Man did nvidia cheap out on the reference gtx670

[skipsneeky2]

As the title says...i bought two cards and the quality of some of the components make it look like the cards aren't worthy of being high range and instead low end.

1. No phase cooler or nothing fancy,the cooler is a small pathetic piece of aluminum with a thin copper core,looks like something that cooled a pentium 4 dell with a fanless heatsink,i even think the fins got bent even when it was built.

2. No IHS on the core of any kind,i find this sorta insultive in this day and age on a higher range product.

3. Cheap ass piece of crap plastic shroud holding this el cheapo together.

I took one of these apart the night before to replace the stock Tim with some AS5 and its dropped the temp about 3 cel,this is on the top card of my sli configuration but i couldn't help but notice how freaking cheap this card was built.....my 5 year old 8800gts 512mb from evga was built twice as better...as i have taken that apart as well,what the hell has happened to quality products these days?

 

[utahraptor]

I don't think they cheaped out so much as they chose to leave it to each brand to release souped up versions. The reference card is quite capable of providing the speed it is rated for.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

The 28nm power draw, 256-bit bus, these things allow for less complicated PCBs. Thus the PCB is smaller, has less power phases, and looks like a mid-low range card.

 

[chimaxi83]

Probably because it was really meant to be a GTX 550 replacement, but it was just so good that Nvidia made it a GTX 670. Right, NVbois?

 

[IlllI]

this is basically the reason why i stayed away from reference. all the 670 reference reviews i read pretty much mentioned this as well. this is also why i consider the gigabyte windforce the best bang for the buck, since it is the same price as reference but comes with a custom cooling solution in comparison.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Kim Jong look alike decided that it was all about teh profits. They sold a gtx 560 replacement as a 670. The 680 was the replacement for the 560 ti. There's one guy who was on another forum that says he has a real gtx 680 in his basement. It was faster than 670 sli.






Just having some fun.

 

[KingFatty]

Is it that the product is low-quality? Or is it that the 28nm processing does not require all kinds of fancy things so it would be wasteful to use them?

Is a plastic flyswatter a low quality el-cheapo product because it doesn't use laser sights and heat-seeking missiles to kill a fly?

 

[n0x1ous]

2. No IHS on the core of any kind,i find this sorta insultive in this day and age on a higher range product.

Pretty sure none of AMD gpu's use IHS so you think they are all "insultive"? Pretty sure the AMD reference designs are pretty good quality so clearly having an IHS or not is not a "quality" concern.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

The reference GTX 670 design and cooler is just terrible. First of all many of these cards suffer from bad coilwhine, and I mean really bad. Second of all the fan makes a terrible grinding noise, even in idle at 30% fanspeed. This is because the fan is mounted in this cheap plastic housing, extending behind the card, resulting in resonance sounds from the fan. This affects all reference GTX 670 cards, with reference cooler.

They suck! Plain and simple! I have one, I removed the cooler and installed a AC Twin Turbo II on it. The card still has that annoying coilwhine though.

My two ASUS GTX 670 Direct CU II is in another league!

 

[skipsneeky2]

The reference GTX 670 design and cooler is just terrible. First of all many of these cards suffer from bad coilwhine, and I mean really bad. Second of all the fan makes a terrible grinding noise, even in idle at 30% fanspeed. This is because the fan is mounted in this cheap plastic housing, extending behind the card, resulting in resonance sounds from the fan. This affects all reference GTX 670 cards, with reference cooler.

They suck! Plain and simple! I have one, I removed the cooler and installed a AC Twin Turbo II on it. The card still has that annoying coilwhine though.

My two ASUS GTX 670 Direct CU II is in another league!

I have been lucky to have no coil whine or grinding noises,but as par with some of the responses above,i do feel a card of this price bracket should at least have a heatpipe cooler,i am sure you have seen how cheap that heatsink looks,it is almost a disgrace.

With a heatpipe cooler like the one installed on the gtx570 at bare minimum,it wouldn't have been half bad but it appears others think even that crap unit installed on a $400 card is asking a bit much these days cause of the special tdp and the cheap ass heatsink that is on there now is perfectly fine and sufficient.

Try running two of those in sli,you end up having the top card hitting always above 70cel,killing your turbo boost clocks and you end replacing 5 fans in your case with higher 95cfm fans,and adding AS5 just to keep it under 68cel at all times,that is just at plain stock settings not being overclocked and all cause they cheaped out a bit much on the cooler.

