After all of that research into graphics cards, I was dead set on the GTX 570 as the next upgrade to my editing workstation. But when I was about to check out, I saw Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” banner at the bottom of the screen with the GTX 670 4GB card at the front of the line. When I clicked on the link I found a single GTX 670 4GB graphics card listed as used for $359.

Sometimes the used prices on Amazon are just a reduced cost item with over priced shipping charges. So I checked the seller and found out that it was an Amazon warehouse deal. The GTX 670 is only about 5% slower then the GTX 680 and about 40% faster then the GTX 570 2.5GB card I had settled on. I was about to spend $330 on the GTX 570 so why not spend an extra $29 to upgrade to a card with almost twice the performance and even faster rendering times?

Hopefully the GTX 670 wont show up broken or damaged. I’ve had pretty good luck with Amazon’s warehouse deals and the fast prime shipping did help. Once the card shows up, I’ll have to hack the GPU files for CS5.5 to work with the GTX 670. Then I can run some rendering tests between the GTX 285 and GTX 670 to see how much of a gain my $359 actually bought me.

Combine that with the Catleap monitor that finally made it through customs last night and my editing workstation should start feeling snappy again.  I’ll keep you posted.


Tags: , , ,