NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The EVGA GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked
Our second card of the day is EVGA’s GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked, which in EVGA’s hierarchy is their first tier of factory overclocked cards. EVGA is binning GTX 670s and in turn promoting some of them to this tier, which means the GTX 670 Superclocked are equipped with generally better performing chips than the average reference card.
| GeForce GTX 670 Partner Card Specification Comparison | ||||
| EVGA GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked | GeForce GTX 670 (Ref) | |||
| CUDA Cores | 1344 | 1344 | ||
| Texture Units | 112 | 112 | ||
| ROPs | 32 | 32 | ||
| Base Clock | 967MHz | 915MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1046MHz | 980MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 6210MHz | 6008MHz | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 256-bit | 256-bit | ||
| Frame Buffer | 2GB | 2GB | ||
| TDP | 170W | 170W | ||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | ||
| Width | Double Slot | Double Slot | ||
| Length | 9.5" | 9.5" | ||
| Warranty | 3 Years | N/A | ||
| Price Point | $419 | $399 | ||
For the GTX 670 SC, EVGA has given both the core clock and memory clock a moderate boost. The core clock has been increased by 52MHz (6%) to 967MHz base and 66MHz (7%) boost to 1046MHz. Meanwhile the memory clock has been increased by 202MHz (3%) to 6210MHz.
Other than the clockspeed changes, the GTX 670 SC is an almost-reference card utilizing a reference PCB with a slightly modified cooler. EVGA is fabricating their own shroud, but they’ve copied NVIDIA’s reference shroud down to almost the last detail. The only functional difference is that the diameter of the fan intake is about 5mm less, otherwise the only difference is that EVGA has detailed it differently than NVIDIA and used some rounded corners in place of square corners.
The only other change you’ll notice is that EVGA is using their own high flow bracket in place of NVIDIA’s bracket. The high flow bracket cuts away as much metal as possible, maximizing the area of the vents. Though based on our power and temperature readings, this doesn’t seem to have notably impacted the GTX 670 SC.
While we’re on the matter of customized cards and factory overclocks, it’s worth reiterating NVIDIA’s position on factory overclocked cards. Reference and semi-custom cards (that is, cards using the reference PCB) must adhere to NVIDIA’s power target limits. For GTX 670 this is a 141W power target, with a maximum power target of 122% (170W). Fully custom cards with better power delivery circuitry can go higher, but not semi-custom cards. As a result the flexibility in building semi-custom cards comes down to binning. EVGA can bin better chips and use them in cards such as the Superclocked – such as our sample which can go 17 boost bins over the base clock versus 13 bins for our reference GTX 670 – but at the end of the day for stock performance they’re at the mercy of what can be accomplished within 141W/170W.
In any case, as the card is otherwise a reference GTX 670 EVGA is relying on the combination of their factory overclock, their toolset, and their strong reputation for support to carry the card. EVGA has priced the card at $419, $20 over the GTX 670 MSRP, in-line with other factory overclocked cards.
On the subject of pricing and warranties, since this is the first EVGA card we’ve reviewed since April 1st, this is a good time to go over the recent warranty changes EVGA has made.
Starting April 1st, EVGA has implemented what they’re calling their new Global Warranty Policy. Starting July 1st, 2011 (the policy is being backdated), all new EVGA cards ship with at least a 3 year warranty. And for the GTX 600 series specifically, so far EVGA has only offered models with a 3 year warranty in North America, which simplifies their product lineup.
To complement the 3 year warranty and replace the lack of longer term warranties, EVGA is now directly selling 2 and 7 year warranty extensions, for a total of 5 and 10 years respectively. So instead of buying a card with a 3 year warranty or a longer warranty, you’ll simply buy the 3 year card and then buy a warranty extension to go with it. However the extended warranty requires that the card be registered and the warranty purchased within 30 days.
The second change is that the base 3 year warranty no longer requires product registration. EVGA has other ways to entice buyers into registering, but they’ll now honor all applicable cards for 3 years regardless of the registration status. At the same time the base 3 year warranty is now a per-product warranty (e.g. a transferable warranty) rather than per-user warranty, so the base warranty will transfer to 2nd hand buyers. The extended warranties however will not.
