The GTX 670 Arrives – is it a game changer?

Performance summary charts & graphs

Here are the summary charts of 18 games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest settings are always chosen and it is DX11 when there is a choice; DX10 is picked above DX9, and the settings are ultra or maxed. Specific settings are listed on the Main Performance chart at the beginning of this page. The benches are run at 1920×1200 and 2560×1600 with separate charts devoted to overclocking, PhysX, 3D Vision, 5760×1080 Surround (including 3D Vision Surround), as well as dividing games up into easy to read charts by their DX pathway and by resolution.

Main Overall Summary chart

In the first three columns of the main performance summary chart, the GTX 670 is tested at stock and overclocked with a single stock HD 7970 in  between for comparison; next is a single GTX 680 and then the GTX 580 is next and then is the 3GB HD 7970 and finally the the GTX 570. This is the master chart and although it has not been made into a graph as there is too much information to put onto a single graph, there are many other charts and sub graphs that are based on it.

 

All results, except for Vantage and 3DMark11, show average framerates and higher is always better. In-game settings are fully maxed out and they are identically high or ultra across all platforms. As usual, we begin with the synthetics.

Futuremark & Heaven synthetic tests

3DMark11 is Futuremark’s latest DX11-only benchmark and Vantage is DX10. Unfortunately, scores are completely meaningless when they are presented in this way but they do offer supporting data to accompany our game benches. Here is the chart with Vantage and 3D Mark11:

The GTX 670 comes close to the GTX 680 and the HD 7970 and pulls way ahead of the other competing cards; and when it is overclocked +150/+4000MHz, it is a beast! Heaven 3.0 is a very demanding benchmark and here it is expressed in a chart.

Again, synthetic tests are interesting but they are not necessarily indicative of real world gaming performance. In all three cases, the overclocked GTX 670 “wins” over everything else except for the GTX 680 by a fair margin. Next up, let’s look at DX9 games.

DX9 Games

We test the popular Source Engine represented by Left 4 Dead 2 and also a demanding DX9 game, Serious Sam 3, BFE with both at completely maxed out settings. First up is 2560×1600:

 

Now we see 1920×1200

 

Both Left 4 Dead 2 and Serious Sam 3 BFE are faster on the overclocked GTX 670 than any of the other cards although when both are at stock, the HD 7970 pulls ahead.  The GTX 670 improves strongly over the GTX 570 and even the GTX 580.  Let’s check out DX10 games

DX10 Games

We test four DX10 games – Just Cause 3, Far Cry 2, Crysis and World in Conflict, Soviet Assault. Here is 2560×1600 resolution.

Now at 1920×1200:

Out of these four DX10 games, the GTX 670 goes toe to toe with the HD 7970, beating it in Just Cause 2 and in Far Cry 2 and trading blows in Crysis and World in Conflict, depending on the resolution.

DX11 Games

Most of our testing emphasizes DX11 games and we bench 12. Since the charts get too long, we break them up into charts of 6 games each.

First up are the older DX11 games at 2560×1600

In most of these games, the overclocked GTX 670 beats the stock HD 7970 although the Radeon is faster when both are at stock clocks.  Now those same games at 1920×1200:

Although the gap narrows at lower resolution, the HD 7970 is faster when clocks are stock.  Now the newer DX11 games at 2560×1600:

This time, the GTX 670 at stock clocks is generally faster than the HD 7970 except for Deus Ex and Batman.  Now the same DX11 games at 1920×1200:

Again, at the lower resolution, the GTX 670 nearly catches up to the HD 7970 in Batman and it narrows the gap in Deus Ex, and it pulls further away in the other 4 games. .

Super-Widescreen 5760 x1080, Surround, 3D Vision Surround, and PhysX

Here is the main chart that gives the details for the tests:

Let’s look at 3D Vision at 120Hz versus the same settings with 3D Vision at the popular 1920×1080 resolution:

Here we see some strange results with 3D Vision as the drivers do not appear to lock Kepler to 60Hz as they did with Fermi and you can see the exact performance penalty that 3D Vision requires per each game.

Surround vs Eyefinity

Now the GTX 670 benchmarked in 3-panel Surround with slightly lesser settings (see the main chart above).

This time, the GTX 670 is stronger in Batman (partly due to using PhysX on ‘normal’), Just Cause 2 and in Far Cry 2 while the HD 7970 is stronger in the other 4 games.

Eyefinity has more noticeable tearing in some games on one side screen and sometimes in both and VSync is not applied because the framerates are usually below 60 at 5760×1080. Tearing is more noticeable on AMD Eyefinity than it is on Nvidia’s Surround, and it is especially noticeable with AMD’s more recent drivers.

For 3D Vision and for Surround, several  games need to have their settings reduced. Just remember that you are playing across three screens and and are also rendering each scene twice for 3D Vision!!

One thing that we found really strange and it may be a driver bug with Kepler – the frame rates appear to be no longer locked to 60Hz in the 3D Vision drivers as we previously tested. Previously, frame rates would be capped at 30 or 60 fps if possible. However, now it is very convenient to see exactly what performance penalty 3D Vision takes – sometimes it is more than 50 percent; other times less.

Next up, let’s look at PhysX

PhysX

We test PhysX in two games. Batman: Arkham City makes great use of PhyxX and it is a real shame to play the game without it. In both cases, turning on PhysX, although affecting the frame rate, it is enough to play the game with fully maxed out details and FXAA or AAA with our GTX 670.  

Let’s check out Overclocking:

Overclocking

We overclocked our GTX 670 +150MHz on the core and +400MHz on the memory. This is a very good overclock on stock voltage and stock fan profile and it falls only a bit short of the overclock on our GTX 680 of +150/+550MHz.

Here are all of our games compared at 2560×1600 – stock versus overclocked:

 Here is 1920×1200

As you can see the GTX 670 scales extremely well and in every case, the overclocked GTX 670 is able to beat the GTX 680, although the GTX 680 can itself be overclocked a bit further than our GTX 670.  The GTX 680 also appears to be a stronger performer at the highest resolutions, so as to justify it’s $100 higher price tag.

The GTX 670 performs very close to its big brother the GTX 680, significantly closer than 10%; and it comes very close in performance to the stock HD 7970, matching or beating it in some games but losing to it in a few more in our benching suite.  However, the two cards are within a percent or two of each other and are very evenly matched so as to provide near-identical performance, just depending on which game is being played or benched.  Let’s head for our conclusion.

«1. Introduction2. Architecture recap & specifications3. Test Configuration, Power Draw & Overclocking4. Performance Summary Charts5. The Conclusion6. View All»