NVidia GTX 670, First Impression

Just replaced my Radeon HD5770 with NVidia GTX670 (accidentally, both of them are from Digital Alliance). Here are my impressions of GTX670:

Faster Loading Time
I was pretty surprised actually. Probably it's because the GTX670 has 256-bit interface and 2GB of memory. The HD5770 only has 1GB of memory and 128-bit interface. Can't find another reason except those two.

Smoother Animation
The micro stutter I had with HD5770 is gone now. The overall driving experience is much better. I also think it's related to the fact about how 'jittery' AMD cards are. Read the article about this 'spikey' performance of AMD cards.

Higher FPS
Well, no doubt about it. Higher core clock and wider interface helps a lot. I now can use Environment Reflection (my favorite effect in rF2) and still get smooth animation. Honestly, I think it's unfair to compare the FPS rate between HD5770 and GTX670, since they are not in the same class.

Image Quality
Surprisingly, after 30 minutes of driving and watching replays, I found no difference in terms of image quality. By the way, I don't use driver's AA and AF for both cards. All AA and AF are controlled in-game. I'm using AA Level 1, HDR on, FXAA off, and AnisoFiltering is 8x. Texture Quality Full. Screen resolution is 1600x900 32-bit.

Temperature
Using MSI After Burner, HD5770 tops at 62 degree Celsius, while GTX 670 at 73 degree. The GTX670 fan is less noisy than HD5770, even though the GTX670 Digital Alliance JetStream uses dual fans to cool the GPU. Nice.


Well, that's my first impression about GTX670. I am happy since rF2 is more fun now.

 

Ever heard of Nvidia Inspector.

I have GTX570 SOC

I'm using AA Level 8, HDR off, FXAA off, AnisoFiltering is 16x. Texture Quality Full. Screen resolution is 1920x1080 32-bit.
I use Nvidia Inspector to set LOD bias and a few other things.

 

Yes, I've heard about NVidia Inspector. Haven't try it though. But I will.

 

Cool tool, a must have.

Export all custom profiles to archive in one file.

View attachment 5377

 

I wouldn't worry to much about it unless you like to go crazy changing settings that are not normally there, but it allows for a great level of customization(game settings) another item i always like from time to time is d3doverrider it comes in the riva tuner package, but it allows you to force vsync and it does a better job than forcing in nvidia control panel, plus triple buffering

 

Congrats on your new card.
That extra gig of ram goes a long way.
I'm seeing anywhere from 80-114 fps with my GTX670 in this build...(depending on track) with everything maxed.
I still contend that RF2 does better with large videoram amounts vs raw CPU horsepower.

 

agree I use this to tweak my self, nice tool and lucky for getting a nice card envy

 

Well, this is my second impression of GTX670 after spending about 6 hours testing it.

Now I can run rF2 smoothly with these settings:
- 1920 x 1080, 60Hz, 32-bit
- HDR on, FXAA off, Anti Aliasing Level 1 (AA is quite good at this level, but the shimmering effect in distance still there)
- Environment Reflection on
- Road Reflection on
- Sun Occlusion on
- 25 AI, 20 visible cars

Wet race is playable now. Previously, with HD5770 my system would hit below 25 FPS in the wet. In terms of image quality, both cards perform really well.

 

sorry, double post

 

This video is about image quality comparison not performance, clearly GTX670 outperforms HD5770 by a large margin.

In my opinion, the image quality differences between both cards are minimal. One thing that I noticed is nVidia has slightly better contrast than AMD.

Sadly in rFactor 2 build 134, the replay module still not at its best. The image quality between racing module and replay module is not the same, hence affecting the image quality in this video. The "real-time quality" actually is much better than this.

rF2 detail settings:
- Vid Res: 1600x900, 60Hz, 32-bit
- HDR on, FXAA off, AA Level 1
- Circuit Detail Low
- Player Detail Full
- Opponent Detail Full
- Texture Quality Full
- Sun Occlusion On
- Reflections Off
- Shadows High
- Shadow Blur Fast
- Number of AI 20
- Visible Vehicles 20
- FOV 35
- HDR profile Realistic Clear

 

Why do you have circuit detail at low?

 

Because I want to run rF2 at more than 30 FPS This was my setting with HD5770 by the way.

Now I can run with Full circuit detail and still get more than 30 FPS all the time.

When I'm recording this video with GTX670 installed, I had to kept all previous settings in order to get equal view.

 

Funny thing happened between GTX670 and rFactor1.

After getting good results in rF2, I turned my attention to rF1. I thought I could make rF1 to look much, much better without sacrificing the oh so important FPS at all.

So, via rF1 Config tool I turned up the AA to Level 6 (that's the highest listed in rF1 Config tool), fired up rF1 and expecting those silky smooth images to show up. But how shocked I was! On the track, the image quality was nowhere near AA Level 1, it was more like running rF1 with no AA at all.

I turned the level down to 3, and the IQ is getting better, but some jaggies are still visible, mainly on the windshield and on track's white side lines.

Why rF1 IQ is so bad at AA Level 6? Do I have to change something in the nVidia's game/app profile?

 

That is something strange you say there. I have never had anny issues with "spikey" performance when I had the HD5770. It's just strange how to same products behave very different :s"

 

@taufikp: Why rF1 IQ is so bad at AA Level 6? Do I have to change something in the nVidia's game/app profile?
Was reading some time ago about that: FOUND it: http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1449023

Default AA levels in rFactor
I decided to test the AA settings in rFactor's Config utility and I'm surprised by my results. Levels 1/2 and Levels 3/4 appear to be the same. And I'm guessing that Levels 5/6 would have had similar results, but instead L6 looked like L0. And I've seen other people online have problems with L6 so I wonder if the issue is with rFactor or my system.

The frame rate also stayed consistent in spite of the increased AA levels so I'm guessing that just shows how CPU-bound rFactor is.
http://i.imgur.com/HnB53.gif

 

If you ever seen a stutter, even the micro/small ones, that's the result of spikes inside one second of gaming. I too rarely seen this spike while gaming. However the latest rF2 build combined with the latest AMD driver (12.11 beta 8) bring back the micro stutters, even worst than before. Enough is enough, and I decided to make a switch to nVidia for the much less pronounced spikes in a second than AMD, and also to take full advantage of PhysX in games that are supporting it.

edit: I know it's wrong to upgrade your system just for the sake of a beta/WIP application, oh well, can't resist the temptation, also it was a good excuse to tell the wife

 

Thanks Hazi. That exactly what I was seeing and experiencing with AA Level 6 in rF1. Seems that level 3/4 would be the best choice.

 

Another pleasant surprise from GTX670 over HD5770.

Faster Video Resolution Change Via In-Game Option
With HD5770, usually I have to wait up to apprx. 5 seconds via in-game VidRes option. Now with GTX670 it's less than 2 seconds! Again, I believe this is due to GTX670's 2GB VRAM and 256-bit bus interface.

 

Couldn't be happier with the card. In October last year upgraded my graphics card CPU and motherboard and there's not a game at the moment it wont run on full settings.
The 670 constantly impresses me with performance.

I did read somewhere but can't find it now that the card performance de-tunes so to speak once the GPU temperature reaches 70° in increments of 5° is that right?

 

It's possible. NVidia has GPU Boost feature, so I think it's just logical to have the opposite function as well, to keep GPU temp cool. During watching AI driving the car, I can hear the VGA fan sometimes turning up faster and then slowing down again. Didn't check the temp and speed though. MSI After Burner can be used to confirm this.