Seven GeForce GTX 670 Cards, Benchmarked And Reviewed

By Igor Wallossek
published

We have seven GeForce GTX 670 cards. Which is fastest? Which is quietest? Each one swaggers onto the scene ready to prove its worth to your wallet. We emphasize thermals, acoustics, and design in this many-way shoot-out based on Nvidia's capable GK104.

Gainward GTX 670 Phantom

We anxiously looked to see how Gainward’s new Phantom cooler would perform when we received the company's GeForce GTX 680. Unfortunately, on that board, it didn't impress us in two of the most important disciplines: acoustics and thermals. Now, we want to see if it behaves any better on a GeForce GTX 670.

Gainward is sticking to a fairly conservative 1006 MHz base clock and a rated 1085 MHz GPU Boost frequency. Interestingly, though, it's one of the few companies that bothers to overclock memory, reaching 1527 MHz. Based on the reference design's shorter PCB, this board naturally includes the same display output connectors and twin six-pin power plugs we know from the version Nvidia first sent us.

Though it doesn't necessarily look it, this is a three-slot card. Typically, we'd associate that with excellent cooling performance and well-handled acoustics. The heat sink's frame stabilizes the card well. But its materials are cheap-looking and the plastic cover is disappointing.

Does it do any better on a GeForce GTX 670 than it did on the 680?

Igor Wallossek
114 Comments Comment from the forums
  • LonelyMan
    Where is the msi gtx 670 power edition?
    Reply
  • zerokontrol
    Typo on conclusion. "not to loud on loud." That would be the Gigabyte card.
    Reply
  • user 18
    On the Gigabyte card's page:

    During the course of our testing, we effortlessly set this card to run at 1059 MHz, so we're not sure why Gigabyte held back so much. During testing, we overclocked this card to 1059 MHz quite easily, so we are somewhat surprised by the conservative factory overclock.

    This seems to be saying the same thing twice. Error, or am I missing something?
    Reply
  • hellfire24
    hey man,where's MSi Twinfrozer IV OC edition?
    Reply
  • FormatC
    10445301 said:
    Where is the msi gtx 670 power edition?
    The roundup was published in German on May 22, 2012:
    http://www.tomshardware.de/Nvidia-Geforce-GTX-670-Roundup,testberichte-241027.html

    Sorry, but at this time (and 4 weeks later too) MSI was unable to deliver one of this cards. When MSI starts so late with this cards, then this is not our fault. ;)
    Reply
  • monkeymonk
    Please do this with the 680s
    Reply
  • user 18
    Also, the second chart on the 'Sound Level and Temperature: Overclocked' page is missing the 'Mhz' label on the speed for the Palit card. It should read '1059 Mhz', while it reads only '1059'.
    Reply
  • LonelyMan
    I'd like to see one for the 680s too, in which the 680 classified and lightning will be present, including others. :D
    Reply
  • hellfire24
    please also do battlefield 3 benchmark!
    Reply
  • erunion
    I've been waiting for this review.
    Reply