NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400
by Ryan Smith on May 10, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The GeForce GTX 670
Because of the relatively low power consumption of GK104 relative to past high-end NVIDIA GPUs, NVIDIA has developed a penchant for small cards. While the GTX 680 was a rather standard 10” long, NVIDIA also managed to cram the GTX 690 into the same amount of space. Meanwhile the GTX 670 takes this to a whole new level.
We’ll start at the back as this is really where NVIDIA’s fascination with small size makes itself apparent. The complete card is 9.5” long, however the actual PCB is far shorter at only 6.75” long, 3.25” shorter than the GTX 680’s PCB. In fact it would be fair to say that rather than strapping a cooler onto a card, NVIDIA strapped a card onto a cooler. NVIDIA has certainly done short PCBs before – such as with one of the latest GTX 560 Ti designs – but never on a GTX x70 part before. But given the similarities between GK104 and GF114, this isn’t wholly surprising, if not to be expected.
In any case this odd pairing of a small PCB with a large cooler is no accident. With a TDP of only 170W NVIDIA doesn’t necessarily need a huge PCB, but because they wanted a blower for a cooler they needed a large cooler. The positioning of the GPU and various electronic components meant that the only place to put a blower fan was off of the PCB entirely, as the GK104 GPU is already fairly close to the rear of the card. Meanwhile the choice of a blower seems largely driven by the fact that this is an x70 card – NVIDIA did an excellent job with the GTX 560 Ti’s open air cooler, which was designed for the same 170W TDP, so the choice is effectively arbitrary from a technical standpoint (there’s no reason to believe $400 customers are any less likely to have a well-ventilated case than $250 buyers). Accordingly, it will be NVIDIA’s partners that will be stepping in with open air coolers of their own designs.
Starting as always at the top, as we previously mentioned the reference GTX 670 is outfitted with a 9.5” long fully shrouded blower. NVIDIA tells us that the GTX 670 uses the same fan as the GTX 680, and while they’re nearly identical in design, based on our noise tests they’re likely not identical. On that note unlike the GTX 680 the fan is no longer placed high to line up with the exhaust vent, so the GTX 670 is a bit more symmetrical in design than the GTX 680 was.
Note: We dissaembled the virtually identical EVGA card here instead
Lifting the cooler we can see that NVIDIA has gone with a fairly simple design here. The fan vents into a block-style aluminum heatsink with a copper baseplate, providing cooling for the GPU. Elsewhere we’ll see a moderately sized aluminum heatsink clamped down on top of the VRMs towards the front of the card. There is no cooling provided for the GDDR5 RAM.
Note: We dissaembled the virtually identical EVGA card here instead
As for the PCB, as we mentioned previously due to the lower TDP of the GTX 670 NVIDIA has been able to save some space. The VRM circuitry has been moved to the front of the card, leaving the GPU and the RAM towards the rear and allowing NVIDIA to simply omit a fair bit of PCB space. Of course with such small VRM circuitry the reference GTX 670 isn’t built for heavy overclocking – like the other GTX 600 cards NVIDIA isn’t even allowing overvolting on reference GTX 670 PCBs – so it will be up to partners with custom PCBs to enable that kind of functionality. Curiously only 4 of the 8 Hynix R0C GDDR5 RAM chips are on the front side of the PCB; the other 4 are on the rear. We typically only see rear-mounted RAM in cards with 16/24 chips, as 8/12 will easily fit on the same side.
Elsewhere at the top of the card we’ll find the PCIe power sockets and SLI connectors. Since NVIDIA isn’t scrambling to save space like they were with the GTX 680, the GTX 670’s PCIe power sockets are laid out in a traditional side-by-side manner. As for the SLI connectors, since this is a high-end GeForce card NVIDIA provides 2 connectors, allowing for the card to be used in 3-way SLI.
Finally at the front of the card NVIDIA is using the same I/O port configuration and bracket that we first saw with the GTX 680. This means 1 DL-DVI-D port, 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 full size HDMI 1.4 port, and 1 full size DisplayPort 1.2. This also means the GTX 670 follows the same rules as the GTX 680 when it comes to being able to idle with multiple monitors.
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raghu78 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
chew on thishttp://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/10/sapphire...
