OFFICIAL KEPLER "GTX680" Reviews

[Silverforce11]

OC vs OC comparison: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-gtx-680-2gb-overclocking-review-win-some-lose-some/15322-5.html

This is gonna vary from card to card as chip quality differs of course. But at least they compare more than one game. 7970 doesn't look as bad when both cards are going all-out OC. But it's still clearly losing in most cases. Check out the AvP differential though, I'm guessing that was NOT a TWIMTBP game.

That very bench you link clearly has the OC 7970 (1.25ghz) winning, vs a very heavily OC gtx680 (1.33ghz).

The fact that 102 vs 106 fps in BF3 ultra 1080p shows how well 7970s scale since its a weak game for the radeons to start with.

Bump the 7970 to 1.3ghz and its a clear winner even at 1080p, it will easily beat the OC gtx680 at 1600p.

So there we have it, "stock" gtx680s > 7970, OC 7970s > OC gtx680.

I'm still going to get a gtx680 since the power use is less, the PCB is shorter at 10 inches and its cheaper. Both are very good once OC, but I'm leaning towards OC 7970 beating out the gtx680 OC.

 

[badb0y]

TPU has the best explanation of OCing I have seen for the card

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/31.html

He explains the auto OC on the prior page as well. Certainly is not a straight up push your sliders and go for OCing card.

What's clocks did he use for the HD 7970? I can't find it on the page lol.

 

[bryanW1995]

because overclocking a GPU is incredibly difficult...


edit: how am i quoting a post that is below me?

2 things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jodie_Foster_Césars_2011_2.jpg

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

 

[Grooveriding]

What's clocks did he use for the HD 7970? I can't find it on the page lol.

Maximum stable clocks of our card are 1159 MHz GPU / +153 MHz clock offset (15% overclock) and 1833 MHz Memory (22% overclock)

edit: is the forum deciding post order in threads by some weird voodoo, replies are coming before the questions....

 

[Silverforce11]

A stock GTX680 turbos to 1110mhz, not 1200mhz. You can create a new +50 to 100mhz offsets and the boost can hit 1200mhz.

Read the [H] review, it's all game dependant. Kyle saw 1.2ghz turbo at default settings, in which game? BF3.

 

[Ajay]

Ya but it's still just 30-35% faster than GTX580 in BF3 at 1600P. For you this card is still a pass. $1000 on 2 of these will barely be worth it over what you have. Long live the Tri-GTX480s.

Well, if we don't see tons of GTX 580s showing up in the For Sale thread, then I think we will have a solid answer on whether or not it's a worthy upgrade.

 

[Leadbox]

More OC vs OC comparisons: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-gtx-680-2gb-overclocking-review-win-some-lose-some/15322-5.html

This is gonna vary from card to card as chip quality differs of course. But at least they compare more than one game. 7970 doesn't look as bad when both cards are going all-out OC. But it's still clearly losing in BF3. Check out the AvP differential though, as that finally pushes the GtX 680 beyond its 2GB VRAM.

TPU also found that 7970 catches up a bit when OC vs OC:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/31.html

The 7970 scales a lot better in those tests, if only AMD bothered with driver optimization...

 

[blastingcap]

It is not that simple because TPU tested a lot more games and discovered that OC vs OC the 680 still edged out the 7970 by what looks like 5% on average according to their chart.

However, GPU samples vary so it's luck of the draw and we do not have enough info right now to average out all the OC vs OC results to get a clearer picture.

For TPU's particular samples though the 680 is winning even when both are OC'd, and it's winning the critical BF3 battle as that is a massively popular game and one of the biggest reasons why people upgrade their cards these days.

Also, MAJOR CAVEAT HERE: I would like to see minimum fps compared in OC vs OC, not just averages, as mins matter most. But almost nobody does that in their reviews ugh. You could have a situation where one wins on averages but loses on minimums. Also, TPU tested 7970 at stock voltage in their OC but the GTX 680 also overvolts slightly when it can due to GPU Boost if I'm reading things correctly. So OC vs OC might not be that; it may be OC+OV vs. OC... that damn GPU Boost is muddying up the waters and I wish one could disable it for benching purposes.

That very bench you link clearly has the OC 7970 (1.25ghz) winning, vs a very heavily OC gtx680 (1.33ghz).

The fact that 102 vs 106 fps in BF3 ultra 1080p shows how well 7970s scale since its a weak game for the radeons to start with.

