Hardware Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GB Review

All cards at launch; EVGA, PNY, Gainward, MSI, Gigabyte use the same stock cooler used in our review.

 

i've reconsidered. won't be spending £200 for 40% performance gain. going to wait for full fat Kepler, and spend £250 for 100% performance gain hopefully.

 

Wow done Nvidia great competition,Was going to go for a AMD 7870 but this could smash the higher end 7950-70 prices down to my range, or dare i say it get my first Nvidia card since the ole Quadro FX 580 .

 

Baz you've really outdone yourself there - 15 page mammoth review! It'll take me an age to get it all read.

 

Anyone remember what happened three years ago... GTX275 vs HD4890 = PRICE WAR!

Lets hope the same thing happens again between the HD7970 and GTX680. I think I will wait a month or so before buying and see which one ends up the best value... My 6970 lightning will have to soldier on for a bit longer...

But it's about time we had some seriously strong competition to drive those insane prices down!

 

And then you will be dissapointed when it will be Quadro only GPU.

For me, i have Gigabyte GTX680 on route for 470e.

 

Presuming the arrival of (totally unconfirmed but it might show up) GK110 I can see your point, but to me Nvidia seems to be moving more towards smaller, more efficient, but still very capable GPUs and away from the giganto-chips of the past.

If we make the direct comparison to GF114 as used in the 560 Ti 1GB (which is fair, as they share the SM layout with a smaller memory interface and fewer ROPs), then GK104 has four times the stream processors, albeit with shader clock nerf etc

This would mean that GK110 would have 2048 stream processors, across 16 SMs, representing that four fold increase in stream processors. That's an assload more heat, and die space, not to mention lower chip yields. As faugusztin says, that might fly with a Quadro GPU, where stuff like power consumption and noise aren't an issue, but I;d be very surprised if we say a GK110 GPU make it into a consumer GPU any time soon.

However, we have to be careful to not get caught up in conjecture of what might be coming out. We can only review what's put in front of us and with the GTX 680 2GB its undoubtedly the fastest all-round card on the market. Nvidia has bashed AMD with a small die-size chip that it can (presumably) get strong yields from. Why bother with your giganto-chip when the 'mid-range' one is good enough to compete with the competiton's high end?

 

http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/detail/index/sArticle/554/sCategory/2182

They announce Accelero for GTX680, with one additional requirement :

Seriously Arctic ?

 

I am monumentally chuffed with it; all part of the new bit-tech. More in-depth reviews of the most important stuff.

 

D'oh, that's only all of them then!

 

£400 isn't exactly 'mid-range', Harry.

Excellent review though.

 

If £400 is mid-range I hate to think what the high end card is going to cost. :\ Very good review btw, although nice for power consumption I think a lot of enthusiasts would have liked an option to disable the auto-clock tuning and allow manual 2D/3D clock profiles...

 

you know you need a new gfx card when your current one no longer shows up on the bit-tech comparison sections

 

You are right to be chuffed Baz, it's a very good article.

I have two 580s in SLI, but am looking for an excuse to strip them out and put one each in two other PCs, then maybe buy this big boy for my main rig.

I wonder if I'd see any difference? I'm guessing not.

 

Sorry, I meant that, with it's GK104 label, this 'could' be an Nvidia mid-range part. Obviously it's not; I wish I had £400 to buy one, let alone the nutters on here considering dropping £800 on a pair. How about tipping the reviewer, i think 10% is fair

Just to reiterate, this is not a mid-range card, and I highly doubt Nvidia will be messing with it's product stack! I think perhaps Nvidia entertained the idea of this being the GTX 670 Ti at one point, with the larger GK110 GPU filling the GTX 680 role, but by branding this as GTX 680 Nvidia has, to me at least, confirmed that, for this gen, this will be its top-end single-GPU card and that's no bad thing.

 

you make an excellent point, time to see if I can secure one delivered to me tomorrow

I hate making difficult decisions....... This is one of the reason I still hasn't finished mass effect 2.



EDIT:
damn it, after some sensible reconsideration and flip through games i currently play, i've decided not to buy one.

got to hate common sense, they always gets in the way.


even though Battlefield 3 struggles at Ultra for me because i play at 2560x1440, i have no real need for a new graphics card for all other games i play.

currently been playing: Alan Wake, Skyrim, AC Revelations. with Mass Effect complete series playthrough lined up. none of them are demanding enough to drop £200 on top of selling my current card. BF3 has been put on hold because i lost interest in it, most probably won't get back it on until Armoured Kill DLC.

 

Baz, you have to correct the final value since it's the same as the stock one and a bit lower is written 1,210MHz for boost clock.

I see my next move will be to Nvidia and how glad I am to see a top-range graphics using 2x6pin power cable, my psu albeit having 850W of juice, doesn't have 2+6pin so my investment will be only to the gpu itself. If my HD4870 Toxic 1GB doesn't die until I get a GTX680, it will go to a htpc, oldie but can playback anything HD.

Maybe the GK110 will be for the GTX690, just my thoughts

 

Really?

*looks at own sig*

The 680 (and the 7870) are the only two cards I would consider as a viable upgrade, and only because I'm considering a larger monitor and don't want to replace my PSU as well.

The power efficiency is stunning on these new cards, although I doubt I can use that as a convincing argument to buy one. She'd kill me.

 

I'm getting my 2 from a free Step Up from EVGA...

From what I have read, the GTX 680 is a smaller die from the full fat Kepler at only 296 square millimeters big, compared to the original size of 4xx square millimeters. So this may well be a dubbed down version, waiting for AMD to bring the HD7990 or HD8970 to the table. So then Nvidia can release the GTX 685/GTX 780, to take on that.

 

Sorry if I've missed something, but are there any results for the frame rates in Arma 2 once the card was overclocked? Also, in the Arma 2 Benchmark, I assume your benchmark is in the 'Takistan' Map? Would it be worth doing it (or an extra benchmark) in the 'Chernarus' Map, as I find it to be considerably more intensive.

But overall, great review! (and great card)