Gigabyte GTX 670

So I ordered a Gigabyte GTX 670 OC version (model number GV-N670OC-2GD) off of NCIX last week for 450 dollars after tax. It was a great deal cause I got free shipping, and 2 free games (Mafia 2 and Borderlands 2). For that price how could I go wrong? I needed an upgrade from my singular GTX 460 (if you read in one of my previous posts, I mention how my SLi config got ruined because one of my 460's died) so I decided to step up from it I would need a new 6xx series card. GTX 680's are a bit too overpriced in my opinion, and even though the new GTX 660 Ti's just came out and are 100 dollars cheaper, I wanted the 256-bit bus vs the 192-bit bus that the 660 Ti provides. That way I can be sure that I'll have a GPU that will perform rather excellent for the next couple of years. It's a shame I still have a sandy bridge processor (so I can't utilize PCI-E 3.0 speeds) but I'm sure the card will still perform extremely well.

Front of the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC box

Rear of the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC Box

The box has some pretty nice eye catching artwork. That being said, most manufacturers for GPU's nowadays seem to do a very nice job on box art and packaging. On the back, Gigabyte goes over the features of the 670 OC version. Some features that are important to note are the HDT or heatpipe direct touch technology utilizing three 8mm heatpipes(where the heatpipes are directly touching the GPU itself allowing for better heat transfer by reducing resistance that would occur if you had a copper base and the heatpipes were soldered onto the base), triangle cool technology (which is supposed to allow for more efficient airflow as well as reduce turbulence), a RAM heatsink (something a lot of custom coolers on other GPU's seem to be opting out of), and best of all it has 3 fans.

The included CD and Quick Guide

The included molex to 6 pin and molex to 8 pin connectors.

Inside the actual hardware box (because the artwork box is just a cover really) there is the included CD, quick guide, a two molex to one 6 pin PCIE power cable, a two molex to one 8 pin PCIE power cable, and the graphics card itself. I would have really liked to see a few more accessories included such as a DVI to VGA adapter, and possibly a case badge. It wouldn't be hard for Gigabyte to make a sweet looking case badge, they would simply just have to take their blue cyborg eye from the box art and make it into a case badge somehow, but oh well.

The front of the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC card

The rear of the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC card

On to the card itself. The card has two power connectors, a 6 pin PCIE connector and an 8 pin PCIE connector. This is because Gigabyte uses their GTX 680 PCB for their GTX 670 OC version. You can actually go and buy one of the EVGA 680 backplates and (with a bit of grinding to modify the plate to fit around the heatsink reinforcement bracket) fit it to the GTX 670 OC version. Their Windforce 2 version (model number GV-N670WF2-2GD) uses the reference 670 PCB instead. This means that the 670 OC version can be overclocked a lot closer to 680 specs with less instability than the 670 reference PCB. However, the two also have different lengths. The OC version has a length of 11" (of which the 3 fans span the entire PCB length) and the WF2 has a length of 10.43" (which the heatsink hangs about an inch or two over the PCB itself). Size can be a bit of a drawback, but if you're getting a card like this you should have an appropriately sized case to accommodate it.

The side of the heatsink showing off the three 8mm heatpipes on the card

The heatsink is beautiful, with three 8mm copper heatpipes flowing through the aluminum fins. One thing I would have liked to see is the heatpipes being nickel plated so that they didn't stick out as much aesthetically. The smoke colored fans give a nice presentation as well. I would have liked to see some LED's on the fans considering they're smoke colored, but it's something I'm willing to overlook as no other current manufacturer uses LED's on their GPU fans (that I am aware of).

The two SLi fingers on the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC card

One thing I really like seeing is how a number of manufacturers are starting to put rubber covers over all of the connection areas to prevent any sort of damage during shipping as well as it is useful for storage as it will prevent any dust from getting in any of the ports or on any of the contacts when they are not in use. The card has two SLi fingers to allow for triple SLi, but I won't be doing that ever (I probably won't even be doing two card SLi for a long time). The biggest bonus for the 6xx series nVidia cards is that they support 3D surround on one card. That means no need to go and buy two GPU's just to have a three monitor setup. I unfortunately cannot support a three monitor setup on my desk, but it's nice to have that flexibility so that I can have my TV plugged into the card as well as have room to have not just one but two monitors running off the same card.

The rear I/O ports on the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC card

The card comes equipped with the ability to have two DVI connections, a HDMI connection, and a Display Port connection. I quite like the fact that the new series cards are utilizing standard HDMI vs mini-HDMI that were on the previous 4xx and 5xx series cards as you won't need an adapter to go from standard HDMI to mini-HDMI anymore (hence why one wasn't included with the card).

