know exactly what you are talking about, and offer support to match the warranty, which in our case is 2 years.
I am excited about the 600 series though, and will look to stock the GTX670 when the prices settle.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Hundreds of graphics cards but not 1200 graphics cards, so yes I do know what I'm talking about, and I'm not stuck in a corporate environment where information and standard responses are a required line to be towed, so it's likely my experience this past year is actually far wider than yours.In any case, you allude to "pretty even on both sides" with flash player problems, but before you claimed youtube was great with amd, or at least claimed some sort of superior image quality - and mentioned old movie clips, but by your own comparison you must be servicing nVidia cards as well, or perhaps you are not, and the choice was made and now...
So to me that appears to be your corporate environment talking as you'll go with whatever your masters say is happening, and it is said to be better then, by default necessity - as whomever decides in the power structure will in effect be demanding employees tow that line, it is after all, foolish to do otherwise, especially in a forum where you could be easily discovered doing so.
I frankly find your surprise lack of knowledge with flash player issues disturbing, but attribute it to the call center corporate support model.
Anyway go ahead with your issue, and find the answer you need. I think you should do well with whatever it is you need for answer, and think no doubt that has already been determined.
Chris Simmo - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
You assume a lot. There isn't much of your argument there that actually holds any truth, and you are the foolish one to assume otherwise. To me it appears you are just looking for a fight. No better than a common troll. And as a result I won't bother with a rebuttal or correcting any of your assumptions.Ryan Smith - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Hi Chris;Since image quality is almost entirely a function of architectural improvements as opposed to the individual SKUs, we don't do a major IQ writeup for every card. For Kepler in game image quality hasn't changed (NVIDIA hasn't changed any of the fundamental algorithms). As for HT/video, we're hoping to have something up soon once we can secure a more HTPC-suitable GK107 card.
-Thanks
Ryan Smith
Chris Simmo - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Thanks Ryan. Yeah, I knew its an architectural thing. I build some very high powered HTPC as gaming systems and since this card will no doubt end up shipping with smaller coolers, it seems like a great card to put in a gaming HTPC. Looking forward to the HTPC review though.