GTX670 Upgrade and Overclocking Review (vs. 5850 crossfire)

[guskline]

Impressive numbers Termie

 

[bashy]

Hi all

Been reading this thread as just upgraded my 2 x 5850`s cards for a GTX 670 http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N670GTX-PM2D2GD5-OC.html#/?div=Feature

This was not out of choice but because i just could not get crossfire to work ok for BF3, fine in other game but in BF3 the game would sort of lag me or it would be like someone was freeze framing me. I tried different drivers, using the profiles etc in the end just gave up.

Even though i am happy with the GTX 670 its not really been an upgrade to the 5850`s and a cost of £315 to get the same performance i should have been getting from the 5850 is a little disappointing.

Running the GTX 670 is ten times better with no problems so far (even though its only been 2 days)

Stock on this card is 966 and boost should be 1045.

Question! How do you enable the boost? When i run furmark or anything else my card still runs at stock

 

[Termie]

Hi all

Been reading this thread as just upgraded my 2 x 5850`s cards for a GTX 670 http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N670GTX-PM2D2GD5-OC.html#/?div=Feature

This was not out of choice but because i just could not get crossfire to work ok for BF3, fine in other game but in BF3 the game would sort of lag me or it would be like someone was freeze framing me. I tried different drivers, using the profiles etc in the end just gave up.

Even though i am happy with the GTX 670 its not really been an upgrade to the 5850`s and a cost of £315 to get the same performance i should have been getting from the 5850 is a little disappointing.

Running the GTX 670 is ten times better with no problems so far (even though its only been 2 days)

Stock on this card is 966 and boost should be 1045.

Question! How do you enable the boost? When i run furmark or anything else my card still runs at stock

You're right - it's not really a signficant upgrade in theoretical performance, but it DOES work better, both due to compatibility with games and lower power/heat/noise. I actually did not have problems with crossfire in 5850, at least not that serious, but yes, sometimes I would have that feeling of the frame getting frozen in very heavy firefights. That's where the 670 is superior.

You don't need to enable boost, it should be automatic. You should run MSI Afterburner and move the power slider all the way to 122%. You should also increase the fan speed to keep it under 70C if you can, and definitely under 80C. Boost will not go as high without those tweaks.

 

[bashy]

Thanks for that Termie will try the setting.

Just a check on your scores with heaven as i got
Avg. 98.4
Min. 40.4
Max. 186.4

Score 2479

Does that look right or have i got my settings wrong?

 

[tviceman]

Termi I just compared my gtx670 heaven run with yours at the exact same settings. I got 94.6fps. My core is 1250mhz when boosting, and my vram is at 7200mhz effective. Your current vram clocks are holding you back some. Have you tried pushing the vram higher?

Thanks for that Termie will try the setting.

Just a check on your scores with heaven as i got
Avg. 98.4
Min. 40.4
Max. 186.4

Score 2479

Does that look right or have i got my settings wrong?

It would help if you said what settings you ran the benchmark at. What resolution, what level of tessellation, how much anisotropic filtering, and anti-aliasing.

 

[Termie]

Termi I just compared my gtx670 heaven run with yours at the exact same settings. I got 94.6fps. My core is 1250mhz when boosting, and my vram is at 7200mhz effective. Your current vram clocks are holding you back some. Have you tried pushing the vram higher?

I'll give that a try at some point. I'm in the middle of upgrading some things. I think the memory can go higher, as I've tested it up to 6800, but I didn't see any scaling in games. I'd be surprised if it bumped my score up to yours - that's quite a bit higher.

 

[tviceman]

I'll give that a try at some point. I'm in the middle of upgrading some things. I think the memory can go higher, as I've tested it up to 6800, but I didn't see any scaling in games. I'd be surprised if it bumped my score up to yours - that's quite a bit higher.

There is no reason why it wouldn't match my score, so long as your memory can equal mine.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Termie

With regards to your SLI, results, I just wanted to say that you are most likely bottlenecked by that i7 860@3.5GHz, when in SLI.

A good example is when I overclock my i7 2600K (Which is a good deal faster than your CPU), my 2x ASUS GTX 670 DC II SLI setup scales very well with the CPU clocks. Looking at my scores I'm also a tiny bit bottlenecked by PCI-E 2.0 when in SLI. Others with PCI-E 3.0 and Ivy get a little higher score in some cases. But this bottleneck is very small though. Nontheless, it's there.

You should be fine with just one GTX 670 coupled with your i7 860@3.5GHz. A good way for you to test the bottleneck is to overclock your CPU even further, and look at the FPS and GPU usage in games and benchmarks.

Also, in my secondary rig I have one MSI GTX 670 reference, coupled with a Q9650@4GHz. This CPU at 4GHz bottlenecks just one GTX 670 pretty severe in some cases, when compared to my Sandybridge. This CPU even bottlenecked a GTX 570 in some cases.

 

[bashy]

[/URL] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]
Test ran using I7 950 plus 6 gig ram

 

[malikq86]

nice review, good stuff man.

 

[bmadd89]

For a reference. 7970 on water. 1250mhz core 6600mhz memory.

 

[DrBoss]

Great review Termie.

I just put a 670 in my system, and while not as fast as my previous R6950's in crossfire, the absence of microstuttering and the significantly reduced power loads are definitely a plus.

 

[DrBoss]

For a reference. 7970 on water. 1250mhz core 6600mhz memory.

Awesome results

Tonight i will replicate your Unigine test settings on my MSI 670 PE w/ Boost Clock @ 1290 MHz and Vram @ 7204 MHz

 

[tviceman]

Same settings with my gtx670 @ 1250mhz boost and 7200mhz vram.

 

[toyota]

never mind

 

[DrBoss]

 

[Termie]

Looks like the two GTX670s are pretty consistent above. Doesn't surprise me that a highly overclocked 7970 can edge them out.

I'm in the process of doing some system upgrades, so I'm going to have to pass on joining in on the benchmarking, but feel free to share additional data points.

 

[bmadd89]

I haven't meant to hijack the thread, but was impressed with the review of the upgrade and the numbers and thought putting my own in was an increase to the info that the thread could provide to people reading it.

I tweaked some more and i can match your clock rates tviceman at 1250core and 7200mhz memory. My memory is at its limits here as i needed to up the voltage so to reach it.

Re-run both test in unigine and results have improved somewhat. I also increased the clock on my cpu from 3.9 to 4.17Ghz.

Some 3dMark11 Love
1250 core, 7200 memory

 

[bashy]

Not been happy with my card, kept red screening me or crashing to desktop when playing BF3, RMA it and awaiting a GTX 680