Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 sticks the boot into AMD's top-end cards

Nvidia has just launched its latest 28nm Kepler graphics card, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670.

The follow-up to the terribly powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 represents the second tier of its new generation of graphics cards and it's quite a beast.

Running the same GK104 GPU as the top-end GTX 680 (and the dual-GPU GTX 690) it has all the Kepler goodness its big brother boasts.

Nvidia has also allowed card manufacturers full access to the spec prior to launch, so we should see overclocked versions on release, like the Zotac GTX 670 AMP! edition.

All the GTX 670 is missing from the new architecture is a single SMX module. That means it's down 192 CUDA cores, but that still gives it a rather beefy 1,344 of the tiny processors.

And more importantly it means that, in performance terms, the GTX 670 is only just shy of the gaming frame rates the more expensive card can offer.

Considering the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 is nearly £100/$100 cheaper than the GTX 680 that's not a bad return.

That £330/$400 price tag puts it in the same ballpark as the AMD Radeon HD 7970, AMD's top graphics card, and the GTX 670's performance puts that card to shame.

Interestingly the SLI performance of the GTX 670 makes the £830/$1,000 Nvidia GTX 690 look even more expensive. You're getting very close in performance terms for a lot less cash.

Sadly though £330/$400 is still a lot of money to be paying for a second tier card; that's been top-end territory up until the last two generations.

Given the performance of the Kepler-based cards though we can't help but be excited about the future release of the lower-caste Kepler cards.

Fingers crossed we'll see the Nvidia GTX 660 after the Summer slump before the gaming glut that drops with the leaves in the Autumn.

We've gone to town in our Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 review, with both standard and SLI testing on show.