GTX 670: ASUS v. EVGA v. MSI

[orbster556]

Dear All:

Sometime in the near future I am hoping to purchase a 670 but am unsure of which model to purchase. After doing some research -- both on these forums and other sites -- I am considering the offerings of ASUS 670 DCII, EVGA 670 FTW and MSI PE2. In the poll issued here (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2254955&highlight=670&page=2) there was strong support for each which is why I am soliciting additional opinions and insights.

From what I could gather, the ASUS card is the fastest but is plagued by poorly-cooled vram and other quality concerns (as well, difficult to find an outlet that currently has it in stock); the EVGA card, on account of its blower style fan, is slightly louder but avoids the problems associated with the reference 670 pcb and offers a relatively nice boost compared to the regular 670. Couldn't really find anything negative regarding the MSI as owners and reviewers seemed generally impressed with MSI's effort.

The last four cards I've used -- going back to a 7800 gtx -- have been EVGA and, touch wood, I've never had any issues with EVGA's products. For this reason, I am leaning towards to purchasing the 670 FTW edition.

Before doing so, however, I was wondering whether I was overlooking anything or if I should give the MSI card more consideration. Three things that might affect potential answers:

1) I would only be doing mild overclocking
2) My current case is a Silverstone FT-02; I am unsure whether the unusual orientation of the case would affect the efficacy of a blower-style fan
3) My hope is to eventually get a second 670 when the performance of the single card begins to suffer or the price drops

Thanks, in advance, for any help or advice you all might be able to offer. If I omitted any necessary information, please let me know and I'll make sure to provide it.

Regards,

 

[sze5003]

Is the Asus DC2T or DC2? The TOP models seem to be the best out of those three but they are no longer available. MSI models have good cooling compared to Evga. But Evga model, FTW has a higher clock. Unless you go for the MSI PE edition which is really good too.

 

[5.0inaYota]

I am an EVGA fan, mostly because of their customer support, noise is of no concern to me (my card doesn't seem that loud to me anyway, but depends on the person and the card), and I have never had a major problem with their products either. Not trying to push EVGA on you though, another one I have heard good thing about you may want to look at is the Gigabyte Windforce 670, good cooler and pretty quiet from what I hear. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423 Good luck with your decision.

 

[hokies83]

Out of the 3...

Msi is putting out the better cards in the Kepler line up..

Evga Has the best Rma

Asus is the most quiet..

 

[sze5003]

Only thing is MSI is about $436 bucks and for that price if you can you could get a reference 7970. If the MSI dropped price a little I would go with them.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Out of the 3...

Msi is putting out the better cards in the Kepler line up..

Evga Has the best Rma

Asus is the most quiet..

Yep. Personally the MSI Power Edition 670 is my top pick.

 

[RussianSensation]

Out of the 3...

Msi is putting out the better cards in the Kepler line up..

Evga Has the best Rma

Asus is the most quiet..

Agreed on all fronts.

This is a nice GTX670 round-up that has all 3 of the cards you are interested in tested. You can use Google Chrome to translate. They have noise levels and temperatures and overclocking in that review:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-geforce-gtx-670-680-roundup/

Tom's Hardware also has videos so you can appreciate how quiet the Asus DCUII 670 is.

 

[3DVagabond]

As far as I know the vertical orientation of the FT-02 (beautiful case, by the way) won't adversely effect the cooling of any of the cards. The heatpipes would be orientated horizontally which should improve performance over the "normal" installation. As far as I know vapor chambers, like the EVGA uses, work just as well regardless of orientation. I'm not as certain of this though as I am with coolers that use heatpipes.

Where you run into problems would be on coolers where the heatpipes would be orientated above or below the gpu and above the cooling fins when the card is installed vertically.
For example, a cooler like this is bad because the energy would have to travel down to get to the fins. Which, of course, it won't do.

With EVGA's dropping of their lifetime warranty and having to purchase an extended warranty to be eligible for their trade up program, I don't see the point of paying a premium for EVGA cards anymore.

 

[shurato]

Have you considered the Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce? I did some research myself on the exact same cards you mentioned but ended up getting the Gigabyte last week.

The only complaint I hear from people is that it's ugly because of the blue PCB but sorry I don't look inside my case nor do I care what my video card looks like. It's very quiet and has pretty good performance out of the box. I noticed a significant drop in noise coming from an EVGA GTX 470+.

