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GTX 670 Gigabyte WIND FORCEx3: got worst clocker ever?

I moved back to a 7970 from the 670 as at the time the stutter issues that plagued the 6x0 cards made a few games I played pretty much unplayable. Afaik this is now sorted. Also I enjoy overclocking, with no voltage controls on the 6x0 cards I found my stable limits of the card inside a few hours which for me was pretty boring.

CUDA does come in handy when you use it, I used to utilise it quite a lot on a pair of 9800GTX+'s with expressions studio.
 
Thought I'd post a quick update in case folks are interested...

EVGA 670 FTW edition arrived today. It boosts to 1176 straight out of the box with no messing about.

Had a quick play at overclocking using Afterburner. Managed to run it stable with a +65 on the core so it runs at 1241, and the mem at 3400. Not tried pushing mem further yet.

I tried a clock of +80 on the core but heaven bench crashed after a few minutes. I'm pretty happy with that so this is a keeper.

My only slight problem is - the Gigabyte WF is a lot quieter. To run the overclock above and keep temps under 70 I have to make sure the fan is going around 65%, which is a tad noisy. I'd say it runs about 10-15 degrees hotter than the gigagbyte on average.
It's still ok though (and quieter than my gtx480, which also has a WF cooler but had to run at mega fan speeds), and I'd rather have the headroom for messing about with overclocking:D
 
As the level of overclock is determined by the silicon quality (i.e. luck) you would have been better off getting another Gigabyte WF 3x and hoping for more luck second time round if noise/temps were even slightly a concern.
 
Sounds like its worth keeping the FTW then.

I did something similar to you. Got the MSI reference model first, only oc'd to about 1140 on boost, and that was with the fans up high to keep it below 70c. So I DSR'd that and got a Windforce edition.

This one is much quieter and you get more physically for your money, plus it oc's to about 1230 on the volt modded bios. Not the best, but I can live with that.
 
I think given the whole 'silicon lottery' situation I'm pretty happy now. Looks like this EVGA is neither golden, but neither is it rubbish. Somewhere in the middle, and if I can be bothered messing further down the line (bios mods etc) then who knows, it might be much better.

I've had gigabyte cards before, never had an EVGA and everyone bangs on about how good they are, so I fancied a change. And, I only paid about £20 extra over the reference version, so not too fussed :)
 
wunkley said:
EVGA 670 FTW edition arrived today. It boosts to 1176 straight out of the box with no messing about.

Had a quick play at overclocking using Afterburner. Managed to run it stable with a +65 on the core so it runs at 1241, and the mem at 3400. Not tried pushing mem further yet.

I tried a clock of +80 on the core but heaven bench crashed after a few minutes. I'm pretty happy with that so this is a keeper.

My only slight problem is - the Gigabyte WF is a lot quieter. To run the overclock above and keep temps under 70 I have to make sure the fan is going around 65%, which is a tad noisy. I'd say it runs about 10-15 degrees hotter than the gigagbyte on average.
It's still ok though (and quieter than my gtx480, which also has a WF cooler but had to run at mega fan speeds), and I'd rather have the headroom for messing about with overclocking:D
Click to expand...
What speed does the fan run at on the EVGA 670 FTW, if you just run it at factory settings?

I'm just pleased someone out there has tried both the EVGA 670 FTW, as well as the Gigabyte GTX 670 WindForce OC. I would rather trust the opinion of a customer like you, compared to most review sites that is. :)
 
Nelly said:
What speed does the fan run at on the EVGA 670 FTW, if you just run it at factory settings?
Click to expand...

Don't know exactly, can find out if you really want? (Idle and full load?)

*edit* - it's currently idling at 30% (1050rpm) fan speed now (minimum possible), at 31 degrees.

The default auto fan profile just isn't aggressive enough. I've made a custom one in AB to keep it under 70 degrees. 65% speed seems to keep it between 60-70 degrees in heaven bench. There's a big noise difference in quite a short range too. At 50-55% fan speed I can barely hear it above my case fans etc, at 60 speed it gets noisier and at 65% it's quite noticeable, though not bad really.

On the noise front - if I'd not used/ heard the gigabyte WF in comparison I would have been well happy, as it's still much quieter than my 480.
 
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wunkley said:
Don't know exactly, can find out if you really want? (Idle and full load?)

