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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snakefist - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
"...that the 365mm die is over 43% larger than the 300mm die."die size is in mm2 and NOT in diameter (mm). do your math again... and gtx680 die is 294mm2... to your pleasure, it increases the size difference... the real one, not the 43% you came out with - somehow
now, these were two of the things you learned from me :)
reading more, instead writing would help you, as well anger-management i suggested earlier :)
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Why then I await your math calculation.I'll let you know now I'll be back after 3 seasons pass to give you time to prepare your answer.
It doesn't surprise me one iota the stupid amd fanboy even increased the nVidia core size for that always needed amd liar cheat, nor that praise for his sanity followed on unopposed except by yours truly. Sometimes letting a liar even have part of his lie and still proving him wrong is good enough.
No need however to correct my shorthand text concerning circular vs rectangular area, but as I imagine the stupidity you are surrounded with inside your own head you thought it a possibility, and it clearly indicates you didn't read the part of the thread discussed as well.
snakefist - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
you do realize that 300mm is about a length of an A4 page, don't you?i don't need to calculate anything, it's clearly that nvidia die is ~20% smaller than amd one...
on the other hand, unlike you, i know how to calculate, maybe that explains why your mistake was so obvious to me...
"stupidity you are surrounded with" - sadly, true - but i'm only surrounded by you... but than again, it's the only reason i even talk to you - it's kinda fun because i don't get angry at all (quite the opposite), and you're spilling poison - seriously, how long you spent on writing that 1,000,000 comments about nvidia being better?
i've spent about half an hour talking to you in total, and for own amusement purposes
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
That's over 22%snakefist - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
i did right to come back here, more laughter!YOU are correcting ME?
what now, i should calculate 22% decimals, and correct you?
man, i KNOW math, you DON'T. otherwise, it would strike you immediately for 2x mistake you made in post (lets assume square was a type, thought i'm not quite sure).
now ~20% means ABOUT and it is that way because it applies in similar fashion to both bigger-than and less-than scenarios, things you wouldn't of course know anything about
but then again, i proclaim FULL VICTORY for you on math issue, you were right all along, even when you wrote 43, 46 or whatever you did in the first place (without "~" which means "approximate" for you, and you didn't used it, meaning it was exactly 43 (or 46, whatever))
you're mathematical genius and i envy you a great deal on vast amount of hardware knowledge you have. happy?
snakefist - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
oh, "typo", not "type"CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Here we get it again, since nVidia's 670, the card under review did better than expected, something is wrong..." For reasons that aren’t entirely clear Batman isn’t as shader performance bottlenecked as we would have expected, leading to it doing so well compared to the GTX 680 here. "
Something is wrong, Batman is not so shader bottlenecked, and since it's so easy, the "harvested"(defective according to the reviewer) 670 core can do well.
What happened to the 570 attack this time ? Nothing, since.the 570 beats the 7870 at 2560 here, but since we can't cut the 570 down, we won't mention it.
Instead of mentioning the 670OC beats the amd flagship at the highest resolution 5760x1200, the reviewer has to play that down, so only mentions the 670OC "coming to parity" with the 6970 at middle resolution, 2560, after the STOCK 670 beats the amd 7970 at the low 1920 resolution !
ROFL - once again the analysis favors and coddles amd.
" EVGA’s overclock, even if it’s once again only around 3%, is just enough to close that gap and to bring the GTX 670 to parity with the GTX 680 and the 7970. "
No, the OC shows the 670 beating the 7970 at the highest triple screen 5760 resolution, and the STOCK 670 BEATS THE 7970 at the lowest resolution, 1920... so somehow "that's parity".
How the heck does that work ?
Do we hear once in all this game page commentary what the 7950 at the very same $399 as the 670 price is doing ?
I don't think we do.
Where is that ?
Instead of attacking the 7950 that is currently the same price as the 670, we get the reviewer over and over again attacking the GTX570 that he notes nVidia mentioned to him, making him think the GTX570 will be part of nVidia's line up for some time he states. Not once did he point out how well the GTX570 did against the amd competition.
Not once do swe hear how the 7950 costs the same but loses, loses loses. Nothing specific.
Instead we hear 670 vs 680 or attack the 570, or make excuses for the 7970 or call it inexplicable..
medi01 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Can someone ban this zealot please?sausagefingers - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
+1CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
You can blame silverblue who begged for proof about the bias in these articles. Go call your buddy so you can both smack talk about me, or heck post it here openly like you do, why not you're innocent no matter what you do as an amd fanboy, right ?