After many months of talking up its latest architecture, Nvidia reclaimed the single-GPU performance crown with its GeForce GTX 680, which outpaced the Radeon HD 7970 by about 7% in our tests. Kepler's arrival forced AMD to slash prices across its Southern Islands lineup, including a $70 drop on the HD 7970, putting it at $479 or about 4% cheaper than the GTX 680's MSRP of $499.

The HD 7950 also took a $60 cut to $399, making it one of the most tempting 7000 series cards because it has no equal -- or had no equal, we should say. Continuing Kepler's rollout, Nvidia has unveiled the GTX 670, which is priced against the HD 7950 at $399. Despite being $100 cheaper than the GTX 680, the GTX 670 doesn't appear to be much slower on paper, and that could spell disaster for AMD.

The GTX 670 shares the GTX 680's DNA, as it's powered by the same GK104 GPU and has many other similarities. For example, it uses 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6GHz and features the new SMX units and GPU Boost technology. Although it's targeting the HD 7950's pricing, Nvidia says its crosshairs are actually on the HD 7970 in terms of performance. Again, a scary notion for AMD.

In what seemed like a desperate move by AMD they released the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card just a few weeks ago in an effort to reclaim the performance crown. Although they were able to match the GeForce GTX 680 with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, it didn’t outright secure the performance crown for them.

Worse yet the mild overclock to the 1GHz barrier meant that AMD had jacked the price up to $500, making the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition a flop in terms of value. When testing the new GHz Edition card we couldn’t help but feel AMD was taking aim at the wrong target. Rather than going after the GeForce GTX 680 they should have had the far better value GTX 670 in their sights.

Without question right now the best value high-end graphics card is the GeForce GTX 670 at $400, which is capable of mimicking the performance of the Radeon HD 7970. Like AMD, Gigabyte has been doing a little overclocking of their own creating the GeForce GTX 670 OC. Despite offering a custom PCB design, upgraded cooler and factory overclocking, this new OC edition graphics card meets the MSRP.

The Gigabyte GTX 670 OC edition on the other hand has a PCB that measures 25.5cm alone, making it much longer than most GTX 670 cards. With the cooler included the total card length spans 27.5cm, which is similar to most Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards. This extra length could cause compatibility problems with standard ATX cases.

As the name suggests Gigabyte has performed a little factory overclocking, but before we talk clock speeds, let's explore the GTX 670's GPU in a little more detail. The card ships with 1344 CUDA cores and 7 SMX units, 1 SMX unit and 192 CUDA cores less than the GTX 680. There are also slightly less TAUs, 112 down from 128, while the ROPs remain at 32.

The memory subsystem is identical to the GTX 680, consisting of four 64-bit controllers (256-bit) with 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6008MHz (DDR). The memory bandwidth remains at 192.2GB/s.

Nvidia's specification for the base clock frequency is 915MHz, while the average Boost Clock speed is 980MHz. Gigabyte has increased the base clock frequency to 980MHz and the boost clock to 1058MHz, while the memory operates at the standard 6008MHz.

What really makes Gigabyte's iteration unique is its WindForce 3X solution with "Triangle Cool" technology. The cooler employs three 75mm ultra quiet PWM fans connected to a custom shroud. Under these fans is a massive heatsink consisting of three main parts connected by 8mm copper heatpipes.

At the heart of this setup is the biggest block, which has a unique RAM heatsink to cool the GDDR5 modules. This heatsink also features Triangle Cool technology, which uses a series of fins and triangular clip modules to better direct airflow over the heatsink.

Gigabyte says its Triangle Cool technology can reduce temperatures by up to 10% over traditional designs, so we're keen to see just how cool this GTX 670 runs.

To feed the card enough juice, Nvidia includes dual 6-pin PCI Express power connectors. This is the same setup used on the HD 6950, 5870, 6870 as well as the GTX 580 and 570 graphics cards. Gigabyte on the other hand has upgraded the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC to include a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector, which is the same configuration used by the GTX 680.

Naturally, the Gigabyte GTX 670 OC supports SLI, so it has a pair of connectors to bridge two or more cards. The only other ports are on the I/O panel where you'll find a pair of dual-link DVI-I connectors, a single HDMI 1.4a port, and a DisplayPort 1.2 socket.

Hardware - Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (3.30GHz) - x4 4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600(CAS 8-8-8-20) - Crucial m4 512GB (SATA 6Gb/s) - Gainward GeForce GTX 680 Phantom (2048MB) - Gainward GeForce GTX 670 Phantom (2048MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC (2048MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 590 (3072MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB) - AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (3072MB) - HIS Radeon HD 7970 (3072MB) - HIS Radeon HD 7950 (3072MB) - HIS Radeon HD 7870 (2048MB) - HIS Radeon HD 7850 (2048MB) - HIS Radeon HD 6990 (4096MB) - HIS Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB) - HIS Radeon HD 6950 (2048MB) - HIS Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB) - HIS Radeon HD 5870 (1024MB) - Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 (Intel X79) - OCZ ZX Series (1250w) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - Nvidia Forceware 301.42 - AMD Catalyst 12.4

According to 3Dmark 11 Pro Extreme test the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC is 7% faster than a standard GTX 670 which helped it to hone in on the GTX 680.

