I like the look of the direct CU from asus, and the phantom from gainward With the evga superclocked, what does superclocked actually mean? Is it anything you couldn't do yourself?
I'd probably grab one of the EVGA cards if I wanted a stock one to watercool, just because the Warrenty would let me get away with it. Equally; if I wanted a card with amazing air cooling just to begin with; the Gainward Phantom is still a pretty damn good cooler, it's just a shame it costs that bit more.
I'm replacing my reference GTX 680 with a GTX 670 from Asus. More specificly the TOP DirectCU II model, which has a pretty beefy factory OC. TPU gave it a perfect 10, which isn't something they hand out to every graphicscard, so I'm confident it's quite amazing, with only 25dbA under load.
yes it looks pretty cool, but why not get the phantom 4gb? then you get 4gb, but with a custom cooler? isn't the evga 4gb just a normal 670, just overclocked (which you could do yourself?)
Yeah but I just love the look of the stock cooler, head says go for the phantom as its the same price? But with the benefit of the custom cooler, not too sure though, does that cooler take up just over 2 slots?
The Asus DirectCU II is only a 2 slot card. The Phantom is always ever so slightly over 2, usually 2.1-2.3 ish slots wide. Which is a shame, because the cooler would be brilliant apart from that.
You could go SLI with the Phantoms if your motherboard has a three-slot gap between the cards, but not if it's only 2, the Phantoms are just too large, they'd overhand the second PCI-E socket and prevent the second card from being mounted. So it's possible on your current Motherboard. The two slots between the two PCI-E sockets would give you enough room to mount two Phantoms. I'm curious about these 670 Phantoms, though. I suspect they're stock cards, not like the old 570 phantom, which had a VRM on steroids and let you overclock it to high heaven without any issues. On the flipside; the 670 apparenty overclocks well to begin with, so it may be okay.
"The Phantom edition card boasts a reworked PCB with an upgraded power phase..." Source. They appear to overclock very well from that review.
Noone for the Gigabyte X3 Windforce model? With a total of three 90mm fans it should be plenty quiet as compared to the single fan of the stock model.
this, and i think it is unsightly. same with the jetstream (sorry true gamer!) I prefer a sleeker card
I love the look of previous classified cards, but then they all look sexy as under plexi water blocks
Yeah the Windforce isn't a very pretty card but since I have no side window, I don't give a damn . Just think about it. If the card needs x amount of air to cool it, a card with a single fan needs to run at speed x. If the card has two fans it needs to run at speed x/2 and if it has three fans it need to run at speed x/3. Theoretically, the Windforce should produce a third of the fan noise of a normal card just because it has three times the fans, which can then turn at a third of the RPM. If you understand my ramblings above, I salute you - but it makes sense in my head!
This 100 times! Very effective cooling solution including a VRM heatsink. An extra power phase as was originally intended for the GTX 680 let alone the GTX 670. Also another positive not much spoken of is that the memory is all based on the cooling side of the PCB and not the back. Not only that but it has direct cooling from a heatsink base plate with proper strips of thermal pads. Another positive is that this is a reference GTX 680 PCB with a few minor tweaks. Looking closely at the design I would suggest it would be compatible with a full cover EK water block. Also the PCI-E power plugs are at the far end of the card not off centre from the middle like the reference GTX 670 which basically looks craps! To top it off the sockets are not stacked but placed side by side which would look tidier if you were to go water cooled at some stage. How's that for a sales pitch!
A few of the reviews have said that the reference cooler is a bit noisy, in a way that isn't true of the 680.
In my opinion the reference design is a bit of a turd for the GTX 670. Seriously considering pulling the trigger on the Gigabyte GTX 670 to replace my Gigabyte GTX 460 SLI.