GTX 660 Ti vs. GTX 670 - Page 34

Originally Posted by raghu78 

avoid the ASUS cards as they are too many complaints. the MSI card's cooler is better than EVGA but not as good as Gigabyte WF3 . All of these cards overclock well without voltage increase. Voltage is locked on all Kepler cards as a result of Nvidia's warranty policy with card manufacturers.

Originally Posted by keesgelder 

Hi Kevin,
First of all, nice to find out that you finally made your choice. This however proves to me that sometimes you just have to go for something. Your initial post was about 3 months ago, meaning you could have had 3 months of pleasure with a nice GTX670 already. That alone would have been worth the 100 dollar price difference with the 660ti to me personally .
Anyway, now about your choice of brand:
IMO the main cards to consider are the cards from MSI (Power Edition), Asus (DirectCU 2), Gigabyte (Windforce) and EVGA (FTW).
First of all, the EVGA FTW is interesting because it simply is EVGA (great service). However, I believe that this card makes by far the most noise. If you can live with that, great choice. Otherwise, there's plenty of other good cards out there. Because of the quality of the other models, I would personally not pick the EVGA because of the noise.
The Asus is also a great card (TOP or non-TOP). I've got one myself, and even with the fans at 100% it is very, very quiet. Besides that, I like having a good looking PC, and this card just looks great IMO. It comes with a backplate as well, which looks awesome. I've heard plenty of less positive stories about Asus' service in the US though. In short: quiet, great looking, but less service.
The MSI power edition also looks great IMO. However, it doesn't come with a backplate, which is too bad IMO. It seems like a great card to me though, it is not expensive at all compared to the other models, and I've heard it's really quiet as well. I'd say great choice. It is the only 670 that comes with unlocked voltage as well I believe. However, I wouldn't really care about that unless you want to do some really serious overclocking. In short: a little less great looking than the Asus, but probably better service than Asus, and quiet.
The Gigabyte Windforce is also a nice card. However, be warned: blue PCB! Lol, I really hate that. Therefore, to me it was a no-go. Because of the blue PCB, it looks horrific IMO . However, it is supposed to be really quiet as well.
To sum things up, it all depends on what you prefer:

• If you really care about service and not about noise: go EVGA
• If you care about noise and looks: go Asus
• If you care about overall balance but not about looks: go Gigabyte
• If you care about overall balance: go MSI

Personally, I would go with Asus (looks) or MSI (mix of great things). But really, the final choice depends on what you prefer. Anyway, in-game performance will barely differ.
In terms of complaints with the Asus: yes there were complaints initially because the TOP card was clocked too high. However, there is a firmware update available that should solve these issues, and I believe it has. So I wouldn't worry about that anymore.

Originally Posted by keesgelder 

Here in the Netherlands it is not available anymore. You can still order it at some stores but they say 10+ days of delivery time (and they have been saying that for a long time). They did quietly introduce the GTX670-DC2OG-2GD5 model here though, my guess is to replace the TOP. It only has a slight overclock though, nothing too special. The non-TOP is still easily available here. Anyway, get either one, the difference is maybe a couple FPS and you can always overclock a non-TOP if you want to play around (at least you will generally have some room to play around, what's the fun in having it done for you, especially when it's just a couple FPS difference). Once you start up BF3, you won't care anymore. It'll just be smooth.
IMO, the Asus 670 is a great card. If that's the card that caught your eye, I'd say enjoy!