advice please which 670 card?

HornyRhino · 20 Jun 2012 at 22:45

hi im looking to get 2 way sli on a pair of 670 cards and would like some advice on which one to get out of the following

sli KFA2 GeForce GTX 670 EX OC = £649

sli EVGA GTX 670 FTW = £670

sli ASUS GTX670 DIRECT CUII TOP = £778

im told the ASUS is very good but so is the KFA2 and i have always been partial to evga gear...

so would going for the KFA2 sli pack on ocuk be a bad choice agaisnt the asus ? as i havent ever had any of there products so dont know about reliabilty?

and also since im upgrading from triple sli 285 ...been a long time i know is there any problems with the 670 in sli such as microstuter or has current drivers now erradicated most of that now?

thanks

spixelspixel · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:12

lol at the asus prices

I'd go for two evga ftw's

illuz · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:19

Have you not considered the Windforce cards?

setter · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:26

The KFA2's at £649.00 are pretty good value. Uk based warranty service as well which is always nice.

tommybhoy · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:27

It would have to be the KFA2 ones, best bang for buck by far.

HornyRhino said:
i know is there any problems with the 670 in sli such as microstuter or has current drivers now erradicated most of that now?

There is the stutter bug to consider, it doesn't happen for everyone, Nvidia have been trying to fix it, but contrary to reports it's still not fixed for everyone.

That's a lot of cash your putting down on a possible problem, add in the fact that afaik, there will be no support for PCI-e 3.0 in some boards due to another problem.

The cynic in me says there is more to the story now though as Nvidia are doing an old AMD trick and deleting posts from the thread in question :eek:

:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=226227&view=findpost&p=1424168

Both driver teams are not doing very well at the moment.

Might pay to wait a little bit longer to see what happens unless your happy to pay return postage as you could try them out for 14 days through OcUK's fantastic 14 day satisfaction guarantee policy!

Snodge · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:29

Tommy I have a Windforce X3 670 going to buy another 670 which one do you recommend will a EVGA FTW overclock to 1215 Core clock and 7016MHZ Memory? so it's the same as the windforce is that possible?

tommybhoy · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:38

There is no possible way you can guarantee any of the 6 series to run on the same clocks due to the dynamic boost feature Snodge, if you were to get another my answer would be get another X3.

But, dual cards are a different kettle of fish, if you think it's as easy as slapping it into the pci-e and adding the bridge, clicking on 'enable sli' then think again.

The best bit of advice from me to you is just stick to what you have, seriously mate, it's got plenty power the way it is especially as your only on 1080p.

Snodge · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:42

But I want constant 60 FPS on BF3 XD

setter · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:45

Windforce cards in sli can be a bit of a problem heat wise. Particularly in a case with poor airflow. Due to the coolers dumping heat into the case, it can be a problem getting rid of the excess heat. I found this out unfortunately with a pair of wf gtx 460's, at stock they ran at 96 and 89c in game. My reference cooled overclocked gtx 470's ran at 76 and 70c and theyre a notoriously hot card.

Snodge · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:46

Well my Windforce currently has exceeded 65 degrees.

tommybhoy · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:54

Snodge said:
But I want constant 60 FPS on BF3 XD

Turn MSAA down then.

Snodge said:
Well my Windforce currently has exceeded 65 degrees.

As setter said it's going to get hot and loud(especially if you have the same case as your big bro), add anything between 10-20c onto the top card in SLi.

If going by your game related posting here, your going to be about trebling your posts if you go SLi, there is more work involved with dual gpu setups.

setter · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:57

65c here as well on my 670 wf, oced to 1320mhz core, 7528mhz mem. The 460's i had never went over 65c when used as single cards. Once in sli though the temps rocketed. Even with a custom fan profile, or the fans ramped up to max, the temps were still too high.

Snodge · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:59

Doesn't MSAA help that much then?

Snodge · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:02

Besides what's wrong with buying another 670 if I want to play BF3 on MAX at 60

It's only £340

tommybhoy · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:02

It doesn't help with fps, try it with no MSAA or 2XMSAA and you'll see the fps difference.

Snodge said:
It's only £340

You can send me two then if your feeling that flush, I'll let you know how hot I can get them.

HornyRhino · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:05

in reply to illuz the GTX 670 Windforce 3X in sli would cost me £743

to tommybhoy....

thanks for the info

i never had any stuttering on my triple sli 285 so maybe i was lucky

and as for pci3.0 well i dont upgrade very often hence most of setup is 2008/9 but will be doing motherboard/cpu/ and maybe memory middle of next year but i have read up on it and theres graphs from motherboards tested with pci2.0/3.0 option in bios and they show currently theres nothing much in the performance difference is that waht you meant by the mention of pci3.0 or just they dont support pci3.0?

think i may go for the kfa2 as they have better coolers and cheapest...at leat ocuk do the warranty for them ...making it easier for me.

thanks for the help

tommybhoy · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:11

So far there is a problem with them being pci-e 3.0 compliant in some MB series(I don't know which ones off hand), it's in the thread I linked at Nvidia forum.

The stutter problem isn't microstutter caused by SLi as such, it by no means happens with all setups, far from it, the problem is causing games to stutter between 60fps/~58fps, Nvidia have identified it but as such haven't totally eradicated it.

HornyRhino · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:12

setter said:
Windforce cards in sli can be a bit of a problem heat wise. Particularly in a case with poor airflow. Due to the coolers dumping heat into the case, it can be a problem getting rid of the excess heat. I found this out unfortunately with a pair of wf gtx 460's, at stock they ran at 96 and 89c in game. My reference cooled overclocked gtx 470's ran at 76 and 70c and theyre a notoriously hot card.

ok maybe i wont get the kfa2 cards

so they chuck out that much heat into the case? thought they were reviewed as keeping the temps low due to the extra fans and heatsink? that mean the asus is the same top version?

my case is the HAF 932 (thats getting on too

)

if thats the case ill stick to 2 evga FTW for £20 more

oh well

setter · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:16

Snodge said:
Besides what's wrong with buying another 670 if I want to play BF3 on MAX at 60

It's only £340

What sort of fps are you seeing at the minute in bf3 Snodge, im running the game at 1920x1200, all on ultra, 4x msaa, 16xaf, HBAO on motion blur off, (it hurts my eyes). Ive yet to see fps below 65, clocks posted above. Is your card oc'd or at stock?

HornyRhino · 21 Jun 2012 at 00:22

has anyone here had any experience with the KFA2 GTX 670 EX OC or EVGA FTW cards?

just to know what sort of heat they give off i mean i t cant be as bad as my 285s

in the late 80 on load average around mid 70's