The third change is how EVGA is actually going to handle the warranty process. First and foremost, EVGA is now allowing cards to be sent to the nearest EVGA RMA office rather than the office for the region the card was purchased from. For example a buyer moving from Europe to North America can send the card to EVGA’s North American offices rather than sending it overseas.
Finally, EVGA is now doing free cross shipping, alongside their existing Advanced RMA program. EVGA will now cross-ship replacement cards for free to buyers. The buyer meanwhile is responsible for paying to ship the faulty card back and putting up collateral on the new card until EVGA receives the old card.
There’s also one quick change to the step-up program that will impact some customers. With the move to purchasing extended warranties, the step-up program is only available to customers who either purchase an extended warranty or purchase an older generation card that comes with a lifetime warranty. Step-up is not available to cards with only the base 3 year warranty.
Moving on, along with EVGA’s new warranty EVGA is bundling the latest version of their GPU utilities, Precision X and OC Scanner X.
Precision X, as we touched upon quickly in our GTX 680 review, is the latest iteration of EVGA’s Precision overclocking & monitoring utility. It’s still based on RivaTuner and along with adding support for the GTX 600 series features (power targets, framerate caps, etc), it also introduces a new UI. Functionality wise it’s still at the top of the pack along with the similarly RivaTuner powered MSI Afterburner. Personally I’m not a fan of the new UI – circular UIs and sliders aren’t particularly easy to read – but it gets the job done.
OC Scanner X has also received a facelift and functionality upgrade of its own. Along with its basic FurMark-ish stress testing and error checking, it now also offers a basic CPU stress test and GPU benchmark.
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Gastec - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Insanity!CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
When amd has trouble with a game, the reviewer, completely unaware of any amd deficiency (as any good fanboy), has no explanation at the ready, nothing he has been watching for as an identified weakness - unlike the nVidia cards, where the reviewer is on constant watch for what he believes are nVidia card weaknesses." Skyrim is a game that for inexplicable reasons AMD just has some trouble with that NVIDIA doesn’t, possibly driver overhead."
Yes, we know, if amd doesn't do well, it's inexplicable. Something just has to be wrong. Somehow reality has warped.
Then after noting the 670 win fairly, we get this:
" At 1920 we’re clearly CPU limited even with all of Skyrim’s graphical features turned up. "
Instead of saying the 570 beats every amd card at that resolution, or even noting every amd card is stacked at the bottom, period, it's a "cpu problem" - amd didn't fail, the cpu did...
That's not all - after seeing the 570 spank every amd card at the 1920 resolution the reviewer goes on attack, since he mentioned of course earlier in the article nVidia brought up the 570, meaning it would be part of their line up he said, so attacking it is a must, as any good fanboy knows. Never mention is has spanked the 7870 and 7850 and even the 7970 once (civ5) and never mention it spanks the whole amd tier in this game with texture packs and it's "puny memory" at 1920, but go after it...
" GTX 670 is greatly improving on the GTX 570 due to the latter’s lack of memory. 1.25GB is cutting it close here with the high resolution texture pack "
There you have it. Once again. The GTX570 spanks every amd card at 1920 but all it gets is a big fat cut down for 2560.
Oh yes, the whole way it's done is consistently against nVidia.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Here again, an nVidia win is inexplicable. Instead we hear about the amd "strength".When nVidia wins, remember it's unclear why because it should not be happening, amd has a superior strength !
" 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."
Now we can listen to the "on paper" amd fanboys, and the endless fantasy that future drivers and future games mean amd is the "future winner" for the newest cards tested and compared.
Never will we hear the amd core "technology" is weaker and has some severe caveats when it comes to game engines and implementation.
Instead, that with much superior "paper horsepower" on "notional multiplications" based upon less than fully accurate simplified calculations omitting severe bottlenecks in amd architecture and adding in guesses for the "tricks" amd has to "overcome" them, we will always be told the above, instead of the truth.
AMD core design is inferior for most of the game engines.
snakefist - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
" 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."oh, dear god - as much as i try to ignore you...
do you, or do you not remember NVIDIA cards with 192/384/512 memory bandwidth and how much good this "advantage" brought to them? compared to AMD 128/256 bandwidth of the same generation?
when commenting your post, one is necessarily becoming an AMD fan, since basically everything you say is so biased and (mainly) incorrect or misinterpretation of actual facts
i suspect you secretly work for AMD :)
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Are you aware the post you copied is the reviewers words, smarty pants ?Do you realize I was criticizing the reviewers words, his "bandwidth" notional advantage for amd ?
