Reviews - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 SLI vs. The Beast™

[HEXUS]

Can two GTX 670s take on the best in the world?

Read more.

[watercooled]

Not read the whole thing yet, but IMO (pedantic mode engaged) 670 SLI and the 690 should both be listed as having 2x2048MB memory.

[13thmonkey]

like the micro-stutter measure, but could you include the 690 data in it as well please as it is effectively just sli on one card. And could you expand the percentage measures down to 16ms for the 60fps seekers, maybe even 8 for the 120Hz crowd? in fact a distribution of interframe rates might be nice.

[Tarinder]

Not read the whole thing yet, but IMO (pedantic mode engaged) 670 SLI and the 690 should both be listed as having 2x2048MB memory.

Thanks for the input. It's written this way - 2 x 2GB - to denote there are two cards in the system. I have no problem in changing it around.

[watercooled]

I just mean on the table on the first page, you have:
690 4096MB
670 SLI 2048MB
670 2048MB

The 670 SLI has 4096 total memory, same as the 690. But it's not clear from the table. Also, because of the way GPU memory is used, it would just make more sense to list as 2x2048MB for each.

Anyway, thanks for the good review. It looks like it scales pretty well in SLI on most games!

[JCBeastie]

The 670 SLI has 4096 total memory, same as the 690. But it's not clear from the table. Also, because of the way GPU memory is used, it would just make more sense to list as 2x2048MB for each.

I thought that both cards got the same data in the frame buffer, so it's still effectively 2GB despite there being 4GB physically... Or is that what you're saying? :|

[watercooled]

Yeah that's what I mean.

[KeyboardDemon]

Really liked the review. I like the new approach in showing the framerate tables to highlight issues such as stuttering.

I know that time tends to be an issue when creating detailed comparisons like this, so you might not have had the time to do this, but I would have like to have seen what else someone could get if they had the budget for a gtx690, as 3x670's would cost less than 10% more and assuming linear performance increases would have outpaced the 690 by close to 40%. Plus three GPUs are less likely to suffer from stuttering than a 690 with two GPUs.

[watercooled]

Ignore, misread post.

[Hicks12]

Keyboard demon, from seeing many sli reviews before im pretty certain the performance wont scale linearly, 2 cards is the only area that seems to be good for multicards and 3 just seems very diminishing returns, maybe an extra 40 - 50% for a whole new card(of the original single performance added on ofc). And stutter would not change, if anything it would be worse... microstutter is present in all multigpu setups (on the same pcb or seperate) its there because of the delay between talking to each GPU and outputing it.

If microstutter didnt exist i would have my 2xgtx460s still, its a shame i notice it badly ... i could do with extra performance right now lol!.

[watercooled]

Yeah I've seen on several occasions how adding a second GPU actually makes many games less playable, despite higher framerate. The same, obviously, applies to multi-GPU cards; IMO you're generally best going for the single GPU version unless you have money to burn and don't mind the problems it brings. However, adding a third card can actually improve stuttering: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...fire,2995.html

Also remember that most multi-GPU cards will run the GPUs slower than the single GPU version so it can perform worse for some games. One recent example being Batman:AC which, at least initially, didn't scale at all with Crossfire (not sure about SLI but with it being an Nvidia sponsored game it was likely OK). So a friend with his more expensive 5970 had to run it at lower settings than me.

I was seriously considering picking up another 5870, which there have been a few of going quite cheaply on FS, but glad I didn't. More power consumption, noise, heat, cost for a noticeable improvement in a few games and a step back in others...

[KeyboardDemon]

Keyboard demon, from seeing many sli reviews before im pretty certain the performance wont scale linearly, 2 cards is the only area that seems to be good for multicards and 3 just seems very diminishing returns, maybe an extra 40 - 50% for a whole new card(of the original single performance added on ofc). And stutter would not change, if anything it would be worse... microstutter is present in all multigpu setups (on the same pcb or seperate) its there because of the delay between talking to each GPU and outputing it.

If microstutter didnt exist i would have my 2xgtx460s still, its a shame i notice it badly ... i could do with extra performance right now lol!.

I didn't say a third card would eliminate stutter, I said it was less likely to be affected by it. There is an article by Tom's Hardware that explains it better than I can, this is what they said in the conclusion:

The performance of three- and four-way CrossFire setups not only surprised us, but also managed to utterly convince us that micro-stuttering doesn't have to affect your multi-GPU configuration. For some reason, the third GPU almost always eliminates micro stuttering and has a less-pronounced effect on performance. At least in the games we ran, the fourth GPU is more eye candy than anything, and its contribution is minimal.

So in your case the answer might not have been remove a GTX460, but add one instead.

[Hicks12]

Yeah i read that after watercooled mentioned it , it is an interesting discovery and maybe it a sign of things to come. However for my case adding a third gtx460 would mean id have a gpu setup costing £450 and performing at a gtx580 level, with SLI that seems to fail alot with me and unpredictable performance ingame and not to mention the incredibly high power wastage and finally id have to buy a new motherboard as mine can only do 2x . Basically its to expensive as it doesnt eliminate it, it makes it less noticeable but its still very much there .

It must just be me but microstuttering is very noticeable, its the reason id never go sli/crossfire again which is unfortunate as it opens up very good bang for buck!. But like i said, will be interesting in that maybe in the future this will be improved greatly and infact be eliminated and instead of going for multiple card setups you can do for just 2 and not suffer microstutter!.

[watercooled]

Yeah I'm sensitive to most sorts of flickering myself - PWM on vehicle LED rear lights (notably buses), TV/monitor backlights, neon indicators, LED alarm clock displays and so on.

[Agent]

Yeah I'm sensitive to most sorts of flickering myself - PWM on vehicle LED rear lights (notably buses), TV/monitor backlights, neon indicators, LED alarm clock displays and so on.

It really is one of those "What's been seen can't be unseen things".

Does the cinema drive you crazy with it's frame-rate too?

[watercooled]

Haha yeah I can get used to it after a while but at least initially I find it a bit disturbing.