Review: Gigabyte GTX 670 OC 2GB Windforce 3X

Posted by Ed Smith

Wednesday, 19 December 2012 00:02

Article Index
Review: Gigabyte GTX 670 OC 2GB Windforce 3X
Features and Specifications
Photos Part One: The Box and Accessories
Photos Part Two: The GPU
Photos Part Three: A Closer Look
Testing Part One: Stock Clocks
Testing Part Two: Overclocked
Verdict and Conclusion

Page 8 of 8

Verdict and Conclusion

I was excited coming into this review as the GTX670 is only one step down from Nvidia's king of single GPU cards, the GTX680. The Gigabyte GTX670 OC Windforce 3x is indeed a very solid card, I'm pretty pleased with it.

The cooler is excellent, with a sustained heavy load the fans are only audible if I get close to the case and listen for them. Even then, it's just a whoosh, no mechanical noise at all.

Temperatures peaked at around 67c, this was with the paste that came on it and had gaps in it. With properly applied paste the temps will be even lower.

Performance wise, I'd like to see a larger jump in performance for the $100 premium we pay over the GTX660Ti OC.

It's entirely possible that I got a rare super-overclockable 660Ti, but regardless that Gigabyte GTX660 Ti OC is making this Gigabyte GTX670 OC look expensive.

Things aren't helped by AMD's extremely aggressive pricing and new DX11 drivers for the 7970, the basic Gigabyte 7970 costs $400 just like this card, and outperforms it in many DX11 situations due to AMD's new drivers. I'm told that in multi-monitor and 1440p resolutions the GTX670 stomps the 660Ti into the ground horribly due to the memory interface, unfortunately I am not equipped to test this. Currently there is a $20 Mail In Rebate being offered in some places. Also worth contemplating is the Gigabyte GTX 670 2GB base model, it uses the same PCB as the 660Ti and only runs 39MHz lower core clocks, but it's $20 less expensive and comes with a mail in rebate from some retailers.

Overclocking was easy and safe due to the protections built into Nvidia's Kepler cores. Unfortunately it keeps it almost too safe, the complete lack of meaningful voltage control means very limited core OCing.

As far as GTX670s go, this is a good choice. It's on a well proven PCB with way more than enough power to keep the card and memory happy, it also OCs the memory quite well. The core OCing is somewhat less impressive, though we did get over 1.2GHz for the top boost clocks. That's hard to argue with.

The card looks great, I like it a lot from that aspect. It also did away with Nvidia's dubious design decisions as far as PCIe power connectors and coolers and such. If Nvidia would ease up on the voltage restriction a bit, Gigabyte could make this card really fly.

All told there are pros:

Looks great.
Runs cool and quiet.
Excellent variety of monitor connectors.
CUDA and PhysX support.
Good performance.

There are cons, too:

Doesn't beat similarely priced 7970s in everything.
As with all Kepler cards, voltage control extremely limited, making overclocking difficult.

Final Words: If we ignore the price and just look at the card as an individual, I'm quite impressed. It's fast enough to run most everything at 1080p and very quiet while it does it. If we add the price into things the picture isn't as rosy, it costs about the same as a "GHz Edition" 7970 depending on the game is either on par or a bit slower than the 7970.

This all comes down to AMD's very aggressive price cuts, it could even be argued that it's because of how good the Kepler cores are! In any case, this card does not have the best bang for the buck on an absolute basis, but if you need CUDA or PhysX, or simply are an Nvidia fan, it's a very solid choice. I give it a 8.8/10, though if you're sure you want Nvidia and are at 1080p it deserves higher.

SCORE

8.8/10

fk-recommended