Kepler news and discussion

[beltzy]

I'd like to repeat a point of view that I expressed in the other thread. The performance increase represented in the GTX 680 is good. However, the upward shift in pricing should be a serious concern for consumers/enthusiasts. We now have a product landscape very similar to the HD 6970 vs HD 570 situation (top amd single gpu card vs something other than best from NVidia) with two exceptions:

1) Prices have moved up from roughly $350 to $500-$550.
2) The $500 part from NVidia isn't even the big-dog GK110, it's their second best GK104.

If GK110 has a slightly cut back product (typical) and a high end would they be $600 and $700? Higher? Already it's easy to see that the market segments that make up the single-gpu card market are catapulting upward. I'm not suggesting that the 680 is a bad purchase compared to the previous gen cards or compared to the recent offerings from AMD. However, I think from a consumer standpoint you want to see big leaps forward in performance AND a lack of expanding prices.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_680_SLI/24.html

At 1920x1200 the performance per price is actually worse than on currently available GTX 580 prices and WAY lower than the mid-range cards from last gen (talking 6850-6950 and 550ti-560ti). I mention the mid range cards because that's what 680 ought to have been released as. AMD deciding to launch 7970 from a $350 to a $550 MSRP due to no 28nm competition for 3 months shouldn't completely re-form our expectations of price points. I expect that this is going to fall apart as launch excitement fades and many people realize they may be willing to pay $250-$500 for a graphics card, but maybe not $350-$700 (x2 for each for those who enjoy multi-card setups).

 

[thegameon]

I'd like to repeat a point of view that I expressed in the other thread. The performance increase represented in the GTX 680 is good. However, the upward shift in pricing should be a serious concern for consumers/enthusiasts. We now have a product landscape very similar to the HD 6970 vs HD 570 situation (top amd single gpu card vs something other than best from NVidia) with two exceptions:

1) Prices have moved up from roughly $350 to $500-$550.
2) The $500 part from NVidia isn't even the big-dog GK110, it's their second best GK104.

If GK110 has a slightly cut back product (typical) and a high end would they be $600 and $700? Higher? Already it's easy to see that the market segments that make up the single-gpu card market are catapulting upward. I'm not suggesting that the 680 is a bad purchase compared to the previous gen cards or compared to the recent offerings from AMD. However, I think from a consumer standpoint you want to see big leaps forward in performance AND a lack of expanding prices.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_680_SLI/24.html

At 1920x1200 the performance per price is actually worse than on currently available GTX 580 prices and WAY lower than the mid-range cards from last gen (talking 6850-6950 and 550ti-560ti). I mention the mid range cards because that's what 680 ought to have been released as. AMD deciding to launch 7970 from a $350 to a $550 MSRP due to no 28nm competition for 3 months shouldn't completely re-form our expectations of price points. I expect that this is going to fall apart as launch excitement fades and many people realize they may be willing to pay $250-$500 for a graphics card, but maybe not $350-$700 (x2 for each for those who enjoy multi-card setups).

compare 580 to 480 was a really good card but 680 to 580 is still the same because their promes was double the performance each time they come with a new card like lets say 480 runs 50 fps so 580 runs at 75 and 680 should give u 150fps because of the next gen chip and pci 3.0 but its the same bar as between 480 to 580 and 580 to 680, 680 is jus a better card not astonishingly better than 580 where it should be and thats what they promised, its not even that good wit pci 3.0 bu the price is higher than usual. im a nvidia fan too and im pretty disappointed

 

[bruce555]

I figured the Rumor thread would stay open till GK110 is released. Should there be a new rumor thread for that?

 

[wiyosaya]

Anyone know whether there is a kepler with significantly better compute capabilities than the 680 on nVidia's roadmap?

I was considering buying a 680 to enhance my BOINC capabilities, but pretty much all the review sites show that the 680 does not perform math as well as the previous generation cards.

Thanks.

 

[Rockdpm]

Yea, i believe this is to be the new Rumor thread for further Kepler models

 

[esrever]

OC scaling seem to be all over the place.

