680 vs liquid cooled 670

[Moamer93]

Ok so I'm saving money and parting out my current system and set up to build a new system. Ive been thinking about it for the longest time and I'm willing to spend the time and money to do this but.

Would it be worth it to get a super clocked gtx 670 from evga with 4gb vram vs a equally priced 680 and put the 670 on water and oc it past what regular air can do?
I've done some research and it seems i could get a 4gb 670 with ek blocks for about the same price as a aftermarket 680.
yay or nay?

 

[dudewitbow]

its all luck and chance, as how far a gpu can overclock depends on how well your specific card was made. some people get bad cards, others get good cards.

 

[Moamer93]

Yea, its kind of risky really. I remember it was either Gainward or EVGA who sold "golden sample" graphics cards that are guranted to clock higher than your average chip. I just want to get the best bang for my buck really gtx 680 sounds good , but aside from the fact it has few more cuda cores theres not much of a difference :/

 

[geofelt]

I suggest you simply buy a standard superclocked GTX670 like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787

If you get any oc out of it, fine, but it will perform close enough to a gtx680 to not be worth spending $100 more for a GTX680.

I am unconvinced on the value of more than 2gb of vram for these cards. I suspect that more vram is mostly marketing, and that any performance difference will not be worth the cost.
Read this:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154

If your budget permits, this is a good GTX680:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130797

If you really want to experiment with graphics overclocking, the GTX680 classified is for you(4gb vram too)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130801
But, I really don't think it is worth it.

 

[Moamer93]

Best answer selected by Moamer93.

 

[Moamer93]

Thanks geofelt, If anything i'll more then likely save my money and get the 670 2gb and slap some good blocks on em , 200 more cores isnt worth 200-/+ more

 

[geofelt]

Thanks geofelt, If anything i'll more then likely save my money and get the 670 2gb and slap some good blocks on em , 200 more cores isnt worth 200-/+ more

I would not even bother with water blocks at all.
There is an expense for water cooling, and the only good purpose is to be able to improve your OC.
Graphics card vendors are wise to this, and have binned their chips. The better chips are used in their factory overclocked versions so that they can be sold at a price premium.
Of course, you could get lucky.
But could a few % better OC make all that much difference?? Not likely.

Save the money and spend it where it will count more.

 

[slicedtoad]

It should also be added that 670s (and maybe 680s too, don't remember) can't overvolt very much, making water cooling fairly useless. So unless you buy a msi lightning edition (which has the voltage controller fully unlocked), water cooling won't help you.

edit: actually, my info may be a bit out of date. It seems you can unlock the voltage by following this: http://www.overclock.net/t/1289489/gtx-670-unlocked-voltage-bios

but if you aren't comfortable with modding, you won't get much from water

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey