OFFICIAL KEPLER "GTX680" Reviews

[blackened23]

An 1150mhz HD7970 still loses to an overclocked GTX680

The GeForce GTX 680 2GB overclocked to 1186/7128 MHz is an average 4-11% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB (overclocked to 1150/7000 MHz) in 1920x1080 and 1-9% ahead in 2560x1600. ~ Xbitlabs

That's an overclock on a reference GTX680 BTW. This means HD7970 would need a 1200-1250mhz overclock to match a reference OCed 680. How much are those non-reference 7970s? Not $499.

Oh and if you want one with warranty similar to EVGA, you'd need to get a $599 XFX Double Dissipation. So $100 more and you need to get a card that hits 1200mhz guaranteed to much a reference GTX680?

Huh?

Those are OC versus OC results and the 680 loses half the time unless i'm reading this chart wrong. Further the 680 doesn't seem to scale as well, but GPU boost muddies the picture quite a bit. In crysis 2 it loses by nearly 20% and Civ 5 as well.

This is why I don't want overclocking to be limited. Any % difference can be more than overcome with an equal OC.

 

[-Slacker-]

Why are you comparing Mhz to Mhz? Don't you remember the folly of the Pentium 4? Yeah, it sucked for AMD at the time, Pentium 4s running at 2.6ghz while the Athlon was only running at 1800mhz, yet the Althon still performed better despite the clock speed difference. And here we see it all over again, this time AMD going the high clock route on bulldozer and not really getting anything out of it.

"Not getting anything out of it"? The 7000s' performance scales better with clocks than ever, it's not even close. I remember seeing benchmarks where they scaled 90% in extra performance with clock bumps (that's 9% performance increase for every 10% in extra clocks)

15% is 15%. Why are you comparing a 15% overclock on kepler to a 40% overclock on 7970?

If you're worried about the OC review on overclock3d.net, where they have a 1300mhz hd7970 in the tests, then don't. There is also a 1125mhz powercolor in there somewhere, see my previous post.

[...]

*680 is faster 95% of the time, but only by a small delta.

I'm not going to pester you about where you got that figure, but if there's no trouble, it'd be great if you posted it.

 

[Chiropteran]

"Not getting anything out of it"?

Bulldozer. English, do you read it?

 

[frostedflakes]

I'm not sure what you're speaking of to be honest, i've never owned a card from either camp that outright prevented overclocking. What wizzard is saying is that you cannot oc behind the imposed GPU boost limit - if that is true i'm going to be pissed. But i'm not sure if what wizzard is saying is correct or not, we shall see.

Most modern cards prevent overclocking to some extent. Stock overdrive limits on my 6950 are 850MHz core and 1325MHz memory, for example. I use the "unofficial overclocking" mode in Afterburner so I can OC it to 6970 clocks, though (880/1375).

Point was both AMD and nVidia have limited OCing in the past and usually there are software tweaks to get around them if the limits are holding users back. I wouldn't be too worried about it yet, GPU Boost is a new feature and it might take a few months, but if the cards are capable of higher overclocks than the limits allow, I'm sure ways to get around them will show up.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Now we know how Nvidia will market BigK, no overclock limit, because with 220 watt TDP max limit on the 680 it would be hard to beat with a 250 watt TDP BigK... The GK104 offers better perf/watt than GK100 can, so you limit it's ability to overclock, then release BigK as a niche card for $600+ that offers worse perf/watt but laps up power to produce 50%+ performance over an overclocked 680.

That way Nvidia looks good in reviews, crushing the 7970 as [H] put it while offering a product that is no longer reviewed as a mainstream product and no longer has to abide by mainstream rules (the people who don't care about perf/watt).

 

[Chiropteran]

I'm not going to pester you about where you got that figure, but if there's no trouble, it'd be great if you posted it.

anandtech. they do reviews on video cards, check them out some time.

And actually 95% was overly generous. Out of 10 games tested, kepler wins in 9 of them. Only faster 90% of the time, rather than 95% as I posted.

 

[Olikan]

oh god.... once those cards are overclocked they became dead even XD

amd and nvidia fanboys are going to start the 3 world war...LOL

 

[ViviTheMage]

good replacement for my 6950 CF, yeah? single card option... which brand are people going to go with?

 

[blastingcap]

While I wait for RS to respond, I think NVDA's GPU Boost and Adaptive VSync have the potential to be the more elegant way to address minimum framerates without screen tearing. Particularly if they temporarily boost voltage and clocks when you run into particularly intense GPU workloads. It's more elegant than simply overvolting at all times, which unnecessarily shortens the lifespan of a GPU and uses more wattage than you need. I look forward to their working out the kinks.

 

[RussianSensation]

This should explain what's the catch. Have a look at one interesting part from that sweclockers link:

Personally, I'd take the HD7970 myself for DP performance even with 90W power increase. But it's amusing that a $549 reference card that needs an 1150mhz overclock is still being defended while consuming 40-90W more power just to match a quieter OCed 680 for $499. Sure GTX480 and 580 consumed more power than 5870 and 6970 but they were faster. In this case, let's pay more $, for a louder, more power consuming card? I am not following that. That's even before getting into TXAA, Adaptive Vsync, etc.

The $450-460 HD7950 pricing discussion is mysteriously ignored.

Also the performance advantage in SKYRIM is just ridiculous for people who love to pile up on tons of mods. The GTX680 has a ton of extra reserve room over HD7970 in case some mods start to seriously hamper performance.

Is it that upsetting that we might actually see price drops on HD7900 series? :hmm: That's a good thing in my eyes.

