Conclusion

When we first laid eyes on the ASUS GTX670 DirectCU II TOP card weI thought it looked very much like its 680 big brother but being lower spec we knew it was a cut down in performance and therefore was made for a slightly lower budget than the ultra extreme. The feature set is almost identical between the two minus some of the extreme cooling features such as the VGA Hotwire. However, we think a most (if not almost all) users can survive without that. Most gamers want to get the most from their hard earned dollars. After seeing this card walk all over the reference GTX 680, we have to ask ourselves how this is possible. The answer: high clock speeds mixed with top level performance and a great build quality. All in all, the card bleeds excellence and it does so at a price point $70 below reference based GTX 680s which it outperforms anyways.

The only real gripe we originally had was it seemed like we did not have much headroom for overclocking but after noticing the dynamic clock going on behind the scenes we saw that this card really can be pushed hard and I could only imagine if it was winter time as right now in so cal I am seeing temps outside of about 105-120F so not exactly optimal for overclocking.

Overall the card is awesome. It yields GTX 680 level performance at a lower price than a GTX 680, and it definitely has our recommendation.

OUR VERDICT: ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II

Performance 10 Value 10 Quality 10 Features 9.5 Innovation 10 We are using a new addition to our scoring system to provide additional feedback beyond a flat score. Please note that the final score isn’t an aggregate average of the new rating system. Total 10 Pros Cons Beats a GTX 680 Maintains cool temperatures Highly overclocked out of the Box Fans are quiet under load Non-reference PCB with powerful VRM Excellent price 4-Way SLI Capable Overclocking could be confusing until dynamic overclock is learned.

Summary: The ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II TOP edition card is fast, quiet, and cool. To top it off, it outperforms the GTX 680, and is also much cheaper. For these considerations it earns the Bjorn3D Golden Bear Award.