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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kingkazuma - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
i was honestly surprised that Nvidia didn't make the 600 series more powerful in gpcomputingwell guess its 7970 for me... but i would want one of these for gaming :D
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Gee what programs are you going to use the amd card for in compute ?I'd sure like to hear for once what amd can do, instead of experiencing it's massively frustrating failures and apologists and recent unbelievable hypocrits.
What the heck "compute" are you using a 7970 for - I'd sure like to know what programs... and what exactly stream is capable of, but all we ever get is a blank and some fat slow drooling talking point, except when it's pointed out that nVidia has ten thousand more drivers and support and software base in compute so it's the only way to go.
Would you enlighten us ?
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
PS - the 7970 lost the computer benchmarks here, and the 680 won.I guess you never checked the results and just went with the "on paper !" fantasies.
Good luck squandering up valid programs and valid amd software.
At least you can use the now "we'll never do it !" "we are love, we are amd! " "we demand open source! " "we demand corporate responsibility !" - PROPRIETARY amd hacked openCL winzip.
Enjoy that gigantic hypocrisy unzipping.
Amd is for suckers.
james.jwb - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I normally like to read the comment section here, but honestly can't be bothered since certain trolls have come here and for the 10th time (in the last 2/3 years), get to run a riot for a few weeks until someone at Anandtech finally butts in and bans him.Yawn to this scenario once again.
Move to Disqus, Anandtech, and start moderating. You'll get 500 comments per important article and won't have to let controversy and trolls stay to bolster discussion.
Gastec - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I subscribe to that. If they don't take action maybe we should.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Civ5 " On our final test the 7970 sees a slight resurgence compared to the past few games, preventing NVIDIA from sweeping the whole back half of our tests. "Well, actually, that's not nVidia sweeping "the whole back HALF" that's nVidia sweeping the entire last 75% or 3/4ths, and if it weren't for the TWS2 bug, amd could claim only 2 out of 10 games, losing a FULL 80%, more than 3/4ths of all gaming tests.
Instead of hearing the awful truth since the 7970 dives as resolution goes up losing miserably, which is ALWAYS pointed out when nVidia cards react that, puttting down some imaginary problem the reviewer guesses at concerning nVidia, instead we hear how amd shows a slight "resurgence" like a good terrorist card, and it's not noted it's only at the lowest resolution shown, of course.
Next the reviewer tells us how the 600 series doesn't do very well "against the 500 series" here - yet the 580 BEATS the 7950 at both 1920 and at 2560 - in other words, the truth is, the GTX500 series does EXCEPTIONALLY WELL here, smacking down even the "resurgent" amd cards brother.
The 570 is about 40% and then 30% ahead of the 6970, as another example of how well the 500 series plays this game. That's extended performance, not 600 series "interesting it's not far ahead".
Of course, IMO only an amd fanboy could come up with that kind of wording and analysis.
Was it so "interesting" that the reviewer couldn't see the 580 and 570 cleaning the clocks of their competition and even above their competition ?
So when the nVidia just prior tier does well, it's the current card not doing so well against it.
When the current nVidia cards do win 75% of the games against amd, it's belittled to less than half, with the special less than half "sweep" phrasing, with the 7970 amd flagship losing past the lowest tested resolution as the "catch".
What a bad joke for Nvidia the pro amd words are in these reviews games pages.
medi01 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
"7970 dives as resolution goes up losing miserably"Are you on a crack, or something?
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Look at the civ5 page - Civilization 5 gaming page review, as soon as you put down your stupid dumb you down drug.medi01 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
So what are you smoking? Is it crack that dumbs down and turns into zealont, or were you born an idiot?CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Excellent rebuttal, you've made your point for amd so well.