GeForce GTX 680, Part 2: SLI, 5760x1080, And Overclocking

[cangelini]

Who needs sleep when you have caffeine? We take a second GeForce GTX 680 and run it in SLI against two Radeon HD 7970s. Then we add 5760x1080 benchmark results. Then we overclock our single-GPU flagships for a third comparison. Does our story change?

GeForce GTX 680, Part 2: SLI, 5760x1080, And Overclocking : Read more

 

[tacoslave]

amds driver team needs to get off its ass i mean look at those crossfire results thats downright pitiful .

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]tacoslave[/nom]amds driver team needs to get off its ass i mean look at those crossfire results thats downright pitiful .[/citation]
What is wrong with their crossfire performance?

You do have to look at the high resolution benchmarks to see actual crossfire results, as 1080p benchmarks are being bottlenecked by the CPU.

 

[I am a PC]

It is quite clear that the Radeons are more powerful but that once again the Nvidia favoring benchmark suite once again favors Nvidia.

 

[Guest]

Would like to see CUDA compute instead of openCL stuff. Something like Blender/Cycles benchmark.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]I am a PC[/nom]It is quite clear that the Radeons are more powerful but that once again the Nvidia favoring benchmark suite once again favors Nvidia.[/citation]
If you were to hand-pick a suite to favor AMD, what would it include? You did notice the Radeons doing really well in Battlefield and Metro, right?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]Agonotheta[/nom]Would like to see CUDA compute instead of openCL stuff. Something like Blender/Cycles benchmark.[/citation]
Our Blender test is being working on right now--currently we're only utilizing the Tiles/Cycles engines for CPU reviews.

 

[Guest]

My MSI 7870 came with Catalyst 12.3, so why use 12.2 if 12.3 is out there?

 

[weatherdude]

You know, I'm starting to wonder what the Tom's Hardware labs are like. I hope it has something to keep the staff sane as they run tests over and over again.

Anyways, looks like the competition in the GPU world is going strong right now. To me both the GTX 680 and Radeon 7970 are fine pieces of work. The general compute performance of Tahiti is really really good though so will AMD really reduce the prices significantly below the GTX 680?

Great review as usual. All your hard work is appreciated.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]sniper13x[/nom]My MSI 7870 came with Catalyst 12.3, so why use 12.2 if 12.3 is out there?[/citation]
Because it's not?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]weatherdude[/nom]You know, I'm starting to wonder what the Tom's Hardware labs are like. I hope it has something to keep the staff sane as they run tests over and over again.Anyways, looks like the competition in the GPU world is going strong right now. To me both the GTX 680 and Radeon 7970 are fine pieces of work. The general compute performance of Tahiti is really really good though so will AMD really reduce the prices significantly below the GTX 680?Great review as usual. All your hard work is appreciated.[/citation]
If ever you're in Bakersfield, CA, you're welcome to drop by and check the lab out. It's like a gamer candy store, literally stacked with graphics cards higher than I can reach!

 

[noobalert]

Thanks for the Review, its been good reading! I can't wait for my new z77 ivy Bridge build. Now trying to hold off on getting cards is going to be tough.

Next I want to see how the Dual GPU's from nVIDIA, & AMD fair, And see how long the Non-reference cards take to come out.

Would love to see a 3D - 5760x1080 shootout with 2/3/4 7970's, and GTX 680's setups in the meantime.

 

[master9716]

You made My day , 2 Reviews in 1 DAY!! WOW! I was waiting for this , I will probably go with Nvidia now since I was hopping they would release a card that can do 4k resolution on a single display for when I buy my SHARP 70" 4k tv. unless Amd comes out with a driver for 4k and lowers their price.

 

[masterofevil22]

Nvidia MAX'd their new card out of the gate and AMD left theirs woefully underclocked...wtf are these two companies doing? Trying to create confusion?? OC'd 7970 ftw..

 

[Energy96]

Would have been nice to see how 580's in SLI compare to 680's in SLI. Afterall most people who would buy 2 680's likely already have 2 580's and would like to know if the upgrade is worth it or not.

 

[Guest]

I just want, the price of this come down

 

[baracubra]

Again I really enjoyed this read over yesterday's review. It would have been nice to see percent performance scaling charts for SLI, but I guess if anyone desperately wanted them they could calculate themselves..

Other than that great job, now just waiting for IB to drop. By then availability should be well sorted out..

 

[sohei]

so at clock per clock is a draw?
so guys buy what you want both cards are great, nvidia is a bit faster 7% average in gaming
my conclusion is this. at gaming both cards are great
at compute amd is better
at power consumption Nvidia

personaly i like 7970 is far better build with quality components
in my country gtx 680 is more expensive so reality is different in prices...on paper nvidia is cheaper but ....

 

[EzioAs]

I'd say both cards are in the same tier, unlike the difference between the 580 and 6970. The 7970 benefits more from overclocking and if crossfire scales well, 2 7970s performs equal to 2 680, although AMD really needs to work on the driver more as we see only a few games where it scales rally well. Pricing on the 7970 will have to drop although I hope to see less than $475 recommended in the article.

Power issue isn't really a concern either as we've never seen any cards in the past delivering a great performance while consuming really low power. It doesn't rally matter that much whether one of them is more power efficient than the other because both of them are really power efficient cards. I'd say once the price drops, the 7970 and 680 will both be recommended cards, it all comes down to the buyer's choice and budget.

Great article to answer all reader's feedback. Good job!

 

[mayankleoboy1]

thanks for the reviews Chris !

just like to add that in the mediaespresso test, i would have like to see a SB 2500K/2600K for a reference. just to compare how the NVenc compares to the QuickSync engine.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

its a shame that AMD has not yet got its drivers working right, with VEC and the other stuff still not ready for use...

 

[wolfram23]

I don't quite get the point of benching Dirt 3, WoW, and especially Skyrim. Dirt 3 I can understand if for no other reason that it has a benchmark built in, but what happened to Alien vs Predator? STALKER: Call of Pripyat? 3DMark Vantage (still relevant)? How about some Witcher 2 benchmarks? Civ 5? Original Crysis??

Seriously, though, Skyrim? That is not a benchmarking game...

Anyway, it's still a good look at things, so thanks for the write up. I'm definitely curious to see how enthusiasts OC these cards higher and what sort of results they get. I've heard of 7970s at 1300mhz or more.

 

[rush21hit]

7970, such a great potential hampered by immature driver...and awesome job for nVidia for making such a great card. Hopefully, enough to push AMD to redefine their price range, and makes everyone happy

As experience said, ATI/AMD usually takes a few months later for their drivers to get fully matured. Even then, my 5850 CF still crashing on some game, like; Batman Arkham City!! Oh God Why!!??

Then again, developers tend to go better with nVidia if they has labelled twimtbp whatnot.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

where are the TXAA benchmarks?

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]where are the TXAA benchmarks?[/citation]
TXAA has not yet been released. It is supposed to be added to drivers at a later date.