*edit* - it's currently idling at 30% (1050rpm) fan speed now (minimum possible), at 31 degrees.

The default auto fan profile just isn't aggressive enough. I've made a custom one in AB to keep it under 70 degrees. 65% speed seems to keep it between 60-70 degrees in heaven bench. There's a big noise difference in quite a short range too. At 50-55% fan speed I can barely hear it above my case fans etc, at 60 speed it gets noisier and at 65% it's quite noticeable, though not bad really.

On the noise front - if I'd not used/ heard the gigabyte WF in comparison I would have been well happy, as it's still much quieter than my 480.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. Do you know your room temperature, where my PC is at the moment the temperature is like 26ºC, I think it makes quite abit of difference. (Wish I lived in Iceland lol)

Their was a great thread back in May/June where people posted there overclocks, you should check it out and post your clocks, might revive the thread >> http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18403803

My previous Gigabyte GTX 670 WindForce OC (see below) was quite average, I ended up returning mine and buying pgi947's, because he bought a MSI 7970 Lightning. :)

Make & Model: Gigabyte GTX 670 WindForce OC
Best Boost clock: 1293 (1280 due to throttling at 70°C) +105 GPU Offset/+675 MEM Offset
Temp: 70°C
Noise: 47% on Auto Fan - totally quiet.
Heaven Score: 2075 (settings 1920x1080, 4xAA, 4xAF and Normal Tess) as per the rules.
Heaven Avg. FPS: 82.4
 
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Mine doesn't boost much more than that, i've seen it stable @ 1240ish in benchmarks but in real world usage it rarely goes above 1215.

I was in the same boat as you, but after a few works of the card smashing pretty much anything I threw at it I quickly forgot about the lower than desired overclock.
 
So, just in case I do feel like pushing this card a bit more ;) how do you go about upping the voltage? Makes no difference in afterburner, maxes at 1.75 I think.

From what I've seen you need to flash the bios? I've seen that custom bios thread on another forum, but is there an idiots guide to flashing a graphics card bios, preferably just using a windows based prog? I'v tried before in the past and never got anywhere - always got messages saying won't work, or same file etc...
 
It's easy as pie through the bios buddy.

You just need a USB stick which you format in such a way it's bootable from, copy over nvflash program to it and the BIOS you choose.

Then you boot into the bios, type nvflash -4 -5 -6 biosname.rom and it will do the rest for you.

Just need to make sure you backup your original bios before hand which you can do though GPUz.
 
JamesM said:
It's easy as pie through the bios buddy.

You just need a USB stick which you format in such a way it's bootable from, copy over nvflash program to it and the BIOS you choose.

Then you boot into the bios, type nvflash -4 -5 -6 biosname.rom and it will do the rest for you.

Just need to make sure you backup your original bios before hand which you can do though GPUz.
Click to expand...

Cheers fella. Might give it a go if I'm feeling brave.

On another note, I'm a bit confused after reading the EVGA forums. A 'firmware' update has been released for this card a few weeks back than you just download and run an .exe. That's not the same as flashing a new bios is it? Sorry if it's a daft Q but I've been out of the loop geek wise for a while. See this thread here: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=1703680&mpage=1

Seems some people report it lowers performance at the expense of stability...
 
thing is. i dont think you should have returned the card. as you say the new one is noisier?

how much difference do you think these few mhz on the top end of these overclocks will make? basically none. (a few points in 3dmark big deal)

but the noise will always be there. always
 
I think it's bad returning something because it won't overclock.

It's not specified to overclock to a certain value. It's sheer luck. Would you keep sending cards back until you got one you were satisfied with overclock wise??

If it was my company I would tell you where to go!
 
Monkeyspaz5000 said:
I think it's bad returning something because it won't overclock.

It's not specified to overclock to a certain value. It's sheer luck. Would you keep sending cards back until you got one you were satisfied with overclock wise??

If it was my company I would tell you where to go!
Click to expand...

I kind of agree with you. It's not something I've done before, and I'm going to keep the Evga ftw one, even though it's 'only' a 'medium' performer it seems in terms of over clocking.

However, the 7 day dsr law is there, and I'm going to use it. If it was your company you wouldn't tell me where to go, because it would be against retail law.

I actually reckon the gigabyte card I got might have been a return. The box wasn't cellophane wrapped (like my Evga one today was) and the static bag was sealed with sellotape, not the usual fancy stuff.
 
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