My GTX680 Review (48 games tested!)

[BFG10K]

Introduction

I upgraded my GTX580 to a GTX680 and tested 48 games at the settings I play them at, and I thought I’d share the results. Here are the specs of the two cards:

The GTX680 sports a large increase in shader and texturing performance. Its die size is also significantly smaller, and there’s a reduction in TDP resulting in only a 6+6 pin connector combination being needed.

On the flip-side it has the same memory bandwidth as the GTX580 and also has reduced pixel fillrate.

System specs: i5 2500K, 8 GB DDR3-1600, Intel P67 chipset, 301.10 (GTX680) & 296.10 (GTX580) drivers, Windows 7 (64 bit) SP1, everything at stock.


The Card

The GTX680 is slightly shorter than the GTX580. It’s also cooler at load and idle by about 5C. Also under load the volume of air being expelled at the back seems to be lower than the GTX580, and it feels cooler too.

Idle fan speed is 1100 RPM vs 1500 RPM, so it’s a bit quieter. Load noise seems to be about the same, though the GTX680 does sound more “plastic” compared to the whooshing sound of the GTX580. It’s also a lot more aggressive about lowering the fan speed when you exit a game, so it quietens down faster.

I don’t like the opposing PCIe connectors at the top as it makes plugging them in harder.


Results

The average performance gain is 24.62% across all of the tests. Most games post double digit performance increases including Call of Duty 4, which tops the list at 65.23%.

Even the 13 year old Quake 3 is running over 50% faster, although interestingly the other OpenGL games from the same era are not really any faster.

Four titles actually post performance losses and a handful of others only show slight performance gains, but hopefully they can be improved with newer drivers.


Conclusion

Even with launch drivers this is a solid upgrade over the GTX580. It’s a lot faster in many games while using less power and running cooler at the same time. I’ll be increasing image quality in many games as a result of this upgrade.

 

[blackened23]

Nice review BFG, good game selection. Its too bad most websites just review 4-5 games and call it a day, and those games being direct out of a reviewers guide at that...I really wish websites increased their selection of games to be as large as this.

Did you fiddle with overclocking your card at all?

 

[BFG10K]

Did you fiddle with overclocking your card at all?

Nah man, I never overclock anything. Stability and correct operation is very important to me.

 

[toyota]

good lord the performance is all over the place. its such a huge increase in some games and hardly worth the trouble for some.

its odd that you got a 40% increase in Warhead at 2560 when Anandtech could not even get but 19%. they used 4x AA though but still that difference is huge.

if I had a gtx580 then I doubt I would upgrade but then again many people that drop 500 bucks for a gpu probably would even if it was just a 10% improvement overall.

 

[Grooveriding]

Very nice.

Coming from 480s to 680s felt like leaving the ghetto for Shangri-La. Much faster cards and far more pleasant to run. I also gained the ability for nice IQ improvements in some games.

1600P Skyrim with quality AO, 4xSGSSAA and 4xMSAA is very nice () I can manage 8x on both but get some big dips outdoors that make it clunky to play when you are jumping from 60 to 30 a lot.

 

[blckgrffn]

Very nice, thank you for taking the time to collect the data and share

 

[Zebo]

Nice work. Even only 25% faster the power and efficiency make this card nV's best since 8800 series IMO. Definite upgradeable of any GF series is worth it.

 

[SirPauly]

Thanks BFG!

 

[n7]

:thumbsup:

Tons of work that is, thanx for sharing!

I'm likely going to replace my GTX 570 with one of these eventually, unless something else comes out.

But i don't need to now...more likely before Borderlands 2 is when i am thinking.

 

[blackened23]

Very nice.

Coming from 480s to 680s felt like leaving the ghetto for Shangri-La. Much faster cards and far more pleasant to run. I also gained the ability for nice IQ improvements in some games.

1600P Skyrim with quality AO, 4xSGSSAA and 4xMSAA is very nice () I can manage 8x on both but get some big dips outdoors that make it clunky to play when you are jumping from 60 to 30 a lot.

And you don't have to spend as much on the AC during the summer :hmm:

 

[spinejam]

Thanks for info. -- great job!

 

[thilanliyan]

Great info BFG, thanks for your work. GTX680 is a solid card. I really wish nV were better at bitcoin mining...I have a hankering to switch back to nV after a couple of ATI cards in a row (last nV was a GTX460).

