GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC WindForce 3X 2GB Review

[siopao1984]

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As we can see from this block diagram of the GK104 die, the GTX 670 has one of eight SMX units disabled, which is a common way of putting crocked ASICs that do not meet full binning standards to good use instead of throwing them away. As a result, the GTX 670 has 12.5% less fillrate/pixel pushing performance and lower TDP than the GTX 680, much like how the HD 7950 Tahiti Pro is to the HD 7970 Taihiti XT. Given that everything else remains the same (number of ROPs, memory bus bandwidth, fancy AA algorithms and other technologies), do the loss of shaders really matter for most use cases? We find out in the following pages...

From the onset, we must say that GIGABYTE's GTX 670 OC WindForce 3X 2GB card looks exactly the same as its flagship non-reference GTX 680 model that we've reviewed earlier this year... because it is! Other than a white sticker that identifies it as a GTX 670 over existing silkscreen on the PCB , the card we are looking at today has the same component layout, output connectors and and cooling solution as the top dog, which is a good thing as the old design is engineered for more overclocking headroom and is pin compatible with the crippled GK104 die anyway.

Unlike the standard GTX 670/GTX 680 design, GIGABYTE's choice pf 8+6 PCIe power inputs allows the card to scale up to 300W of power instead of the anemic 225W.

As we've mentioned earlier, the GTX 670 has a familar board design. 5-phase digital VRMs allows for more power headroom and efficiency while the use of 2oz copper and sensible chokes/capacitors on the PCB ensure uninterrupted gameplay without the chance of things going up in blue smoke.

The Taiwanese TSMC made GK104 Kepler, although not as GP compute friendly (dismal 1/32 DP to FP ratio) as its direct AMD Taihiti competitor, is an efficiency monster when it comes to 3D benchmarks and gaming. Actual frequency headroom varies with voltage and the quality of the ASIC, but generally we should be able to hit 1.2-1.35GHz with conventional cooling and near 2GHz with subzero.

SK-Hynix's 1.5GHz GDDR5 BGA modules makes its way on this board as well, arranged in a 256-bit bus configuration for up to 192GB/s of memory bandwidth.

To take care of the default 170W of TDP, GIGABYTE deployed their "WindForce 3X" direct touch copper heatpipe cooler, which is actually similar in design to the ASUS's DirectCU II (they share the same heatsink OEM, Cooler Master). Each of the three 80mm PWM capable fans are rated up to 0.35A at 12V. There is also a dedicated heatsink for the MOSFETs and the whole cooler is secured to the card by only four screws.

Read more: GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC WindForce 3X 2GB Review by VR-Zone.com

[siopao1984]

Overclocking and Temperatures

The GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC WindForce 3X 2GB comes factory overclocked at 980MHz (boost to 1059MHz) from 915MHz (boost to 980MHz), a modest 7% increase. Memory clock frequencies were untouched at 1502MHz.



By setting the fan speeds to 100% (which gives a reassuring whoosh and not the ruckus of a leafblower), we could further bump the core clocks to 1134 MHz (boost to 1213MHz), which is an impressive 15% increase. Note that your actual mileage may vary due to the ASIC quality "lottery".



The new version of Furmark (1.10.0) is very punishing to new generation GTX6XX/R7XXX cards, forcing them to perform at full potential and output maximal heat. In this case we got a load temperature of 68 degrees celsius (ambient about 22 degrees), which shows that the WindForce triple fan cooler performs as advertised and actual gaming workloads should be around 10-15 degrees lower. The effective core operating frequency also flat-lined at 1330MHz, which was the case during our benchmarks.





Test Setup



CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4817MHz 1.52v
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (Bios 001
Memory: G.Skills ARES 2133MHz DDR3 16GB Kit
Power Supply: Antec True Quattro Pro 1200W
Storage: Intel 520 series 240GB SSD
Graphics Cards / Drivers:
301.34
GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC WindForce 3X 2GB

301.25
ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP 2GB
GIGABYTE GTX 680 OC WindForce 3X 2GB

300.99 drivers:
NVIDIA Reference GTX680

296.10 WHQL drivers:
ASUS GTX580 DirectCU II 1.5GB

8.960 beta drivers:
MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB
AMD Reference Radeon HD 7970 3GB
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC Edition
AMD Reference Radeon HD 7870 2GB
ASUS HD6970 DirectCU II 2GB

To prevent GPU Boost (NVIDIA's adaptive throttling mechanism to cheat in benchmarks) from interfering with the clocks, we need to change this setting in the Nvidia Control Panel.

[siopao1984]

Benchmarks

Despite having 12.5% less shaders, the slight factory overclock allows the GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC WindForce 3X 2GB to keep up with the reference GTX 680 (and even overtake in the case of 3DMark 11 Extreme Preset), which makes it an excellent buy at nearly US$100 less. Its intended competitor HD 7950 is mostly rendered irrelavant in this comparison, and even the more powerful HD 7970 struggles to make an impression here.

[siopao1984]

Conclusion



MSRP: (probably a tad higher than the reference $399 price point)

Pros
Factory Overclocked
5-phase power and 8+6 pin PCIe connectors
Effective and Quiet Cooling Solution
Game changing performance - outmuscles more expensive competition (hope AMD responds fast)
PCIe 3.0 support (officially only on Ivy Bridge platforms)

Cons
Minimal box bundle and lack of display convertors
No software voltage control
Blue PCB not to everyone's liking / hard to pair with colour scheme of recent motherboards
Only 2GB of RAM - will choke in high resolutions or intensive scenarios

[Sempron Guy]

the pcb is ridiculously longer than the reference gtx 670

[fish]

the pcb is ridiculously longer than the reference gtx 670

parehas ni sa zotac amp! edition nga 670, murag ang board sa 680 ang gigamit.

[akomao]

OC versions have high clock speeds(mas init) so they have to put better cooling solutions.

longer pcb to carry the weight of the big heat sink