Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 review

There’s one more thing to consider, though. We also had a Zotac GeForce GTX 670 AMP! Edition in to test (£360 from www.scan.co.uk). This is an overclocked version of the GeForce GTX 670 with a huge twin-fan heatsink. The card is a similar length to the standard GTX 670, but it’s much thicker; the backplate only takes up two slots, but the width of the heatsink means the card may block a couple of expansion slots on your motherboard.

This heatsink is necessary, though, as the card is heavily overclocked. Zotac has raised the card’s core speed from 915MHz to 1,098MHz – a 183MHz overclock. The card’s boost speed is also much higher than the standard GTX 670’s 980MHz, at 1,176MHz max GPU boost.

The overclocking made a huge difference in our benchmarks. Our 1,920×1080 Ultra detail Dirt 3 test jumped from 98.5fps to 115fps, which is 1fps faster than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680. Crysis 2 at 1,920×1,080 and Ultra detail increased from 39.5fps to 45.9fps, which is just 1fps slower than the GTX 680. With three monitors in Surround mode, we saw 48.6fps, and the frame rate never dipped below a very smooth 40.6fps – again, this was just 1fps slower than the GTX 680’s score.

The AMP! Edition’s overclock means that you get a card as quick as a GeForce GTX 680 for around £20 less, which is an impressive feat. However, bear in mind that Zotac’s card is already very heavily overclocked, so there’s very little room to push it any further using a utility such as MSI’s Afterburner – we’ve read plenty of stories of enthusiasts pushing the clock speed of the GTX 680 to 1300MHz and beyond, so the more expensive card still has a lot to give.

The GeForce GTX 670 is an impressive graphics card which fills a gap in the market at the £300 mark, and is quicker than its rivals from AMD at around the same price. Zotac’s overclocked GTX 670 AMP! Edition is also an impressive bit of kit, as its overclock gives it similar performance to that of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680. It also brings the price periously close to the more expensive card, though, so we’d recommend finding the extra cash for the Nvdia GeForce GTX 680 and and leaving yourself some room for overclocking.