The size of the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC compared to a reference GTX 460

Now on to benchmarking. The following are the specifications of my system during these benchmarks:
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Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.5Ghz, 1.38v
Motherboard: MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3)
Memory: Patriot Memory G2 Series PC3-12800 9-9-9-24 @ 1600MHz
Heatsink: Phanteks PH-TC14PE w/ included Phanteks PH-F140TS fans and Phanteks PH-NDC Paste
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 80+ Gold 750W Power Supply
Hard Drives: Patriot Pyro 60GB SSD + WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD + WD Caviar Black 2TB HDD
Optical Drive: LG DVD-RW
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Case: Coolermaster CM690 II (with optional side window installed)

Video cards being tested: Gigabyte GTX 670 OC Version (model number GV-N670OC-2GD) and PNY GTX 460 Overclocked Edition (model number VCGGTX4601XPB-OC)
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Now obviously the two cards are from different price points. This isn't a matter of comparing just generations as the PNY GTX 460 OC was 260 dollars (before tax when they first came out) vs the price point of the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC which is regular 410 dollars (before tax). This is just a matter of showing off the performance improvement between the GTX 460 and the GTX 670 as a reference for anyone who is interested in seeing how the new generation GPU's perform. These two cards were left at their default overclocked settings and were not altered for this test. For the benchmark, I ran Batman Arkham City's benchmark tool to see how the FPS average was for both cards. Here were the settings I used when running the benchmark:

The Batman: Arkham City display settings

Part one of the nVidia 3D settings

Part two of the nVidia 3D settings

These settings were not changed between these two cards in order to keep a consistent benchmark outcome. Even though the display settings for Arkham City say VSync on, I forced it off with the nVidia 3D settings. The reason I have everything set to maximum is simply because I really enjoy the excellent visuals of Arkham City as well as the Physx particle effects that are added. Also, it's not really a benchmark if the settings aren't cranked anyway. I choose nVidia over AMD is simply because I like Physx and I think it adds a lot of immersion and extra effects that makes the game more visually appealing and realistic. Here were the results for the two cards:

The benchmark result on Batman: Arkham City for the GTX 460

As you can see, the GTX 460 had an average of 48 FPS. Not too bad considering the game has been optimized a bit since it was originally released. That being said, during some intense Physx parts, the card does drop a fair bit, reaching around the 20-30 FPS mark. The reason it says the minimum is 18FPS is simply because during the benchmark it always hiccups at one point when loading one of the rooms for the benchmark. This hiccup also occurs with the 670, and as such the only two things I like to compare are the max FPS and the average FPS. The maximum FPS of the GTX 460 was only 66 FPS. So just over VSync capable and that's only in areas where there's no Physx particles occurring, which is quite rare in Arkham City. Another side test I did was a stress test on the GPU using MSI Kombuster. The temperature reaches about 75 degrees under 100% load over 10 minutes inside a 26 degree room. And that's with the stock fan settings! It's even really quiet under 100% load it seems. I can turn up the fans through Afterburner to 100% and it cools it to the extreme, but you can really hear the fans at that point, so I think for now I'll just leave it on the bios settings for fan control.

The benchmark result on Batman: Arkham City for the GTX 670

Now obviously, the 670 is a more powerful card (with 1344 Cuda cores, which is equal to about 4 GTX 460s) and as such it shows. Now keep in mind that I am only running the card on PCIE 2.0 as I have a sandy bridge processor. Even with it running on PCIE 2.0, you can see quite a huge jump in FPS from the 460. The average FPS was 85. That's almost double of the 460. And the max FPS was 125. Once again, almost double of the 460. The intense Physx parts it was running about 50-60 FPS. Yet again, approximately double. However, the price does seem to reflect it's near doubled performance. When I ran MSI Kombuster, the temperature never seemed to reach over 68 degrees in a 26 degree room over 10 minutes.

The Gigabyte GTX 670 OC installed into my rig

So, how would I rate the GTX 670 from this benchmark? Is it worth the 400 dollar price tag? I would say so. At being just less than double the price of a GTX 460 (when I first purchased it) for being just under double of the performance (in PCIE 2.0), it seems to be on par with it's price difference. I have tested it in several games now, and they all run butter smooth with the GTX 670. I have yet to overclock the GPU as I just received it, but according to others on the internet, it can get close to the performance of a 680 at 100 dollars less of price. Now, the 660 Ti's do have a 300 dollar price tag and can be overclocked to almost have similar performance to a 670. If you're on a tighter budget but still was some real good performance out of an upgrade to the graphics card, a 660 Ti is going to perform pretty similar to the benchmarks here when overclocked(possibly a bit less due to the bus size being decreased) so that's something to also consider. As the year goes by there will be a 650 card (not sure if it's going to be labeled GTX 650 or 650Ti) coming out (at least according to Aida64's update) soon, which I'm sure will be performing quite good as well and possibly be able to overclock to near 660 Ti speeds at a (yet again) lower price point than the 660 card. The new 6xx series cards definitely show promise and are paving the way towards faster technology for GPU's and I'm looking forward to what happens over the next few years for nVidia's lineup.