Bump the 7970 to 1.3ghz and its a clear winner even at 1080p, it will easily beat the OC gtx680 at 1600p.

So there we have it, "stock" gtx680s > 7970, OC 7970s > OC gtx680.

I'm still going to get a gtx680 since the power use is less, the PCB is shorter at 10 inches and its cheaper. Both are very good once OC, but I'm leaning towards OC 7970 beating out the gtx680 OC.

 

[Aeiou]

So without reading a lot of things due to my rabid excitement, is the 680 a hit or miss?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Nvidia did a good job on this part for sure. There's not much to argue about the way I see it. A high end single GPU that came out later at a similar price beat a high end GPU that came out before it. This should force AMD to drop prices... 7970's for $450 would be great (especially when you consider that overclocked it looks like they are very close). Nvidia will sell a lot of these. AMD will lower prices a bit and continue to sell parts. Nothing but good things happening as far as I can tell.

 

[badb0y]

Maximum stable clocks of our card are 1159 MHz GPU / +153 MHz clock offset (15% overclock) and 1833 MHz Memory (22% overclock)

edit: is the forum deciding post order in threads by some weird voodoo, replies are coming before the questions....

Weren't those the clocks for the gtx 680 though?

 

[Guovssohas]

I read two reviews, Anandtech and Hardocp. To me the 680 is a clear winner, looks like it beats the 7970 in every way possible. And this comes from a AMD fan.. However i think this is great for us consumers in terms of price, or at least i hope so..

 

[tviceman]

If both cards are overclocked to the same core speed, it looks like the cards will trade blows almost evenly. So, in that regard, if you overclock then as long as you don't spend more on the hd7970 it won't really matter which card you get... unless of course you want physx.

 

[Grooveriding]

Read the [H] review, it's all game dependant. Kyle saw 1.2ghz turbo at default settings, in which game? BF3.

From TPU

Adjusting voltage has become a little bit more difficult due to dynamic overclocking. It seems that the NVIDIA driver enforces a voltage minimum, which ensures dynamic OC is stable. Voltage selection to higher levels is possible, but limited to the driver maximum of 1.175 V. The voltage controller on the board has no support for I2C, so it can not be programmed directly.

For example, if the dynamic clock algorithm decides it wants to run the card at 1.125 V, then the voltage will be 1.125 V, despite any manually set voltage between 0.825 V (the available minimum) and 1.125 V.
Once you manually set 1.137 V (one step up from 1.125 V), this voltage will become active. However, should the dynamic OC algorithm decide that it needs more juice because it wants to set a higher clock, your setting will be overriden for the time that this clock/voltage combination is active.

As mentioned before, each card's individual set of voltages depends on a value stored in the GPU during production time, so actual voltages may differ. The mechanism of voltage control will be the same however.

It sounds like every chip is going to perform differently based on how it comes out of the factory. There is some other explanation he gives about the auto-OC using several factors to decide how high or low to go. One of them is temperature, he found the card actually has a lower auto-OC if you're running above a certain temp.

 

[Grooveriding]

Weren't those the clocks for the gtx 680 though?

He doesn't actually say it explicitly, just : (HD 7970 review: +16% / +25%)

Assume the first is core and second is memory. I am too lazy to do the math

 

[RussianSensation]

So without reading a lot of things due to my rabid excitement, is the 680 a hit or miss?

- Without manual overclocking, a reference 680 beats HD7970 in most games for $50 less, destroys HD7950 for $50 more
- Consumes less power (if you care for that), has a quieter reference cooler
- Has some cool features (Active Vsync, TXAA, EVGA transferable warranty)
- Beats HD7970 in 3x1080P surround gaming (if you care for that)

If you can get a non-reference ASUS DirectCUII, MSI Lightning, Sapphire Dual-X HD7970 that can do 1150-1200mhz for $500 or less, then HD7970 is still great. At current prices though, HD7970 is very very difficult sell unless GTX680 is out of stock for weeks. The worst thing you can do though is get an HD7950. That card is completely irrelevant.

If you specifically play 1-2 games most of the time, it's best to check the performance in them. It's possible that HD7970 is better in some games you play.

 

[bryanW1995]

GTX680 won in BF3, Dirt 3 and SKYRIM from PCPerspective review. I can't talk about games they didn't' test. The main point is it's a 2nd review that reinforces the same thing that Tom showed - GTX680 wins almost all the benchmarks so far. That's the key takeaway.