 

[mactronix]

compare 580 to 480 was a really good card but 680 to 580 is still the same because their promes was double the performance each time they come with a new card like lets say 480 runs 50 fps so 580 runs at 75 and 680 should give u 150fps because of the next gen chip and pci 3.0 but its the same bar as between 480 to 580 and 580 to 680, 680 is jus a better card not astonishingly better than 580 where it should be and thats what they promised, its not even that good wit pci 3.0 bu the price is higher than usual. im a nvidia fan too and im pretty disappointed

Read some reviews and you will see that this is not the successor to 580 its just named like it is.
Its just that the cards performance compared to AMD 7970 means that Nvidia can put it against that card even though from a technical view its high midrange on Nvidia's roadmap.
680 is the GK104 chip, you need to compare the GK110 chip to 580 when that comes out to see what the performance improvement is generation to generation.

beltzy is spot on. Something I said about the 7970 when it launched and Andantech agreed with but few others on these forums did.
Its a little known fact that forum members know more than professional tech reporters with there huge expensively resourced benchmarking set ups.

Everything I said or predicted has come to pass while those that said it cant be done seem to have blended into the background again.

Saint closing the other thread has drawn me to the conclusion that I wont bother investing so much in other threads if they are to be closed at a whim.

Mactronix 🙁

 

[Rockdpm]

Anyone know whether there is a kepler with significantly better compute capabilities than the 680 on nVidia's roadmap?

I was considering buying a 680 to enhance my BOINC capabilities, but pretty much all the review sites show that the 680 does not perform math as well as the previous generation cards.

Thanks.

You could try a Radeon card, i would imagine they do better at that stuff. unless you want to wait for a more Direct Compute card

 

[Rockdpm]

Well i guess this thread is gonna remain dead for a bit

 

[I am a PC]

asus gtx 680 sli review
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_680_SLI/
edit: linked wrong img first. sorry.

Not to seem abrasive, but that has to be the worst review in a long time... really no CF for 7870, 7950, 7970, 6990 and no SLI for 570, 580 or 590? The review is worthless and misleading.

I think we have found the AMD/Radeon Troll ^

 

[r3quiem]

Just put together an AMD CrossfireX vs nVidia SLI Scaling (2-Way) graph for though who are interested in seeing how the two cards scale across different resolutions.

Test Bed:
ASUS Rampage IV Formula Motherboard
Intel Core i7 3960X (Sandy Bridge-E) processor
16 GB Corsair DDR3-1600 RAM
Enermax Platimax 1500W PSU
Windows 7 x64

High '%' = Better Scaling with the addition of the second card:

The data used for the graph was taken from: http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2641/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-quad-sli-review-english-version

 

[esrever]

dat scaling

 

[17seconds]

The only way anything can be gained by comparing scaling between a lower performing and a higher performing pair of cards is if CPU bottlenecking can be eliminated. Without enabling uber-high resolutions and uber-high settings on a massively overclocked system, all you are doing is gauging the bottlenecking level. The conclusion to that article confirms the point:

Quote:
"In a nut shell, nVidia GeForce GTX 680 SLI scales really, really well. Overall perhaps a little bit less than AMD Radeon HD 7970 Crossfire, but in 5760x1080 it outperforms AMD's card. That's also the resolution where SLI truly comes into its own."

Tom's made that classic mistake in their comparison of scaling between the GTX 570 and 6950, two unevenly matched cards (similar to the GTX 680 vs. 7970). Of course, with less bottlenecking the 6950's "appeared" to scale better, and you know what happened... it was repeated ad nauseum as a plain and self-evident fact.

HardOCP learned this fact the hard way in their review of 6990 + 6970 Tri-Fire vs. GTX 580 Tri-SLI. Their initial review showed the 580's behind in scaling performance. Then, they did a second follow-up article in which they massively overclocked their Sandy Bridge CPU:
(Quotes)
"In our original evaluation, every game we tested was a certain percentage faster on the AMD Radeon HD 6990+6970 Tri-Fire setup. With performance like that, we came to the conclusion that the $500 more expensive GTX 580 3-Way SLI setup was not a good value.

In our redux today, using our new 4.8GHz CPU, GTX 580 3-Way SLI has come out of its hibernation and is peeking around its fort ready to lay aim on the first prey it sees. That prey happens to be AMD Tri-Fire. In all of our testing today, the GTX 580 3-Way SLI setup performed faster than AMD Radeon HD 6990+6970 Tri-Fire, except for Dragon Age II."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/05/03/nvidia_3way_sli_amd_trifire_redux/6

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

Anyone know whether there is a kepler with significantly better compute capabilities than the 680 on nVidia's roadmap?

