Video Cards

Gigabyte GTX 670 OC 2GB Windforce 3X Review

 

Features and Specifications

Direct from Gigabyte’s product page for the GV-N670OC-2GD.

 

 

 

 

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series 

  1. Powered by NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 GPU
  2. Integrated with the first 2048MB GDDR5 memory and 256-bit memory interface
  3. Features Dual link DVI-I/ DVI-D/ HDMI/ DisplayPort with HDCP protection
  4. Boost clock OC to 1058MHz
  5. PCI-E 3.0 interface
  6. Support NVIDIA 3D Vision™ Surround and SLI technologies
  7. Support NVIDIA® CUDA™ Technology
  8. Support NVIDIA® PhyX™ Technology
  9. System power supply requirement: 550W

 

 

 
 

 

Ultra Durable VGA™

Features & Benefits

  • GPU Temperature 5%~10% down
  • Ultra Durable VGA board provides dramatic cooling effect on lowering both GPU and memory temperature by doubling the copper inner layer of PCB. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA can lower GPU temperature by 5% to 10%.
  • Overclocking Capability 10%~30% Up
  • Ultra Durable VGA board reduces voltage ripples in normal and transient state, thus effectively lowers noises and ensures higher overclocking capability. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA graphic accelerators improve overclocking capability by 10% to 30%.
  • Power Switching Loss 10%~30% Down

Ultra Durable VGA board allows more bandwidth for electron passage and reduces circuit impedance. The less circuit impedance, the more stable flow of current and can effectively improve power efficiency. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA can lower power switching loss by 10% to 30%.

Reviewer’s note: This probably made more sense before being translated to english.

“Triangle Cool” Technology
GIGABYTE introduces the latest exclusive “Triangle Cool” Technology to reach a better cooling performance. The latest patent pending technology combines fin with clip module in a special triangle shape. With the original anti-turbulence structure plus the new triangle cooling design, it enhances the efficiency of heat dissipation dramatically by minimizing the flow of turbulence between fans. Therefore, the “Triangle Cool” Technology provides a more efficient air flow for the cooling system.

 

PhysX Technology
NVIDIA® PhysX™ is the next big thing in gaming!Delivering physics in games is no easy task. It’s an extremely compute-intensive environment based on a unique set of physics algorithms that require tremendous amounts of simultaneous mathematical and logical calculations. The best way to get real-time physics, such as explosions that cause dust and debris, characters with life-like motion or cloth that drapes and tears naturally is with an NVIDIA®PhysX™-ready GeForce® processor. PhysX software is widely adopted by over 150 games, is used by more than 10,000 registered users and is supported on Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC. PhysX™ technology will take gaming to a whole new level.

 

CUDA Technology
NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology unlocks the power of the hundreds of cores in your NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics processor (GPU) to accelerate some of the most performance hungry computing applications. The CUDA™ technology already adopted by thousands of programers to speed up those performance hungry computing applications.

 

SLI™ Technology
Delivers up to 2X the performance of a single GPU configuration for unparalleled gaming experiences by allowing two graphics cards to run in parallel. The must-have feature for performance PCI Express graphics, SLI dramatically scales performance on 60 top PC games.

 

NVIDIA® 3D Vision™
NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ brings a fully immersive stereoscopic 3D experience to the PC. A combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software 3D Vision transforms hundreds of PC games into full stereoscopic 3D. Users can even watch 3D movies and 3D digital photographs in crystal-clear quality.

Admittedly the bottom four are Nvidia things rather than Gigabyte things, but they’re pretty cool anyway. Ultra Durable is all Gigabyte and is excellent, while the Triangle Cool heatsinks have proven to be very effective on the GTX660Ti and GTX650 cards we’ve reviewed in the past (not that the GTX650 cooler shares much with the 670 cooler).

For specifications we have the following:

 Chipset  GeForce GTX 670
 PCB Form  ATX
 Core Clock  Base clock: 980 MHz Boost clock: 1058 MHz
 Shader Clock  N/A
 Memory Clock  6008 MHz
 Process Technology  28 nm
 Memory Size  2048MB
 Memory Bus  256 bit
 Card Bus  PCI-E 3.0
 Memory Type  GDDR5
 DirectX  11
 OpenGL  4.2
 I/O  Dual-link DVI-I *1
 DVI-D *1
 DisplayPort *1
 HDMI *1
 Digital max resolution  2560 x 1600
 Analog max resolution  2048 x 1536
 Multi-view  4
 Tools  N/A
 Card size  H=43 mm, L=275 mm, W=136.6 mm
 Power requirement  550 W

 

 

If this looks somewhat familiar it is because the GTX660Ti is extremely similar. The two cards use exactly the same core with the same number of shaders, though the Gigabyte GTX660Ti OC actually has a higher core clock speed. The 670 has a 64bit wider memory bus though, which is quite important with GPU memory heavy games. You’re paying $100 extra for that 256bit bus compared the the 660Ti OC’s 192bit bus (and the larger cooler, too), so it had best help significantly! The official TDP (Thermal Design Power, maximum power the card will use stock) for the GTX670 is only 170w, so you don’t need anything close to a 550 W PSU if your PSU is of good quality. We get lots of monitor connection options, I approve.

Shall we examine the card now? I think so. The box, anyway.

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