At the heart of all of Nvidia's high-end GTX 600 series cards is the 28nm GeForce Kepler GPU, codenamed GK104.
This GTX 670 and GTX 680 are almost identical, but the GTX 670 has fewer CUDA cores (the processing cores in the GPU) and it runs at a slightly lower clock speed – 1344 cores running at 915MHz base clock compared to the GTX 680's 1536 CUDA cores at a base clock of 1006MHz. This slightly less demanding graphics core puts the GTX670's power requirements at 170W, allowing it to run off dual 6-pin power connectors which almost any modern power supply can accommodate.
A new feature in this series of graphics cards is what Nvidia calls a ‘boost clock’. Similar to Intel’s Turbo Boost feature, the GTX 670 can boost its clock speed up to 980MHz where power and temperature limits allow. This is done automatically out of the box with no user intervention or configuration required.
Physically the GTX 670 is a not-insignificant 250mm in length, and an aft-mounted fan exhausts heated air out of the system in a relatively quiet manner via aluminium fins connected to the GPU via three large heatpipes. Connection-wise there are two dual-link DVI ports, one full size HDMI and one full size DisplayPort.
These ports can be used to run up to three monitors off a single GTX 670, although one of those monitors must be connected to the DisplayPort output. If you don’t have monitors with DisplayPort inputs, then you will need to purchase an active DisplayPort to DVI adaptor at a cost of roughly $70.
| Specifications | Nvidia GeForce GTX670 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 |
| Shader cores | 1344 | 1536 |
Shader cores
clock speed | 915MHz | 1006MHz |
| Boost clock | 980MHz | 1058MHz |
Memory clock
speed (eff.) | 6008MHz | 6008MHz |
| Memory bus | 256bit | 256bit |
| RAM | 2GB | 2GB |
| Rated power draw | 170W | 195W |
For less than a 10% cut in clock speed compared to the GTX 680, the GTX670 costs 20% less – many shops sell the GTX 670 for between $650 and $750 NZD. I imagine this is cannibalising sales of the GTX 680 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the more expensive card pulled from the shelves sooner or later, perhaps to be replaced with a GTX 685: much like Nvidia did a few years ago when they introduced the GTX 285.
The GTX 670 is the best bang-for-buck high-end graphics card available right now – stunning performance even at high resolution, yet at a realistic price for serious gamers without serious trust funds.
Benchmark |
Settings |
AMD HD Radeon HD 7950 |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 |
Nvidia GeForce GTX680 |
3DMark11 (Score) |
Performance (720p) |
7027 |
8314 |
8887 |
Extreme (1080p) |
2338 |
2948 |
3113 |
Heaven 3.0 (FPS) |
Default (1080p) |
87.8 |
110.4 |
119.5 |
Default (1440p) |
55.7 |
66.3 |
72.9 |
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (FPS) |
Ultra 4xAA, HBAO
High + Tess. (1080p) |
86.4 |
100.3 |
103.8 |
Ultra 4xAA, HBAO
High + Tess. (1440p) |
52.5 |
60.7 |
63.6 |
Battlefield 3 (FPS) |
Ultra (1080p) |
49.9 |
59.5 |
60.7 |
Ultra (1440p) |
33.9 |
37.5 |
38.6 |
DiRT3 (FPS) |
Ultra + 8xAA (1080p) |
78.6 |
100.4 |
102.1 |
Ultra + 4xAA (1440p) |
57.7 |
71.3 |
79.5 |
Trackmania Nations Forever (FPS) |
Very high, 4xAA (1080p) |
96.2 |
137 |
140 |
Very high, 8xAA, 16xAF (1440p) |
75.9 |
100 |
101 |
Anno 2070 (FPS) |
Very high , Vsync off (1080p) |
65.5 |
79.7 |
88.5 |
Very high , Vsync off (1440p) |
40.8 |
50.7 |
56.9 |
Average FPS |
1080p (1920 x 1080) |
77.4 |
97.9 |
102.4 |
1440p (2560 x 1440) |
52.8 |
64.4 |
68.8 |
Power consumption |
Idle (desktop) |
83 |
89 |
87 |
|
Load (Furmark 1080p burn-in) |
268 |
274 |
315 |
Lowest retail price |
NZD, At time of writing |
$600 |
$650 |
$900 |
Dollars per FPS
(lower is better) |
1080p (1920 x 1080) |
$7.75 |
$6.64 |
$8.79 |
1440p (2560 x 1440) |
$11.37 |
$10.09 |
$13.09 |