I was considering buying a 680 to enhance my BOINC capabilities, but pretty much all the review sites show that the 680 does not perform math as well as the previous generation cards.

Thanks.

Not so good with gpus so what do you mean BOINC capabilities?

 

[RussK1]

I think we have found the AMD/Radeon Troll ^

How many accounts do you have? Persistent I see but hey I'll humor you:

If a review is going to be done with multiple cards the test setup should be tightly controlled, ie: single, double, triple or four way. Not good practice to use one 2-way and the rest single. It's unfavorable and misleading especially for the people that don't know any better. Someone will just look over the graphs and be "Oh my gosh! It kills the competition."

 

[RussK1]

Not so good with gpus so what do you mean BOINC capabilities?

http://www.boinc-wiki.info/Main_Page

 

[I am a PC]

http://www.boinc-wiki.info/Main_Page

That stuff has nothing to do with a gaming card GAMING being the key word here

 

[renz496]

lol. chill out guys. as far i know this card was purely aimed for gamers. those who interested with compute stuff have to wait for the big GK. remember this is GK104. is there any tesla unit out there made of GF104 or GF114?

 

[Rockdpm]

Not that i know of. But i either want to get a GTX 680 with free Shipping or wait for a GTX 670

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT032212172023

 

[renz496]

^ thanks for the link

 

[Haserath]

I'd like to repeat a point of view that I expressed in the other thread. The performance increase represented in the GTX 680 is good. However, the upward shift in pricing should be a serious concern for consumers/enthusiasts. We now have a product landscape very similar to the HD 6970 vs HD 570 situation (top amd single gpu card vs something other than best from NVidia) with two exceptions:

1) Prices have moved up from roughly $350 to $500-$550.
2) The $500 part from NVidia isn't even the big-dog GK110, it's their second best GK104.

If GK110 has a slightly cut back product (typical) and a high end would they be $600 and $700? Higher? Already it's easy to see that the market segments that make up the single-gpu card market are catapulting upward. I'm not suggesting that the 680 is a bad purchase compared to the previous gen cards or compared to the recent offerings from AMD. However, I think from a consumer standpoint you want to see big leaps forward in performance AND a lack of expanding prices.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_680_SLI/24.html

At 1920x1200 the performance per price is actually worse than on currently available GTX 580 prices and WAY lower than the mid-range cards from last gen (talking 6850-6950 and 550ti-560ti). I mention the mid range cards because that's what 680 ought to have been released as. AMD deciding to launch 7970 from a $350 to a $550 MSRP due to no 28nm competition for 3 months shouldn't completely re-form our expectations of price points. I expect that this is going to fall apart as launch excitement fades and many people realize they may be willing to pay $250-$500 for a graphics card, but maybe not $350-$700 (x2 for each for those who enjoy multi-card setups).

I would be surprised if prices jump again. I expect GK110 to come out as a refresh along with Tenerife, and they will replace the respective GPUs at their price points(AMD's will most likely be slightly lower than now).

The GTX 680 has the same MSRP as the 580 at launch and the 680 outperforms the 580 in games by 20%. Not a huge boost but still more performance for its price.

I don't know what has caused the price increase, whether it be company greed, production cost shifts, or lessening demand but making the same profit. People buy the cards, and that's all that really matters for the companies.

I still believe Nvidia can't get enough capacity to make enough GK110 dies for the demand at a $500 price point. Heck, GK104 sold out in no time, and GK110 would be a lower yielding GPU with more demand. Any GPU not sold is money lost.

 

[renz496]

i know this is off topic but i'm going to ask anyway 😛

how do you guys think about pairing GTX680 with 1600x900 monitor? 😀

 

[I am a PC]

i know this is off topic but i'm going to ask anyway 😛

how do you guys think about pairing GTX680 with 1600x900 monitor? 😀

Just make sure you have a beast CPU and it is a very good idea as in you might even be able to attain a consistent 60fps min framerate in every game ever made including all the current heavy hitters like BF3, The Witcher 2, Crysis, ect. Plus I have to add it will last you many many years of high end gaming so really it is a good investment in your hobby if that you are an even somewhat avid gamer.

 

[esrever]

i know this is off topic but i'm going to ask anyway 😛

how do you guys think about pairing GTX680 with 1600x900 monitor? 😀

you get to enjoy looking at 300 fps in games