3D Mark 11 is actually very good for predicting performance delta on average unlike Vantage was. See HD6970 vs. HD7970.

I used Dirt 3 and SKYRIM because those were the ones linked from PC Perspective. In SKYRIM, at the highest setting HD7970 was dipping in 40s vs. mid-60s for GTX680. That's a noticeable difference imho. For Dirt 3, GTX680 doesn't provide any more playability over HD7970. The advantage is simply academic.

Thanks for ignoring that GTX680 also costs $50 less and has more features + transferable lifetime warranty with EVGA though and missing that part of my post conveniently.

Don't argue with them, they're just baiting you. It's quite clear to us unaligned minority that gtx 680 is slightly better than 7970, and it's also clear to us that it isnt a complete knockout blow or any sort of earth-shattering performance improvement. As I said the other day, gtx 680 is 9800gtx all over again: the low power, small die place filler to occupy the top spot until the big boy comes to town. We'll see if AMD has some 48x0-type cards up their sleeve again this time...

 

[Crap Daddy]

The max stable OC - Kepler style - achieved at TPU was 1159 + 153 offset so basically the card ran at 1302 MHz under heavy load.

 

[dma0991]

Another review from VR-Zone. link

GTX680 is OOS at the egg. link

So without reading a lot of things due to my rabid excitement, is the 680 a hit or miss?

Great for gamers, not so great for people who wants more compute performance.

 

[Jionix]

Looks like Charlie was spot on (http://semiaccurate.com/2012/01/19/nvidia-kepler-vs-amd-gcn-has-a-clear-winner/).

For all the flak people give Charlie, he still has his sources, and the data he saw, the analysis he provided proves he is still reliable (with a grain of salt).

 

[badb0y]

He doesn't actually say it explicitly, just : (HD 7970 review: +16% / +25%)

Assume the first is core and second is memory. I am too lazy to do the math

That's like 1075(?) on the core clock lol

 

[Crap Daddy]

If you can get a non-reference ASUS DirectCUII, MSI Lightning, Sapphire Dual-X HD7970 that can do 1150-1200mhz for $500 or less, than HD7970 is still great. At current prices though, HD7970 is a very very difficult sell and HD7950 is literally irrelevant.

Only less that 500$, 1200MHz is not enough against GTX680. And yes, the 7950 is a bastard child, it gets stomped by the 680 for 50$ more and it's equaled by a slightly overclocked 7870 at 360$

 

[busydude]

Eagerly waiting for nVidia to launch the full range, so that I can buy a decent card for $200.

 

[RussianSensation]

Don't argue with them, they're just baiting you. It's quite clear to us unaligned minority that gtx 680 is slightly better than 7970, and it's also clear to us that it isnt a complete knockout blow or any sort of earth-shattering performance improvement. As I said the other day, gtx 680 is 9800gtx all over again: the low power, small die place filler to occupy the top spot until the big boy comes to town. We'll see if AMD has some 48x0-type cards up their sleeve again this time...

The way I look at it, HD7950 would need an 800-->1200mhz overclock just to match a stock GTX680. All that for just $50 more (plus all the other benefits with features, EVGA, etc.)? Who is going to buy a $460 HD7950 with non-reference cooler just to overclock it 40% to say look my card is just as fast vs. guaranteed performance out of the box?

It's not a slam dunk because GTX680 should have been a $399 GTX670Ti. The performance delta over the GTX580 is evident that this isn't the real Big K.

500mm^2 GTX685? If GTX685 has 2304 SPs, 384-bit bus and proper DP performance, that's going to make GTX680 and HD7970 look like toys.

Only less that 500$, 1200MHz is not enough against GTX680. And yes, the 7950 is a bastard child, it gets stomped by the 680 for 50$ more and it's equaled by a slightly overclocked 7870 at 360$

I can't believe how much defending on this forum went towards HD7950's $450 pricing, a 14-month older card only 5% faster than a GTX580. After NV lowered GTX580's prices to $360-370, it was already questionable. Finally, GTX680 seals HD7950's fate and echoes what many have been saying all along - HD7950 is just mid-range next generation performance at next generation high-end prices.

 

[thilanliyan]

Good card. I like it, especially the thermals. I'm skipping this gen likely though...don't game enough to justify upgrading 2x6950s.