Can’t get your hands on the GeForce GTX 680? Don’t fret, the GeForce GTX 670 is NVIDIA’s next best thing, and it delivers impressive gaming performance without inducing sticker shock. ZOTAC sent us its GeForce GTX 670 AMP! Edition to use in the LAN Party Boxster.
This card’s GPU packs 3.5 billion transistors and features seven out of eight SMX (Streaming Multiprocessor) units fully enabled, for a total of 1,344 stream processors, just 192 fewer than that of the GeForce GTX 680’s GPU. There are 112 texture units, and 32 ROPs, the latter matching the GTX 680’s total. The stock base and boost clocks on this card are 915MHz and 980MHz, respectively. ZOTAC decided it could do better and raised the clocks to 1,098MHz (base) and 1,176MHz (boost). The memory subsystem on the 680 was effectively grafted onto the GTX 670, unchanged: There are 2GB of GDDR5 running on a 256- bit memory bus. ZOTAC overclocked the memory from 1,502MHz to 1,652MHz.
The open-air cooler on ZOTAC’s GTX 670 AMP! Edition diverges significantly from the short PCB and enclosed cooler of the stock card. Here, there are two f a n s s u r rounded by a flat black aluminum shield that’s interested less in directing air than it is k e e p i n g w i r e s from getting gobbled. A large heatsink threaded with several copper heatpipes do the major cooling on this card. Although it’ll contribute extra heat to the overall system temperatures, chances are you won’t install this card in your small form factor workstation anyway.
For the extra horsepower this card supplies, you have to pay a slight premium at the pump. ZOTAC
recommends a 600W power supply for the GTX 670 AMP! Edition, slightly more than what NVIDIA specifies as the minimum required PSU (500W) for the stock GTX 670. The back panel features two DVI ports (one DVI-D and DVI-I each), a full-sized HDMI port, and a full-sized DisplayPort. In the box you’ll find a three-day game pass for TrackMania 2 Canyon, a DVIto- VGA adapter, two 6-pin PCI-E power adapters, user’s manual, and the driver disc.
In the benchmarks, ZOTAC’s overclocked GTX 670 performed admirably against the more expensive
Radeon HD 7970. ZOTAC’s card scored 9428 in 3DMark 11, and AMD’s flagship scored 8060. In Unigine Heaven, the 670 AMP! scored 51.3fps, while the 7970 posted 42.7fps. Of the real-world benchmarks we ran, Just Cause 2 was the only one that ZOTAC’s card won, though it wins at both resolutions.
Considering the price discrepancy, ZOTAC has a very strong performer on its hands. Better yet, we were able to find this card for sale as we went to press.
GeForce GTX 670
AMP! Edition
$449.99
ZOTAC
www.zotacusa.com
