NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Launch Review - PAGE 1

NVIDIA first introduced the Kepler architecture just over a month ago with the release of the GTX 680, and since that time they have managed to turn the graphics market on its head. For the last three to four graphics card generations, the hierarchy saw AMD having the fastest dual core graphics card on the market, with cards such as the HD 4870x2, HD 5970 and most recently the HD 6990, while NVIDIA laid claim the fastest single GPU solutions, such as the GTX 480 and GTX 580. With Kepler this is no longer the case as NVIDIA is poised to have this generation’s fastest single and dual GPU graphics solution.

In today’s review we are going to be examining the next iteration in the Kepler family, the GeForce GTX 670. As the name suggests, this model sits just below the GTX 680 in the family. There isn't much difference between the two cards, actually. Both use the same Kepler architecture and support features such as GPU Boost, but the GTX 670 has one less SMX cluster in the GPU. This means that instead of having 1536 CUDA cores, it has a total of 1344. This will slightly reduce the performance of the GTX 670 in comparison to the flagship GTX 680, but it also allows NVIDIA to price the card at a more affordable $399 MSRP.

In the review we will go into detail about the GTX 670's architecture and specifications, but first let’s do a quick break down. As mentioned earlier, the GTX 670 has 7 SMX units giving it a total of 1344 CUDA cores, but it also includes 112 Texture units, 32 Raster operation units, along with base and Boost clock speeds of 915MHz and 980MHz, respectively. The card also has a 2GB GDDR5 frame buffer that runs on a 256-bit interface that comes clocked in at 6008MHz effective.