Do you realize you just called the reviewer and idiot and agreed with me ?
YOUR words > " do you, or do you not remember NVIDIA cards with 192/384/512 memory bandwidth and how much good this "advantage" brought to them? compared to AMD 128/256 bandwidth of the same generation?"
Now tell it to the reviewer dumb dumb, since you copied and pasted HIS WORDS from my post, his words, words for word from the review !
ROFLMAO - yes you maybe should become a paid operative for amd, you have the intelligence for it - get everything wrong then attack - you're perfect for them :)
snakefist - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
nope. i do not realize that. i don't memorize each word of review to be able to write 2/3 comments of 22-pages thread...and i didn't call anyone "an idiot".
what i said is what i believe (furthermore, it could be backed up by numerous reviews from that time - all of them also written by reviewers, perhaps on your surprise). whether this reviewer agrees with me or not on this topic is a simple matter of opinions, and review itself doesn't burst with hate as all your posts do.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Who knows what you said, it isn't clear, because you didn't make it clear.Believe whatever it is you believe,as that is also unclear, and only your opinion, since no facts are present for you, according to you.
Of course you only see hate from me, since I point out the amd flaws, and amd is your fanboy fave, as your other posts clearly show, and no you don't sense hate from the reviewer as he coddles amd, as I pointed out, and that gives you a nice warm feeling of "good opinion" vibrations.
ROFL
It's all too clear.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
PS- you called me a lot worse than an idiot, so don't cop out on your hate filled spewing. Of course who expects anything less from an amd fanboy.Let's go with this, so you don't forget, or try to claim white snowy innocence - I certainly hope a bunch of obvious amd fanboys ignore every fact and facet I've presented, and dive, "driven" as you noted, right (back) into their beloved failure, with someone like you doing that, I couldn't receive any greater and lovely reward for my efforts here.
snakefist - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
i did question your sanity, which i found more than ever a reasonable question. i'm surely not only one who shares this doubt. as for anger-management - i don't find this insulting, you should rather stop living in denial that you have onei did not called reviewer "an idiot", which you implied.
i was not aware that you are making efforts of any kind, except to comment every sensible post of any author with your irrelevant raging about something else... now that you explained it so well, i'll probably stay off your noble crusade of enlightening people with wildly subjective and/or incorrect claims... at least as long i feel like it
facts behind my claims are clearly stated and usually well-known and proven. your last two posts doesn't have single fact, btw
now reap the benefits of your great reward, whatever you might think it is
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Oh stop being a liar, you got outed so now you can't stand yourself.Let's go with near page one where one of your fellow amd fans haphazardly claims the 365mm die of the amd card is so close to the 300mm die of the nVidia card that amd price dropping again is no problem.
Another amd snake applauded the post for the sanity it contained. ( merely because amd fanboyism was served well, of course)
I had to point out, with considerable effort and for the greater good ...
(let's face it amd fans should be ponying up profit dollars for the hurting amd, not demanding low prices be lowered again - it's called putting your money where your mouth is, and where your heart is in this case, something the amd zealouts apparently have, to only their personal and selfish advantage, trained themselves out of - a rude, and debilitating issue for amd - who IMO has greatly encouraged that suicidal behavior )
...that the 365mm die is over 43% larger than the 300mm die.
Now there's just a single example of what needs to happen much more often, so that we can be well informed persons instead of lying brainwashed monkeys.
I certainly do not mind a big 'ol fanboy, in fact that's great, but let's bring it up to a level where a fan can be a self respecting and respected addition, not in need of constant lies, and endless unethical misconduct, right ?
A fanboy should easily support his view with the truth and not be in need of anything other, and as I fairly point out, an honorable fanboy won't be hellbent on squeezing every last dollar from their favorite producer while at the same time preaching corporate profitability "lessons" or sideway gloatings of the same, in direct opposition to their stated personal savings conduct goal and oft lofted talking point rhetoric.