 

[Olikan]

While I wait for RS to respond, I think NVDA's GPU Boost and Adaptive VSync have the potential to be the more elegant way to address minimum framerates without screen tearing. Particularly if they temporarily boost voltage and clocks when you run into particularly intense GPU workloads. It's more elegant than simply overvolting at all times, which unnecessarily shortens the lifespan of a GPU and uses more wattage than you need. I look forward to their working out the kinks.

me too...if they managed to remove the input lag in Vsync, i am sold.....
(for a way cheaper kepler ofc)

 

[Attic]

$%#&, now I need to come up with $500.

7870 needs to come down $70-100 so I can consider xFire with two of those.

 

[-Slacker-]

anandtech. they do reviews on video cards, check them out some time.

And actually 95% was overly generous. Out of 10 games tested, kepler wins in 9 of them. Only faster 90% of the time, rather than 95% as I posted.

Anandtech. Well that settles it.

Anyway, sorry about the misunderstanding on the clock scaling thing. I thought you were talking about scaling on the new GPUs.

 

[mak360]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2581156&postcount=20
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2581204&postcount=25

Dunno why everyone is ignoring this.

Think that pretty much tells us that buying an after-market card is useless, just stick with the standard nvidia card (Cooling is fine also) and save the extra money

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Okay the urge to splurge has passed.. I was seriously contemplating buying one.

I wonder if this was truly a gtx 560 ti replacement at one time? That would be insane to get this level of performance for $300.

 

[coldpower27]

Oh, I know we won't see $300 anytime soon...I'm just saying that's what I'd personally pay for an upgrade. I do think $500 is a fair price for the performance, but in reality, nVidia probably surprised even itself in how badly it could beat its own flagship with the next-gen midrange.

For example - the GTX460 came out at $230 and was a bit faster than GTX285. In a vacuum that was an amazing deal, but the 480 had of course already been introduced, so it couldn't price it much higher (well, that and the HD5850 problem).

In this case, nVidia didn't have its high-end card to set parameters on pricing, and luckily had performance in spades, so it could drive the price up. If AMD had actually competed in this round on pricing, I think we'd see the GTX680 at $350 or so.

Yeah I would have upgraded if this was priced at $300 for sure, but not at $500.

 

[coldpower27]

Okay the urge to splurge has passed.. I was seriously contemplating buying one.

I wonder if this was truly a gtx 560 ti replacement at one time? That would be insane to get this level of performance for $300.

Yeah, I am curious about this too. Would have been awesome at $300.

 

[RussianSensation]

While I wait for RS to respond, I think NVDA's GPU Boost and Adaptive VSync have the potential to be the more elegant way to address minimum framerates without screen tearing. Particularly if they temporarily boost voltage and clocks when you run into particularly intense GPU workloads. It's more elegant than simply overvolting at all times, which unnecessarily shortens the lifespan of a GPU and uses more wattage than you need. I look forward to their working out the kinks.

Would you pay $450-460 for an HD7950 right now? Everyone who has 1150mhz+ overclocked HD7970 has nothing to be upset about. HD7970 is still a fast card. For everyone else, the entire HD7970/7950/7870/7850 series line-up needs at least a $50+ price cut. Put it this way, the performance delta between an HD7950 and GTX680 is 2x larger than it was between a $369 HD6970 and a $499 GTX580.

 

[Imouto]

Think that pretty much tells us that buying an after-market card is useless, just stick with the standard nvidia card (Cooling is fine also) and save the extra money

Making water cooled solutions useless too?

 

[felang]

Never thought of myself as an impulse buyer but... just bit the bullet on an EVGA at Newegg, in stock right now guys! Remeber to use the code for free shipping.

 

[Janooo]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2581156&postcount=20
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2581204&postcount=25

Dunno why everyone is ignoring this.

Is NV saying goodbye to overclocking?

 

[Janooo]

Well, 15 % will get you around 1300MHz. Can you reach/play games with your 7970 at those clocks?

1GHz + 15% is 1.15GHz.
Have you seen 680 at 1.3GHz somewhere?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Something to consider: The 7970s with loud and hot stock coolers are $550, but the good custom-cooler versions from Sapphire and MSI cost an extra $20+. So if you care about noise, the 7970 you'd actually want to run air-cooled is really $570 at the moment.

All that means is that nvidia has successfully shaken up the market and AMD needs to respond with a $50-75 price drop on the 7xxx cards. Once that happens, nv will still win at stock but AMD will win for the overclockers.

 

[blastingcap]

Would you pay $450-460 for an HD7950 right now? Everyone who has 1150mhz+ overclocked HD7970 has nothing to be upset about. HD7970 is still a fast card. For everyone else, the entire HD7970/7950/7870/7850 series line-up needs at least a $50+ price cut. Put it this way, the performance delta between an HD7950 and GTX680 is 2x larger than it was between a $369 HD6970 and a $499 GTX580.

DId you mean to reply to someone else? I was asking about voltages. And you already know my perhaps-too-optimistic take on AMD price drops. (edited to add link: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33175676&postcount=25 )

I was never interested in the 7950 to begin with and nothing has changed. I didn't like it for efficiency reasons that are unrelated to price/perf. A fair price for a 7950 is far lower than their asking price now at least for the 1.5GB version. I don't think the 3GB is worth it either, get a 7970 for that, if you know you will be using over 2GB VRAM.

 

[blackened23]

1GHz + 15% is 1.15GHz.
Have you seen 680 at 1.3GHz somewhere?

Regardless of clock speeds the scaling seems to be strange on the 680. Clock speeds mean nothing if the part doesn't scale properly along with those (overclocked) clockspeeds... 7970 has shown ~50-% scaling with clockspeeds (according to the H overclock review, in before someone says AMD biased site) while the 680 I haven't seen more than a 15% scaling. Other titles aren't scaling for some reason.

I have a feeling its either related to GPU boost or the BIOS somehow limited the GPU boost speed.