NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTOC: Power, Temperature, & Noise
Our final task is our look at GTX 670’s overclocking capabilities. Based on what we’ve seen thus far with GTX 670, it looks like NVIDIA is binning chips based on functional units rather than clockspeeds. As a result GTX 670 could have quite a bit of overclocking potential, albeit one still limited by the lack of voltage control.
| GeForce 600 Series Overclocking | |||||
| GTX 670 | EVGA GTX 670SC | GTX 680 | |||
| Shipping Core Clock | 915MHz | 967MHz | 1006MHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Clock | 1084MHz | 1188MHz | 1110MHz | ||
| Shipping Memory Clock | 6GHz | 6GHz | 6GHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Voltage | 1.175v | 1.162v | 1.175v | ||
| Overclock Core Clock | 1065MHz | 1042MHz | 1106MHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Clock | 1234MHz | 1263MHz | 1210MHz | ||
| Overclock Memory Clock | 6.9GHz | 6.6GHz | 6.5GHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Voltage | 1.175v | 1.162v | 1.175v | ||
Because of the wider gap between base clock and boost clock on the GTX 670 we see that it doesn’t overclock quite as far as GTX 680 from a base clock perspective, but from the perspective of the maximum boost clock we’ve slightly exceeded the GTX 680. Depending on where a game lands against NVIDIA’s power targets this can either mean that an overclocked GTX 670 is faster or slower than an overclocked GTX 680, but at the same time it means that overclocking potential is clearly there.
We’re also seeing another strong memory overclock out of a GK104 card here. GTX 680 only hit 6.5GHz while GTX 690 could hit 7GHz. GTX 670 is only a bit weaker at 6.9GHz, indicating that even with the relatively small PCB that NVIDIA can still exceed the high memory clocks they were shooting for. At the same time however this is a luck of the draw matter.
The EVGA card meanwhile fares both worse and better. Its gap between the base clock and and maximum boost clock is even larger than the reference GTX 670, leading to it having an even lower overclocked base clock but a higher overclocked maximum boost clock. The real limiting factor however is that it couldn’t reach a memory overclock quite as high as the reference GTX 670 – again, luck of the draw – which means it can’t match the overclocked reference GTX 670 as it’s going to be more memory bandwidth starved more often.
Moving on to our performance charts, we’re going to once again start with power, temperature, and noise, before moving on to gaming performance. We’ll be testing our GTX 670 cards at both stock clocks with the maximum power target of 122% (170W) to showcase what is possible at validated clockspeeds with a higher power cap, and a true overclock with a maximum power target along with the largest clock offsets we can achieve.
Not surprisingly, since we’re almost always operating within the realm of the power target as opposed to the TDP on the GTX 600 series, our power consumption closely follows our chosen power target. Cranking up the power target on the GTX 670 for example to 170W puts us within 6W of the GTX 680, which itself had a 170W power target in the first place. This is true for both Metro and OCCT, which means power consumption is very predictable when doing any kind of overclocking.
This also means that power consumption is still 18W-30W below the 7970, which in turn means that if these overclocks can close the performance gap, then the GTX 670 still has a power consumption advantage.
As to be expected, with an increase in power consumption comes an increase in load temperatures. However the fact that we’re only able to increase power consumption by about 30W means the temperature rise is limited to 4-5C, pushing temperatures into the low 80s. This does end up being warmer than the equivalent GTX 680 however due to the 680’s superior heatsink.
Finally, when it comes to noise we’re also seeing the expected increase, but again it’s rather small. Under Metro the amount of noise from the reference GTX 670 rises by under 3dB when pushing the power target higher on its own, while it rises 3dB when adding in our full overclock. Again the smaller cooler means that the GTX 670’s fan has to work harder here, which means our gaming performance may be able to reach the GTX 680, but our noise is going to slightly exceed it. As a point of reference, in the process we’ll also exceed the GTX 580’s noise levels under Metro. Still, in both OCCT and Metro none of our GTX 670 cards exceed the Radeon HD 7900 series, which means we've managed to increase our performance relative to those cards without breaching the level of noise they generate in the first place.
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Galidou - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Massive smackdown, lol it made AMD lower it'S prices by 50-60$, that's not massive.You know what's massive, my two radeon 6870 that I paid 130$ each and still compete with those 400$ cards... That's a massive smackdown because I bought them almost A FREAKING YEAR AGO. Take that abuser of the word ''massive'' :P
SlyNine - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Not sure that comments was meant for me. I agree with you.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
I very recently ( a couple months ago) recommended a 6870 to a very close friend, I think the price was about $159 and it had maybe some rebate at the egg.He bought it and has been running it for his several sims, it was the best bang for the buck at the time in a level above his then current 3 or 4 running vid cards ( 4000+5000 series).
