Which 670?

opethdisciple · 10 May 2012 at 20:54

Never overclocked a GPU before and dont plan to start with a new 670.

I am torn between the MSI and the KFA2. £30 price difference, but if I look closely at boost clocks the two cards are very close to each other.

Is the KFA2 worth the £30 price difference?

masscrazy · 10 May 2012 at 20:57

Couple of things.

The KFA has 2 year warranty the MSI 3 years.

The KFA has a custom cooler which basically means it will be better at cooling and therefore be less noisy also means you can overclock tad more.

The KFA has 1 8pin and 1 6pin power connectors which means it will take more power and you can overclock a lot more than with the reference (MSI) which has 2 6pins.

So is it worth the extra money, possibly. Will you be overclocking, keeping more than 2 years, want a quieter/bit more powerful card?

arc@css · 10 May 2012 at 21:00

Iirc the MSI one you've linked has a smaller pcb, and overclocks not as well as some of the others. Seeing as clocking isn't something you're intending to do then I can't see any reason for you (going by the info in your post) to consider the KFA2.

Cleeecooo · 10 May 2012 at 21:01

arc@css said:
Iirc the MSI one you've linked has a smaller pcb, and overclocks not as well as some of the others. Seeing as clocking isn't something you're intending to do then I can't see any reason to consider the KFA2.

It'll be quieter. (atleast it should be :eek:

)

Surveyor · 10 May 2012 at 21:01

masscrazy said:
The KFA has 1 8pin and 1 6pin power connectors which means it will take more power and you can overclock a lot more than with the reference (MSI) which has 2 6pins.

I've not read all the reviews, possibly you have.

Is that fact or an assumption?

Cleeecooo · 10 May 2012 at 21:02

Surveyor said:
Is that fact or an assumption?

I think it'd be fair to say something along the lines of:
It can take more power so is more likely to overclock further

Sound right to you?

arc@css · 10 May 2012 at 21:02

Cleeecooo said:
It'll be quieter. (atleast it should be )

All stock models should be quiet (680/670). Seeing as it's a subjective point, I guess it depends how quiet you really expect something to be.

Cleeecooo · 10 May 2012 at 21:05

arc@css said:
All stock models should be quiet (680/670). Seeing as it's a subjective point, I guess it depends how quiet you really expect something to be.

Ofcourse. But no reference card i've seen (or heard) is that quiet at load. The 580 wasn't bad though.

Obviously it depends person to person, but when I had a TJ07 with 6 fans at 100%, the 580 could be louder at 100% load. Not by much though

masscrazy · 10 May 2012 at 21:06

Surveyor said:
I've not read all the reviews, possibly you have.

Is that fact or an assumption?

Nope read none at all, not even remotely interested in the 670

however doesnt the fact that it has an 8pin and a 6pin mean that yes its required as clock speeds are higher at stock but also means you'll be able to get more juice into it and therefore be able to overclock it more and coupled with a custom cooler it should make a good overclocker.

Assumption with some reason...

Surveyor · 10 May 2012 at 21:06

Cleeecooo said:
I think it'd be fair to say something along the lines of:
It can take more power so is more likely to overclock further

Sound right to you?

There's more power there if required but the GTX 670 only seems to use around two thirds of the 225W that two six pin connectors and the PCI-E slot provide.

There's still a lot of room left for overclocking.

I was just curious to see if it was known that the 6+8 pin cards overclock better or it's just an opinion because they're capable of drawing more power.

masscrazy · 10 May 2012 at 21:09

Surveyor said:
I was just curious to see if it was known that the 6+8 pin cards overclock better ot it's just an opinion because they're capable of drawing more power.

Good question, i assumed, not certain however

opethdisciple · 10 May 2012 at 21:32

Are short PCB and long PCB 670's sli able?

Im thinking I might gor for the MSI, almost the same speeds and £30 cheaper.

Question is tho performance wise would there be much difference beiween the cards? IE is the performance £30 different?

Im thinking that even a stock 670 is awsome power, so a slightly overclokced one such as the MSI is more than adequate.

If we start creeping up in price getting ever more expensive models, might as well get a 680! :cool:

Cleeecooo · 10 May 2012 at 22:06

Surveyor said:
There's more power there if required but the GTX 670 only seems to use around two thirds of the 225W that two six pin connectors and the PCI-E slot provide.

There's still a lot of room left for overclocking.

I was just curious to see if it was known that the 6+8 pin cards overclock better or it's just an opinion because they're capable of drawing more power.

As if by magic:

Gibbo said:
To my knowledge they are all 6+6 power, so not the for over clocking.

KFA2 EX OC and Gigabyte WindForce are both 8+6 and in my OC testing best overclockers by a good margin.

Surveyor · 10 May 2012 at 22:27

Cleeecooo said:
As if by magic:

It would seem to have more to do with the PCB:

Gibbo said:
To make your buying decision easier, here are the models which all under each PCB type:-

Short PCB - NVIDIA Reference design - Approx 1250MHz max aircooled core clock
Palit / Gainward (including Jetstream & Phantom)
EVGA including Superclock (Seem to be best overclocking reference design cards)
KFA2 Reference
MSI OC
OcUK

Long PCB - GTX 680 PCB Design - Approx 1400MHz max aircooled core clock
Asus GTX 670 DirectCU2 (2x 6pin power)
Gigabyte GTX 670 WindForce 3X (8+6pin power)
KFA2 GTX 670 EX OC (8+6pin power)

Cleeecooo · 10 May 2012 at 22:29

How did you et to hat conclusion?

The two cards that are best for OC'ing are the ones with 8+6. If it was mrore to do with PCB, then the Asus would be there too

Surveyor · 10 May 2012 at 22:33

Gibbo lists 3 cards capable of ~1400MHz on the core clock, including the Asus.

They all have the long PCB.

Two have 6+8 pin and one has 6+6pin.

Therefore the long PCB makes the difference not the 6+8 pin power.

Cleeecooo · 10 May 2012 at 22:35

Surveyor said:
Gibbo lists 3 cards capable of ~1400MHz on the core clock.

They all have the long PCB.

Two have 6+8 pin and one has 6+6pin.

Therefore the long PCB makes the difference not the 6+8 pin power.

oh, i see where you're coming from. I'm still referring to Gibbo's newest post which I quoted above in which he sadi that 6+6 was not ideal for overclocking.

Once again, I think we're seeing two sides of the coin and we shall not see eye to eye on this issue until further evidence proves one of us wrong

Aedus · 10 May 2012 at 22:37

I'd go KFA as their RMA is UK based and has a better turn around time.

Marine-RX179 · 10 May 2012 at 22:40

Aedus said:
I'd go KFA as their RMA is UK based and has a better turn around time.

MSI has UK base too :confused:

Surveyor · 10 May 2012 at 22:41

Cleeecooo said:
Once again, I think we're seeing two sides of the coin and we shall not see eye to eye on this issue until further evidence proves one of us wrong

I'm not trying to prove anything.

I just asked a question and posted what Gibbo said which seems to be contrary to what he said later.

He also said this:

Gibbo said:
Hi there

Just to add to the original part of the review, here are the results in Heaven 3.0 from a Gigabyte GTX 670 WindForce 3X I tested.

Clock speeds were:-
1337MHz Core Boost Speed
7200MHz Memory Speed

The above was only benchmark stable, for 24/7 game running I'd settle for around 1250MHz/6600MHz.

So maybe 1400MHz for gaming is just pie in the sky anyway.