 

[zaydq]

I've seen some good out of Evga's offerings in person. The others im quite in the dark about.

 

[MBentz]

I'd say EVGA for customer support and RMA issues.

With that said, I'm a sucker for MSI's current offerings.

 

[guskline]

I have 2 of the EVGA GTX670 FTWs in SLI and I'm very satisfied. They have some overclock heatroom but are already overclocked from factory. I like that the exhaust goes out the back.

 

[WiseUp216]

I've been really, really happy with my EVGA 670 (non-FTW).

That said, if I was to buy one today, I would pick up the MSI.

 

[sze5003]

I think the extended warranty from EVga is about 25 bucks on top of the price of the card. Then again you can only step up withing 90 days of getting the card. SO if you buy at the wrong time then you are screwed kinda. I also believe you need to pay to ship your card there, regardless of the RMA or not.

They have great customer service but I don't see nothing wrong with the Gigabyte OC, it has a slightly lower core and boost clock that is about all.

 

[orbster556]

I suppose my biggest concern with purchasing an MSI card is my concern with the quality of their offerings. To be fair, however, this concern is informed more by my unfamiliarity with MSI product lines -- both with mobos and gfx cards -- than by concrete with specific shortcomings or problems.

Am I safe assuming, in light of the positive feedback and support expressed for the MSI card, that they have a solid reputation and generally have no problems with defects and the like?

Thanks for all the replies so far -- they are already proving quite informative.

Regards,

 

[sze5003]

MSI PE is nice. I had a Twin Frozr II 560Ti and I never had any problems. I could not even hear the card. I heard my case fans more. They have quality parts too. But I can't really justify the price of the MSI PE 670..$436. If you pay that you could get something else for that price I suppose.

 

[RussianSensation]

MSI PE is nice. I had a Twin Frozr II 560Ti and I never had any problems. I could not even hear the card. I heard my case fans more. They have quality parts too. But I can't really justify the price of the MSI PE 670..$436. If you pay that you could get something else for that price I suppose.

Ya that's a fair point. The MSI PE 670 goes for $413 on Newegg. For $443, there is HD7970 Vapor-X that will beat it at stock and esp. in overclocked states and has higher quality components (8x Black Diamond Chokes and the huge vapor chamber cooler from the $700 Sapphire TOXIC). But if someone wants to stick to NV, then the PE 670 is still cheaper than any reference GTX680.

 

[Mars999]

I have had many MSI Gfx cards all Twin Frozen or HAWK editions and love them. I also love the Gigabyte Windforce edition cards, they rock also. ASUS Direct CU is good stuff to any of the three are good, just get the cheapest one or one that fits your needs....

 

[sze5003]

I forgot there was a rebate on the MSI PE that brings it down some. But I've forgotton to do rebates often so I look at the base price usually. The gigabyte 670 WF OC has a 6 pin and 8 pin power connector. Its cooler, three fans, and possibly could be overclocked more than the 670 Evga FTW even though the ftw has higher boost and core clocks.

In my Roswill challenger, both cards will fit with the Gigabyte being the largest and taking up all the space so its really a matter of how much airflow I get. I'm stumped between the two models and now that AMD dropped prices I shouldn't buy something right away.

Will wait till end of the week or so to see what happens.

 

[mogans]

Is the Asus DC2T or DC2? The TOP models seem to be the best out of those three but they are no longer available. MSI models have good cooling compared to Evga. But Evga model, FTW has a higher clock. Unless you go for the MSI PE edition which is really good too.

Why Top models are not available? Have they been stopped?

 

[hokies83]

Why Top models are not available? Have they been stopped?

DC2T Have very High Failure rates.. From a guy on OCN... Asus is trying to Correct this issue before releasing another batch.

 

[sze5003]

Should be sometime around september. They have been unavailable since may I believe.

 

[Khato]

As an owner of an Asus GTX 670 DC2T who's currently running on an old GTX 260 while waiting for Asus' sluggish RMA process... yeah, I'd recommend avoiding Asus. There are a large number of reported failures, with the truly worrisome part being how many of them occur similar to mine - it worked fine for almost 3 months before starting to misbehave. Why is that disturbing? Because most manufacturing defects are going to result in either DoA or failure in the first few weeks of operation. Meanwhile a high failure rate after a few months of use is typically indicative of a design issue being the cause.