If i had only one,sure it is no big deal but personally the nvidia engineers must have tested how well these coolers perform in sli in the freaking ice fields of alaska with sub-zero temperatures....

 

[Keysplayr]

Does it do what you need it to do? Yes? Mazal Tov!

I would consider them cheaply made if they FAIL. Not if they work as intended. Just sayin.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Does it do what you need it to do? Yes? Mazal Tov!

I would consider them cheaply made if they FAIL. Not if they work as intended. Just sayin.

3rd line,my previous post,that is my beef.

Perhaps 70cel for the first turbo boost clock drop is a bit conservative and it should have been set at 75cel perhaps?The top card of a sli configuration is always warmer and i had to do all that crazy stuff to keep it below specifications.

I don't mind the extra noise and sure i could have went for a third party card...but personally i originally owned one then decided to go sli and i kinda like how short and stumpy the cards are,they made a wonderful fit in my case,i just wish they used a different heatsink is all.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Hope that posted ok,that is the fuss i am talking about for the gtx670/\

And this is the gtx570 reference\/

 

[Wall Street]

Is it that the product is low-quality? Or is it that the 28nm processing does not require all kinds of fancy things so it would be wasteful to use them?

It is the later. The GTX 670 system in Anand's Metro 2033 load total system used 317W. It replaces last generations the GTX 570 which used 392 W, 75 W more. When comparing the GTX 670 power draw to last gen, it is almost exactly the same as the GTX 560 (non-Ti; 314 W). It really doesn't need as much power or cooling as we all got accustomed to with Fermi.

edit: Keep in mind the Anandtech benches are for total system power so the gap in percentage between the GTX 570 and GTX 670 is even greater than the ratio of 317 W vs. 392 W would indicate.

 

[rickon66]

That is why I can't understand why anyone would buy reference 670's when Gigabyte and others with custom boards and coolers are available for the same or near same money. I am very pleased and impressed by the quality and performance of my Windforce.

 

[cmdrdredd]

That is why I can't understand why anyone would buy reference 670's when Gigabyte and others with custom boards and coolers are available for the same or near same money. I am very pleased and impressed by the quality and performance of my Windforce.

WHen they released you had to take what you could get.

 

[EltonL]

That is why I can't understand why anyone would buy reference 670's when Gigabyte and others with custom boards and coolers are available for the same or near same money. I am very pleased and impressed by the quality and performance of my Windforce.

I'd buy it to make a custom watercooling block for it.

Tiny WC'ed but powerful PC? Sounds like an awfully amusing formula for me.

 

[Majcric]

Threads like these are why I ended buying the GTX 680 over the 670. I can't compare my 680 to a 670, but the 680 build quality feels just as good as any other GPU i've ever owned. Not to mention the last time I bought best bang for buck(GTX 560 ti) I had nothing but trouble with that card, ie, rainbow colors on desktop, youtube videos crashing, etc. Sold it, Put my old 9800GTX+ back in and gradually jumped ship to the GTX 680. Throughly enjoying the new GTX 680

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't think there's a requirement to follow reference design. I mean, if some vender is making GTX 670s can they simply refuse to offer a reference model? Isn't that what Asus did or does Asus have a reference model I don't know about?

 

[Homeles]

Nvidia always has crappy reference designs. Reference in general is usually a bad idea, unless you're water cooling and can't avoid it.

 

[toyota]

Nvidia did cheap out big time. its bad enough that its 400 bucks for what would have been a mid range gpu but to throw that dinky cooler on there is a joke. even the gtx460/560 cards had a way more robust cooler.

 

[Keysplayr]

Nvidia did cheap out big time. its bad enough that its 400 bucks for what would have been a mid range gpu but to throw that dinky cooler on there is a joke. even the gtx460/560 cards had a way more robust cooler.

How warm do they run?

 

[Wall Street]

I had nothing but trouble with that card, ie, rainbow colors on desktop, youtube videos crashing, etc. Sold it, Put my old 9800GTX+ back in and gradually jumped ship to the GTX 680.

Did you sell someone a defective card? Or did you RMA it first?

 

[Majcric]

It was rma'd twice to be exact and the third one went to a new owner. Problems were described throughly as well as offering a 14 day money back guarantee.

 

[Joseph F]

How warm do they run?

Warmer than a 460. And with louder fans, to boot.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/542?vs=598