Going down from a GTX 670

[Goobley]

Well the title is fairly clear, but the real question is: where to?

I'm looking for a quiet card to replace the 670 I've been complaining about - when I actually manage to shift it. Any recommendations of how to do so considering my fleabay account only has 4 buying feedback? (May just wait till I have enough posts to use classifieds - do things actually sell there?)

Obviously, this time I'm not going to make the reference cooler mistake again - looking at the current state of the market the R9 270 seems like a very good value proposition. The Gigabyte Windforce 2 or the MSI Gaming are both clocked to stock 270X levels and within 100MHz of the vast majority of OC'd 270Xs, making them seem extremely good at £20 cheaper.

AFAIK, AMD's linux drivers have come on in leaps and bounds recently and I believe they should be fine for general use and a bit of OpenCL compute work these days. Please correct me if this is no longer true.

Any thoughts as to whether this would be a good choice? (I play mainly indie (KSP etc.), Strategy and a few unreal games (like Mass Effect) all at 1080p). I'd imagine these cards could cope fine with such loads (especially as I use Vsync most of the time) and be quiet while doing so, or am I missing another value proposition?
Cheers,
Chris

[MrRockliffe]

Go for something with a good cooler. My 760 Direct CUII is super quiet, but as soon as it's over clocked it gets a little loud. Fantastic card though. Why don't you get an aftermarket cooler for your 670? Such as the NZXT cooler bracket, and then use a cheap hydro cooler.

[Goobley]

Unfortunately my case won't support a cooler larger than two slots or a radiator (at least not without extensive modding). This kinda rules out after market coolers, whilst it's the option I prefer I haven't yet found one (and neither has anyone else that I've asked) powerful enough in only a two slot package.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Another option may be to downlock/undervolt/slow the fan down.

I would start by running a custom fan profile and find out what % is bearable. Then see if you can run the card hotter at stock setting with a stressing program with higher fan speeds closer to critical temperatures. Failing that then undervolt. Then downclock while undervolting.


You might have already tried all this but it'll be less hassle then selling/buying a new card. 670s are very good cards; should sell like hot cakes!

[KeyboardDemon]

You could get an NZXT Kraken G10 and then add an compatible AIO water cooler to it so you can stay with the performance, increase cooling efficiency, reduce noise and maybe have headroom for some overclocking.

[Goobley]

Thanks for the reply, I'm not worried about the noise under load in slightest, only the idle noise, and no matter what I do the fan is locked to a minimum of 30% in its BIOS. To be clear it's actually the motor that makes an annoying noise (as has been extensively documented online since the first reference 670s) and I just didn't do my research before buying it. i impulse bought on Today Only when I could have got a TwinFrozr for £4 more, I just thought the blower would limit the heat in my mITX case... ah well hindsight and all that. I'm sure someone else will be happy with it though as it'll work great in a case like a Define

Unfortunately the Kraken requires three slots, I only have 2 and no leeway due to my mITX case, otherwise I would've slapped an accelero on.

[KeyboardDemon]

To be clear it's actually the motor that makes an annoying noise (as has been extensively documented online since the first reference 670s) and I just didn't do my research before buying it.

I didn't know about that issue to tell the truth, I was pretty much set on using AMD GPUs when the 670 launched, at the time I was almost completely happy with my XFX HD6990 and was all set to buy an R9 290X when I was given a GTX780Ti on loan (at first) and then my friend ended up letting me have it at a decent price, so won't complain and mine only gets noisy when I manually set the fans to 100%, even under load I don't see the fans go over 70% and the noise is only noticeable around the 84% fan speed level.

[Goobley]

The coolers for the top of the 7 series (770+) were improved enormously to the point where if you run it at stock then you've no need what so ever for an after market cooler. The problem with the 670s is commonly believed to be linked to the short PCB with long shroud - while I don't have an explanation for this the evidence does point that way. Obviously the seriously cheaped out heat sink (see below) must be a factor in the amount of air required

Pretty crusty and cheap

[azrael-]

I've got a GTX670 from eVGA with a stock cooler, which I'm actually pretty happy with. Don't know if it's a stock stock cooler or if eVGA might have worked a little bit of magic, though.

I generally prefer stock coolers on higher-end nVidia and AMD GPUs, by the way, since they don't usually dump the heat in the case, but out the back. Most after-market coolers are "open" and dump excess heat in the case.

[Goobley]

That was my original justification for choosing the blower, I'm just gonna live with a quiet open cooler dumping heat inside my case though. A lot of reference 670s where fine, it depends on how insulating your case is, where it sits in relation to you and how much noise you're used to. EVGA did both stock and after-market blowers so it could be either. There's a fairly unanimous consensus though that the the fans used in the reference are cheap - some of them will be whisper silent, others won't, there's no real consistency.

[polosistealth]

i had a Asus GTX760 DirectCU and is very very quiet
or just upgrade to an Gigabyte GTX770GB OC 4GB

[Goobley]

For longevity's sake I'm looking at getting a card roughly equivalent to my 670 and I was wondering whether you feel that a 280(X) is worth the money over a GTX 760. (Same question regarding 207X and GTX 760).
Cheers!

[Mister]

If you going to upgrade from a 670 the only thing worthwhile is a 780 if your sticking with nvidia. The 770 is the same card as the 680, just like the 760 is a 670. But the 780 is a newer card design, which runs cooler and has better performance. Nvidia kept that one quiet, as always

[Wolmack]

Go with the gtx 760.