 

[SlowSpyder]

good lord the performance is all over the place. its such a huge increase in some games and hardly worth the trouble for some.

its odd that you got a 40% increase in Warhead at 2560 when Anandtech could not even get but 19%. they used 4x AA though but still that difference is huge.

if I had a gtx580 then I doubt I would upgrade but then again many people that drop 500 bucks for a gpu probably would even if it was just a 10% improvement overall.

That is surprising... it is actually a bit slower in some games. In other games, it's almost like adding a second GTX580 for SLI.

 

[badb0y]

Good work BFG.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Gotta get some 1080p benchmarks in there:biggrin:

Or is no one using a gtx680 or 7970 with a 1080p monitor?() Good review still and very informative.

 

[Elfear]

Excellent review BFG. Thanks for all the work put into it.

It's too bad you don't have a 7970 you could borrow. I'd be curious to see what you found with that in the mix.

 

[chloros]

Nice

 

[tviceman]

And you don't have to spend as much on the AC during the summer :hmm:

But the heater now has to put in some work during the 6-month winter he gets up in Canada.

 

[ginfest]

Nice review, appreciate your efforts

 

[JBT]

Nice review thanks for doing the work and putting this out there.

 

[thilanliyan]

But the heater now has to put in some work during the 6-month winter he gets up in Canada.

Try 8 months

 

[blastingcap]

Thanks for the table.

Maybe my eyes are failing me, but I don't see some of the usual heavyweights like BF3. I think those are actually the most important games to bench, because any gains beyond the monitor refresh rate are not important, especially when talking about minimum framerates that already exceed 60Hz. For example, going from 60 to 90 fps is not useful. But going from 30 to 45 fps is very useful. What is alarming to me is how little Crysis 1 and Crystasis improved, as those are the two heaviest hitters on your list and only went up 11 and 14%, respectively.

On the other hand, AT has a whopping 49% improvement over the gtx 580 when it comes to BF3: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review/13 But it'd be nice to get further confirmation.

Here's to hoping that driver maturity yields even more performance!

Edit: I missed AVP3 as the other heavy hitter, which went up by 16%.

 

[sadffffff]

Nah man, I never overclock anything. Stability and correct operation is very important to me.

are you me?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Have you looked into non-native resolution rendering? I think that's the next step for you, especially with older games. Curious how that turns out from an image quality standpoint especially compared to AA. Its a feature I really hope AMD adds to their drivers as well, as it could help mitigate the need for a new display if you can't afford a good 27-30" one now, while you wait for newer tech ("retina" resolution, OLED, etc).

Oh, just noticed no Rage. If id ever releases the rumored texture pack, that and non-native rendering could be very interesting to see how it impacts image quality and performance (seeing how far you can push resolution).

 

[BFG10K]

I think those are actually the most important games to bench, because any gains beyond the monitor refresh rate are not important, especially when talking about minimum framerates that already exceed 60Hz.

The FPS you see is from the settings I use in those games on a GTX580, and I always balance every game with optimal performance vs IQ my tastes.

As some games need a higher FPS than others, I could easily use higher settings in them to make them look more “heavy weight”, but that’s not optimal from a gameplay perspective.

For example, going from 60 to 90 fps is not useful. But going from 30 to 45 fps is very useful.

I definitely don’t agree with this. Many games on that list have a measurable improvement in gameplay when running over 60 FPS. A twitchy game like UT3 or Quake 3 is a slideshow at 60 FPS average. The Stalker games also bog down in the heavier areas if you’re only pulling 60 FPS.

And remember, these are averages, so the minimums will be lower.

In the cases of truly overkill framerate, I can trade some of it for higher IQ. There are actually quite a few games on that list that I’ll start using higher settings.

This is why a GPU upgrade is almost always far more useful than CPU upgrade. With more GPU power a smorgasbord of higher settings become available, regardless of whether you’re CPU limited or not. Meanwhile a faster CPU does nothing if your GPU is too slow.

With Quake 3 I can’t raise the AA or the resolution any higher, so 243.80 FPS means it’s a solved problem. Bring on the 3K x 2K displays! :thumbsup:

What is alarming to me is how little Crysis 1 and Crystasis improved, as those are the two heaviest hitters on your list and only went up 11 and 14%, respectively.

I'm glad you noticed Cryostasis. Crysis absolutely pales in comparison to it in terms of how demanding it is.