At 2560 x 1600 Ultra 4X MSAA the HD 7970 at 1050 Mhz will give you GTX 680 Perf. Pretty much same clock for clock.
just4U - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I think some are missing the point here.. Don't matter right now, AMD or Nvidia both camps have excellent options. I know I'd trade my 6950 and 570s for either in a heart beat and throw in some cash as well..The only thing I can really find as a sticking point is price.. and while AMD may drop prices a little on the 7950 with the amount of ram it has and it's memory bandwidth I don't think it's going to get to the $300 mark. Maybe $350 though..
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Wrong, nVidia has excellent options, amd has less than options.There you are, fixed for you.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
The 7970 loses at the same clocks.http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/37209-gefor...
Enjoy the reality.
will54 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Why compare clock speeds on two different architectures? It seems pointless especially when one of them has to be OC'd to get there.CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Let's be honest, now with the GTX670 at $399 and available, the 7950 is a bad and hurtful joke, and the 7970 @ $479.99 w games is a joke too.Buy the game you want and the 670, forget the piece of crap amd cannot supply drivers properly for and in fact is a whomped loser in features, power, perf, triple monitor, monitor CONNECTIONS (not mentioned yet in this whole bloggery another nVidia advantage of the so many and too numerous to recall all at once)...
It's just a sad day for amd fanboys - it's a total stompage - I would be weeping and asleep if I were an amd fanboy - totally crushed, in need of verdetrol...
http://verdetrol.com/
That's what amd does with drivers coding money.. ROFL
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
That's quite the OC on their 4th amd 7970 sample - 1.35 volts, 1280 core and 7,455 memory - a quite unusual and generally on average unattainable, and unsustainable OC - run that puppy for a while and expect a quick burnout and housefire - not to mention the gigantic electric bill amd cost you.Then you'll want a free replacement for your fried $579 double X brastrap amd card, a free one..."no of course it wwasn't OC mr rma, I dunno what happened!?" -
---
Shady edge card destroying non 24/7 OC's don't count, not really. I wouldn't mind maybe 1050 or 1100 on the core, something one could expect to be sustained on flaky amd drivers with extra random dropout reboots multiple times daily...
eddman - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
"AMD's 4XAA / 8X AA performance in Batman Arkham city has been fixed with the latest drivers.In fact in Batman Arkham city at 8X AA AMD is now faster ."Fair enough.
"In Shogun 2 Nvidia's performance has been hit severely due to the latest patch / driver situation and its clearly behind HD 7970 at 2560 x 1600 and 5760 x 1080."
So? If the latest patch messed up things, what it has to do with the card? They'll probably fix it with another patch.
"HD 7970 will easily defeat the GTX 680 given that HD 7970 1Ghz - 1.1 Ghz ( Sapphire HD 7970 Dual X, MSI HD 7970 Lightning (1070) , Powercolor PCS+ HD 7970 Vortex II (1100) ) is available in retail."
LOL, since when we compare OCed cards to competing non-OCed cards?
"The HD 7970 is a true single GPU beast with the raw power, memory bandwidth and size to handle the most demanding games of today and tomorrow. "
You sound like an AMD representative.
eddman - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
"AMD's 4XAA / 8X AA performance in Batman Arkham city has been fixed with the latest drivers."Fair enough.
"In Shogun 2 Nvidia's performance has been hit severely due to the latest patch "
Which means it's a bug and will be fixed with another patch.
"HD 7970 will easily defeat the GTX 680 given that HD 7970 1Ghz - 1.1 Ghz ( Sapphire HD 7970 Dual X, MSI HD 7970 Lightning (1070) , Powercolor PCS+ HD 7970 Vortex II (1100) ) is available in retail."
Since when we compare OCed cards to competing stock cards?
"The HD 7970 is a true single GPU beast with the raw power, memory bandwidth and size to handle the most demanding games of today and tomorrow. "
Sorry, but that's something an AMD representative would say.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
This is with just the amd 7970 overclocked all the way up to GTX680 stock speeds and the GTX680 left at stock speeds.http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/37209-gefor...
The 7970 still loses, and that's before the 680 is overclocked even 1mhz, while the 7970 is OC'ed to 1058 with 7970's memory OC'ed as well, and leaving the 680's memory at stock.
LOL - no amount of proofs will derail the zero point dark matter brain of the amd fanboy.