Tweaktown reviews 680 4GB SLI

[chimaxi83]

.......... and completely wastes them on single monitor resolutions lol

Worthless review with FPS in the 200+ regions. They even test 1680*1050. Ah well, if you're looking to actually buy two 4GB 680's to play on a single monitor, then:

1. The 4GB cards offer nothing over the 2GB cards
2. The 4GB cards offer nothing over the 3GB on 7970
3. Modestly overclocked 7970 (1075 core) offers virtually the same performance as the 4GB cards.

But again, pointless single monitor review is pointless.

 

[Dark Shroud]

What a complete waste. Triple monitor or go home.

 

[Snowshredder102]

.......... and completely wastes them on single monitor resolutions lol

Worthless review with FPS in the 200+ regions. They even test 1680*1050. Ah well, if you're looking to actually buy two 4GB 680's to play on a single monitor, then:

1. The 4GB cards offer nothing over the 2GB cards
2. The 4GB cards offer nothing over the 3GB on 7970
3. Modestly overclocked 7970 (1075 core) offers virtually the same performance as the 4GB cards.

But again, pointless single monitor review is pointless.

How about 2560x1600 resolutions? BF3 eats up VRAM like candy.

 

[chimaxi83]

Tweaktown has never heard of Battlefield 3, apparently.

 

[Smoblikat]

Just a question, but do you thing AMD will release a 6gb 7970, the 4890 and 5870 both received a variant with double the RAM.

 

[chimaxi83]

Yes, the Sapphire Toxic 7970 will have 6GB.

 

[Crisis!]

Whats the point of a 4GB version if its still only going to have a 256bit memory bus width, I'm not expecting big changes just by adding an extra 2GB

 

[Silverforce11]

TT... jeez don't even waste your time, they are still back in 2008. What's with their game selection, almost all NV sponsored titles...

 

[ShintaiDK]

3 or 4GB for that matter is useless. It requires badly optimized textures before you even go up there. And resolution and memory doesnt scale as some seems to think. The textures thats laoded is what mainly takes up space. And its the same textures used for 1920*1200 asn for 19200*12000

 

[chimaxi83]

Whats the point of a 4GB version if its still only going to have a 256bit memory bus width, I'm not expecting big changes just by adding an extra 2GB

The main point of a 4GB 680 (and a 6GB 7970) is for multi GPU multi monitor gaming. A single 7970/680 does not have the power to utilize 6GB/4GB of VRAM. Once you have multi GPU though, it's going to utilize whatever you throw at it in a high resolution scenario.

 

[rgallant]

if nv put 2 gb on the gtx 680 then at some point you will run out of vram in sli.

-the 580's in my sig. hit the max.[1538mb] in bf3 and had to turn off msaa ,when the fps crashed,that was not in my head as most people will tell you it only loads and will not effect the game hahaha, bs
-8800gts sli upgraded lack of vram
-gtx 285 sli the same
-sent back 570 sli when they maxed vram at first testing[1920x1200] [could only step up to580's 1.5]
-580 sli upgrade pending killer games that cripples these.

 

[ArizonaSteve]

I'm looking at a 4GB 680 with the intent of adding a second card somewhere down the line. I run 2560 x 1600 and made the mistake of not waiting for a 2GB 5870. Not going to do that this time.

 

[blackened23]

if nv put 2 gb on the gtx 680 then at some point you will run out of vram in sli.

-the 580's in my sig. hit the max.[1538mb] in bf3 and had to turn off msaa ,when the fps crashed,that was not in my head as most people will tell you it only loads and will not effect the game hahaha, bs
-8800gts sli upgraded lack of vram
-gtx 285 sli the same
-sent back 570 sli when they maxed vram at first testing[1920x1200] [could only step up to580's 1.5]
-580 sli upgrade pending killer games that cripples these.

You will not run out of VRAM in bf3 unless you go to stupid high injected AA settings. To repeat this ad naseum, the frostbite 2 engine dynamically scales LOD depending on available VRAM. This was discussed by a dice developer at last years Geforce LAN, so performance wise 1.5gb = 2gb = 3gb = 4gb in bf3 performance.

Look for the youtube video from last years Geforce LAN. A dice developer did a presentation and stated matter of factly that more VRAM scales the visuals up, but lower VRAM configurations (Within reason) do not run out of VRAM. 1.5gb = 2gb = 3gb = 4gb.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

It is like they don't even understand high memory versions of cards.

Yea we buy those cards to run 1680x1050. Useless.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I'm so lazy I'm upset there is no link.

 

[chimaxi83]

OOPS

 

[blackened23]

Wrong link (per thread title) http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4...rce_gtx_680_4gb_video_cards_in_sli/index.html

 

[chimaxi83]

Dammit Chimax... lol thanks Blackened, AMD shills unite!

 

[Dark Shroud]

I usually enjoy these tests just to show that it's always helpful to have more ram when you like eye candy.

Sapphire is going to release 6GB toxic & possibly Atomic versions of the 7970.

 

[pcm81]

I HATE to say it, but there actually is a point to tests such as this one. Running low res and crazy high FPS will bench the GPU speeed not limited as much by GRAM access speed and not limited at all by GRAM size.