Nvidia GTX670 faster than a 680

[08993]

Just a heads up to people about to buy a pricey 680, don't do it just yet! A lot of people have managed to get hold of the 670 and have overclocked it with relative ease so that it will outperform a 680, what's more is that the 680 can't be overclocked to the same levels and is beaten by the much cheaper 670 when both cards are overclocked. Although it's nothing new that a previous generation cards when overclocked can equal the next gen at base clocks, retailers are selling factory overclocked 670 OC's that are faster than the 680's which cost at least $100 more.

source - link to overclock.net forum post with many benchmarks from different users.

[Alladaskill17]

Very nice, thanks for the heads up '08993'

[M4nB3arP1g]

Nice I am certain this is going to be my next card once I get some extra cash for it.

[Salty Wagyu]

Suppose it depends on what its final pricing is if I wanted one. Still got a preorder on an EVGA Geforce 680 and managed to get it around ?55 - ?68 cheaper than what it's selling for right now.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

apparently the GTX670 is coming out on thursday. i'll wait for the reviews to make a judgement. i certainly didnt read all 56+ pgs on that site, but there's a wide variety of systems being used. i dont know what drivers theyre using either. keep in mind, also, that nvidia hasnt released a new driver for the 680 since release day.

as said on post #23

This Gigabyte 670 OC=1344 CUDA cores, 980 MHz stock clock, 1059 MHz boost clock

Reference GTX 680=1536 CUDA cores, 1006 MHz stock clock, 1059 MHz boost clock.

how would it score better than a 680? better drivers? :iiam:

[xendrome]

apparently the GTX670 is coming out on thursday. i'll wait for the reviews to make a judgement. i certainly didnt read all 56+ pgs on that site, but there's a wide variety of systems being used. i dont know what drivers theyre using either. keep in mind, also, that nvidia hasnt released a new driver for the 680 since release day.

There is a beta driver out, besides the release driver. The beta driver adds support for newer game profiles. But they are both stable drivers, no problems that I have had or seen.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

There is a beta driver out, besides the release driver. The beta driver adds support for newer game profiles. But they are both stable drivers, no problems that I have had or seen.

youre right - i've seen at least 2 beta drivers. in those release notes, however, they say nothing of improvements to the 680

[08993]

how would it score better than a 680? better drivers? :iiam:

Basically, the removal of a bank of shaders means that you can overclock the 670 higher and it also turbo's higher,. I should imagine that with intensive dx11 games that can make full use of the extra shaders on the 680 will win the battle but less intensive games (like Diablo III which in itself is leading many to consider a new GPU) will run faster on an overclocked 670 which as already mentioned will be much cheaper than a 680.

I'm not too bothered despite dropping over ?400 on a 680, but when the word gets out the 670 is going to kill 680 sales, silly move by Nvidia.

[TheLegendOfMart]

I don't get this reasoning.

If you can overclock the 670 to surpass 680, surely you can overclock the 680 to blow the 670 out of the water?

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

I don't get this reasoning.

If you can overclock the 670 to surpass 680, surely you can overclock the 680 to blow the 670 out of the water?

well they are saying that the 670 still overclocks further than the 680. '08993's explanation could be correct

[Mando]

I don't get this reasoning.

If you can overclock the 670 to surpass 680, surely you can overclock the 680 to blow the 670 out of the water?

Agreed, but tbh with the amount of shaders both have either one would barely break a sweat running any game out just now. As games become more hardware dependandt im sure the 680 will run away performance wise clocked.

[Phouchg]

Only Hum can explain this :|

[articuno1au]

It's (apparently) due to the way that the cards auto clock themselves.

Because the 680 has more shaders enabled, it runs hotter at equivalent clocks. Thus the 670 can push higher clocks for the same temperature and in doing so making up for the disabled shaders.

This might end up being very interesting indeed. If it's the case I would be an extremely ****ed off 680 owner.

[Aergan]

If that's the case, by this logic if you blew enough die fuses to cover 12.5 percent of the shader core availability then an overclocked GTX 680 would overclock higher than a GTX 670!

[watchthisspace]

I'll wait until the GTX670's are actually released. These one's may be golden samples. But they're quick and good overclockers!

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

It's (apparently) due to the way that the cards auto clock themselves.

Because the 680 has more shaders enabled, it runs hotter at equivalent clocks. Thus the 670 can push higher clocks for the same temperature and in doing so making up for the disabled shaders.

This might end up being very interesting indeed. If it's the case I would be an extremely ****ed off 680 owner.

youre probably right - we should find out today tomorrow! however, as mentioned above, the extra shaders might give the 680 extra performance on demanding DX11 games at high resolutions. if youre running an older DX9 game, then who cares, right?

but no, im not a ****ed off 680 owner. i freaking love mine!

[The Laughing Man]

Hmm, now im stuck between a 680-670-7970's or just just adding a card for dual 6950's

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Hmm, now im stuck between a 680-670-7970's or just just adding a card for dual 6950's

What are the prices for those cards? i mean, price wise, it might be prudent just to do another 6950.

err, you know what, wait for the benchmarks tomorrow!

[The Laughing Man]

I'll wait til tomorrow as well...

[Ci7]

first you would lose you warranty if anything goes wrong.

secondly i hardly had significant gain from overclocking GFX

the processor on the other-hand i always see net gain :)

just out of experience

[08993]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/33.html

Well it's official, and I do feel a little but cheated, Nvidia need to get some more power from the 680's in future drivers to alleviate some of the backlash.

[Vice]

Really impressive performance. I've already advised a friend to get one of these instead of a 680 due to the cost savings and near identical performance.

Even before overclocking I've seen benchmarks where in Battlefield 3 with everything maxed out the GTX 680 gets 59fps and the 670 gets 56fps with such little difference at stock I can't recommend the 680 any more and when you consider the amazing overclocking results people are getting out of the 670 it just makes the recommendation even easier.

[watchthisspace]

Really impressive performance. I've already advised a friend to get one of these instead of a 680 due to the cost savings and near identical performance.

Even before overclocking I've seen benchmarks where in Battlefield 3 with everything maxed out the GTX 680 gets 59fps and the 670 gets 56fps with such little difference at stock I can't recommend the 680 any more and when you consider the amazing overclocking results people are getting out of the 670 it just makes the recommendation even easier.

Agreed. Can't justify the price instead for the minimal performance gain.

I do hope AMD respond to this with some price cuts, the HD7970 is on par with the 670, but up to $100NZD more expensive. Not worth the $100 more.

[Raa]

I'm lucky I hadn't ordered a new card yet. Was going to consider a 680, but my last 2 cards have been x70's and they've been excellent!

So i'll get another x70 and be a happy 670-almost-680 owner I think! ;)

Thanks very much for the heads up! (Y)

[The Laughing Man]

Just stopped a friend from buying a 680 about 2 days ago when I heard of this, Looks like I'm getting 2 of those bad boys !