At 2560x1600 the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC averaged 34fps, making it not only 10% faster than the standard GTX 670 but also faster than the GTX 680. Moreover it was 3% faster than the Radeon HD 7950, while trailing the 7970 by a 12% margin.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC was just 5% faster than the standard GTX 670 at 2560x1600 with an average of 42fps. That said this performance boost was enough to match the GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards, so an impressive result overall for Gigabyte.

When testing with Battlefield 3 the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC was just 5% faster than the standard GTX 670, yet this was enough to beat the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics cards. Furthermore it put the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC within 1fps of the GTX 680.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC was just 4% faster than the standard GTX 670 in Modern Warfare 3 with an average of 81fps, allowing it to match the GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics cards.

Again we see just a 4% performance advantage favoring the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC over the standard GTX 670 graphics card.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC was 5% faster than the standard GTX 670 in Dragon Age II, taking it to an average of 39fps to match the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.

Just 2fps were gained by the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC over the standard GTX 670 for a 3% performance advantage, and this had no real impact on the standings in Deus Ex.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC performed well in Hard Reset as it was 6% faster than a standard GTX 670 with an average of 54fps.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC averaged 77fps in DiRT 3, making it 7% faster than a standard GTX 670 and faster than the GTX 680.

The Nvidia based graphics cards struggle with DiRT Showdown, and as a result the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC averaged just 41fps and showed no improvement over the standard GTX 670.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC was found to be just a single frame faster than a standard GTX 670 as it averaged 47fps. This 2% performance increase had no impact on the standings, leaving the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC still slower than the GTX 680.

Again we see very minor performance gains from the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC, this time in Skyrim where it was just 3% faster than a standard GTX 670.

When testing with Alan Wake we saw a huge 17% performance advantage favoring the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC over the standard GTX 670, as it averaged 41fps making it faster than even the GTX 680.

When testing with King Arthur II the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC was 10% faster than the standard GTX 670, and with an average of 23fps it was also faster than the GTX 680.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC averaged 48fps in Just Cause 2 at 2560x1600, allowing it to match the GTX 680 while beating the standard GTX 670 by a 4% margin.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC averaged 54fps at 2560x1600 in Max Payne 3, making it 6% faster than the standard GTX 670 allowing it to match the GTX 680.

The power consumption of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC under load was only slightly higher than that of a standard GTX 670, with a system consumption of 318 watts compared to 313 watts of the standard card.

Our standard GTX 670 card used for reference is based on the Gainward GTX 670 Phantom (clocked to default settings) and as you can see that particular card only reached 71 degrees, which is presumably much lower than cards using the Nvidia reference design. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC provided similar results with a load temperature of 73 degrees, which is an excellent result.

Our overclock provided another 8% performance in Just Cause 2 at 2560x1600 for the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC, pushing it to 52fps.

This time we saw a 9% performance gain from our overclock when compared to the Gigabyte factory settings for the GeForce GTX 670 OC when testing with Battlefield 3 at 2560x1600.

Finally when testing our custom overclock in Max Payne 3 we saw a 6% performance increase when compared to the factory overclocked settings for the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC, and a 12% increase when compared to a standard GTX 670 graphics card.

The GTX 670 is 15% faster than the HD 7950 on average and on par with the HD 7970. It also bested Nvidia's last-gen single-GPU flagship by 21% at 2560x1600, and it was only 6% slower than the GTX 680 while being 20% cheaper -- awesome news for value-minded enthusiasts who still want top-end performance.

Even better news for value-minded enthusiasts is the existence of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC, which still retains the alluring $400 price tag while providing better features and performance. Although on average we only saw 5% more performance from the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC, that was often enough to put it on par with the more expensive Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards.

As we have found in the past when testing Gigabyte graphics cards using the upgraded WindForce 3X cooler, this solution works very well providing better temperatures and a quieter operating volume when compared to the reference cooler.

Perhaps the only drawback to this Gigabyte card is its length, which rivals that of the more expensive Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 680. This will cause compatibility issues in smaller cases and as such the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC will not be a viable solution here.

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However the advantage to the added length seems to be improved overclocking performance, as the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC achieved some pretty impressive numbers which lead to some very decent performance gains in our overclocking tests.

Overall the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC is a very well rounded GTX 670, and at $400 we consider it to be the best value high performance graphics card money can buy, essentially eliminating the $450 - $500 priced GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards.