GeForce GTX 680 2 GB Review: Kepler Sends Tahiti On Vacation

[Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer]

[citation][nom]airborne11b[/nom]This is the single GPU flagship, successor to the 580 GTX.It is absolutely the enthusiast, NOT mid-range, card.[/citation]
The way this chip is designed makes it utterly inadequate for serious professional and academic GPGPU applications. Unless Nvidia has decided to sit on their laurels and skip a generation for its Tesla cards, I guarantee you that there is a more powerful chip waiting in the wings. Whether that card will ever see the light of day as a consumer GPU or not...I don't know. Nvidia may be establishing a sharp difference between the two product lines this generation, or they may be planning to drop a more powerful card at some point in the future.

 

[COMPUTERGEEK762]

Nvidia is king. ATI can have our scraps

cant argue with you there

 

[in_sOmniac]

anybody know how much of a power draw does that 1 Gb of extra memory slapped on tahiti compares to, say a 2Gb 7970 version?

 

[illfindu]

Its kinda awesome from a consumer stand point some of the power we are getting at , the fact that there's a $400 card that can basically run the newest games at 100% maxed settings at 2560x1600 is pretty dam cool.*Keep in mind 32 fps isnt great and there could be arguments that maybe some other recent title is a little more intense then BF3 but my point still basically stands.

 

[xtreme5]

marvelous man! finally NVIDIA did it own it and rock it!!!!

 

[Guest]

Reviews need to be made where both cards are running clock for clock. On reviews that actually have them both OC'd results show how close the 7970 and 680 are. Man reviewers disgust me!
But AMD screwed themselves over...they underclocked the 7970.

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure how did you get such big improvement for 680 in perf/watt. Calculating from the numbers in the charts I get (87.9/335.6)/(67.4/374.8) = 1.456, which is still hefty, but considerably less than the 1.72?

 

[silverblue]

Has anybody noticed that the gap between the 680 and 7970 is pretty much the same as between the 580 and 6970?

We can definitely say the following things - the 680 is quicker in most titles, and it uses less power though having 1GB less RAM and only three quarters of the transistor count has to be part of the reason. Also, both cards will perform better in time due to driver updates, but most likely not enough for AMD to close the gap without releasing a new card.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]I just flipped through the folder (downloaded the entire FTP as soon as I saw it available), and they all have GTX 680 on them. Maybe someone got onto the FTP before me and took a screen grab to show them as 670 Ti? I'd tell you if I knew anything, but seems it was changed before I got there...[/citation]
I was about to do the same thing but i realised that it had .tif images and .psd files that weren't of any use to me, so i selectively downloaded it. I don't know why they had that stuff in there, it (the download) was just huge!

Well the tags are visible in windows explorer, i'll mail a screenshot to you.

 

[Sonny73N]

I'm just waiting for the $320 GTX 660 which supposedly match the $450 7950. Yea, keep inflating your price, AMD. You'll end up eat all your own stuffs.

 

[over8ted]

Not bad im still a AMD fan tho the 7970 isnt behind by much really just a small overclock and the 680 is in trouble

 

[Ifni]

[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]It's a far more balanced picture there.Yes, but that's the point of Eyefinity. A 4GB card? Got a link?[/citation]

http://www.evga.com/articles/00669/#GTX680FTW

I've been an evga fan since bfg went under, I'm waiting for the 4gb version myself.

 

[atikkur]

and then.. where is the new demo for this card? helooo samaritan, could you launch it a download for the mighty 680 to enjoy and the rest of us with previous gen card?

 

[verbalizer]

not for long http://hardcoretechnews.blogspot.com/2012/03/amd-radeon-hd-7990-details-leaked.html

doesn't count, that's a dual not a single card...

 

[icemunk]

Nice chip. Its essentially already overclocked.. so scratch that option. A bit of a power hog, but that is normal for Nvidia. Great performance though.

 

[atikkur]

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]Nice chip. Its essentially already overclocked.. so scratch that option. A bit of a power hog, but that is normal for Nvidia. Great performance though.[/citation]

yea.. an overcloacked card with less watt and price.

 

[witcherx]

Little we realize that these two companies are taking us for a ride, 2 years of AMD on top then 2 years of Nvidia on top, so users keep switching brands and keep buying the new cards and the companies business flourishes. This is the monoplay/secret of AMD/Nvidia

 

[Novuake]

not for long http://hardcoretechnews.blogspot.com/2012/03/amd-radeon-hd-7990-details-leaked.html

Single GPU king dude. You cant compare duel bored with singles...

 

[tomfreak]

[citation][nom]over8ted[/nom]Not bad im still a AMD fan tho the 7970 isnt behind by much really just a small overclock and the 680 is in trouble[/citation]nice try fan boy, u forgot 680 can also OC too.

Infact saying a OCed 7970 beating a stock 680 is pointless. AMD are charging u $50 extra but u need to OC to be on par with 680, in any case why not buy Nvidia u pay less + get covered by warranty for that speed.

the plus u get from 7970 is the extra 1Gb of VRAM.

 

[Guest]

There is another error in your performance/watt calculation. What NVIDIA claims is 2x improvement regarding the card, not the whole system of course. You would have to subtract the power consumption of the other components. That increases your performance/watt results of all the cards (except the baseline obviously). E.g. if the rest of the system ate up 150W the 680 would be around 58% more efficient than 580 not 44%.

 

[phenom90]

it's good to see nvidia finally develop some serious chip that packs some serious punch... while keeping power and thermal envelope... but on the other hand... as a end user... i was abit dissapointed... while i already got the cash... ready for new gpu... only to found out this is not the "high end" kepler solution offering from nvidia... honestly... i was hoping to see gk110 heads the first launch for the kepler series gpu... this kinda puts me in dilemma... should i just buy gk104 instead... or waiting for gk110? because right from the beginning i already told myself... when the kepler launch... i want gk110 to be my first ever high end card... i ain't too bothered by how much power can be saved by going gk104... as long as it won't turn out to be another gtx 480... since i will only using one card... but really... never thought it will turn out to be like that...

 

[Guest]

Welcome To marketing as long as the competition does better they will drive to do better if not we will see no new cards ever =P

 

[phenom90]

but still... a good card nonetheless... just it isn't what i expected from nvidia... the gk110...

 

[Lefturn]

I am an AMD fanboy and there's no denying it, this card is very impressive. Kudos to nvidia for raising the bar. Hope the rest of their lineup is just as good. Competition and lower prices are good for everyone, no matter what your allegiance is. No one can argue that fact.

 

[phenom90]

i don't know... too sudden nvidia change its game... they started to play amd's game... and after such a long wait filled with hopes... i think i'm started to feel tired about this....