So no doubt amd can have a deal worth purchasing, it's just not there at all in these 2 new generations. Not even a tiny bit.
Galidou - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
And what's the reason for that, do you know? It's not because Nvidia IS SO FAR SUPERIOR ffs stop with that, it may be superior but it's not a civic vs a ferrari. AMD had the price/performance/die size superiority because they'Ve been doing(since radeon 4870) a shift in making the most heavy gpus in the world.Nvidia was focusing on a more computationnal approach and biggest gpu, strongest performance since... well since it's alive I think. Nvidia simply took AMD's way for this gen, forget about compute power a little and focus on smaller die for mazimum performance and low consumption while AMD made the move the other way, improved their compute power at the cost of die size and power consumption.
That's what GCN is all about. it'S about the same thing that happened with GTX 2xx vs radeon 48xx cept that 4870 was more than TWICE smaller than GTX 2xx and almost as performant and sometimes even more. Not a mere 43% difference in die size, MORE THAN DOUBLE the size and still were so close in performance.
And why am I doing this analysis and you didn't, because you were too much occupied at launching inflammatory disrespectful stuff, like lots of nvidia fanboys do. People don't deserve this in a ''computer part'' oriented discussion. You were at the same time saying people were stupid and disrespectful while you were doing the same, let's say even worse.
Now get a neutral vision of things before commenting like you do, you wanna be a fanboy, at least do it in the light of respect. Did I call you any names now? Did I have to use the words ''stupid'', ''analphabet'', ''dumbfuck'', and so on... No because that was meaningless. Learn from the best of die like the rest.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Yes you're a smack talker name calling disrespectful jerk.Yes of course you did, and you're a red fanboy and angry about all my absolutely valid points.
That wall of text you have there is a big zero of hate - some toward me, so playing some innocent jay card doesn't work either, and BTW you've now posted a curse word, something I have never done.
So you're a garbage mouth, and very disrespectful.
Galidou - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
I never called you any names NEVER look at all my posts, I never called you even one name and you just did it again and again but I'm the one who lacks respect what's that:''disrespectful jerk.''
''you're a garbage mouth''
That word I posted was an example, it wasn't meant toward anyone it was an example.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link
Oh stop your lying, you attack and call names more than anyone, it's your whole text every time.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
PSangry disser Galidou " And why am I doing this analysis and you didn't, "
Why you are doing this analysis is because you are a pure amd troll and have to go back to the last generation to try to make some idiotic historical point because you have no current points and no current rebuttals.
Furthermore you claim I am somehow unsound by not having made your crybaby last generation whining no real point but I have made the more pertinent point as nVidia beat amd in every single metric here.
I guess for your "win" you need to squeal about respect as you do the same trash talk, then go back to a prior generation to try to whine about what exactly ?
You having a neutral vision is one big fat joke.
You're in with all the amd fanboys here telling lies and going back a generation and whining about that...
It would be nice if your snide remarks could be directed at pertinent points I have made but so far you're incapable, and often just on a troll attack against me personally in at least two of your other posts.
What were you spewing about up there anyway ? Power ? LOL
Guess who loses that sonny.
Galidou - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
these are the words you currently used in about 4-5 posts of yours, I don'T want to make any point with you toward video cards related discussion because of that, these are the words you use, I just want you to realize what you do:''pathetic amd fanboys
massive ignorance
disrespectful jerk
smack talker
angry disser
you're so ignorant
most ignorant and clueless fools
Where exactly is the brain ?
(roll eyes at the immense ignorance, again)''
and then at the same time use a sentence like:
''Thank me when you grow up enough to realize rebutting lies and fibs by others is an adult and responsible''
The attitude words you used up there are so responsible... but no, you could just make your point and end it with a ''.'' but you ahve to add those words attacking everyone in your way, but sorry I forgot, I'm the one who attacks you, you're the perfect one... I'm maybe a troll but I'm not mad like you are.
But hey, your arguments are so right that you gotta use all this stuff in your argumentation and call everyone a mad hater. Who's the hater? I already like Nvidia I'm no AMD fanboy.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link
You're a total amd fanboy and a liar, and attacker, and name caller, and cursing rude jerk.I'm sure you enjoy playing an angel in between all of that.