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.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 Reference Card

Much has been written about the all-plastic design of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 670 and its cooler, a simplified, cost-optimized version of what the GeForce GTX 680 uses, in addition to the compromises that come from those decisions. Although it's certainly louder than GeForce GTX 680, this card is still quieter than AMD's modern reference boards.

We're including it for two reasons. First, cards based on the reference implementation are perhaps the most widely available. That can't be said as definitively for the factory-modified models. Second, owing to the identical dimensions and mounting holes, aftermarket air and even water coolers are available for this PCB, allowing enthusiasts to tune the cooling performance of the cheapest GTX 670s to their individual tastes.

The stock core clock is a modest 915 MHz with a 980 MHz GPU Boost rating. But even reference cards can be overclocked, as we will describe in more detail.

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