OFFICIAL KEPLER "GTX680" Reviews

[Tempered81]

It's from vr-zone. You mean this:

I don't see 7970 CF beating 680 SLI. I put on the highest res.

http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/15196-geforce-gtx-680-kepler-samt-sli/21#pagehead

680 SLI being overwhelmed

another:

 

[Zebo]

TPU has a 680 SLI article up

Does 7970s not work in crossfie? seems lame not to do apples to apples. TPU is usually pretty decent.

 

[blastingcap]

680 SLI being overwhelmed

What do you expect from a 256-bit memory bus on what was supposed to be a midrange card?

 

[pc999]

Still so few GPGPU tests :\.

 

[RussianSensation]

I find calling this card the new king of the hill in single gpu cards disingenuous. For example how can anand claim that without even comparing it against MSI7970 Lightning. I think that card is actually faster at 2560.

Reference GTX680 vs. MSI 7970 Lightning Review

Conclusion: Our testing showed that this card did phenomenally well with DirectX 11 game titles and is currently the overall fastest graphics card for gaming. It didn't flat-out win every benchmark at every resolution, but it placed ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 ($549) and the MSI R7970 Lighting ($599) more times than not. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 also ran quieter, used less power, is smaller in length, and had a lower price.

"We found the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 with the reference cooler to be quieter than the MSI R7970 Lighting with the new Twin Frozr IV GPU cooler at both idle and full load in Furmark!"

Even a 1070mhz HD7970 couldn't beat a stock 680 and once 680 was overclocked, it pulled a comfortable lead that will take at least an 1150-1175mhz HD7970 to match.

As a point of reference Xbitlabs an 1150mhz/7000mhz HD7970 still lost by 1-9% at 2560x1600. So we know that even an 1150mhz HD7970 cannot on average beat an overclocked reference 680.

Metro 2033 is one of the games where 7970 does well (along with Crysis 1/Warhead) but Metro is completely unplayable on any single GPU card at 1600P with everything maxed out: ~ 16-25 fps.

If AMD drops the price so that MSI Lightning, Asus Direct CUII, Gigabyte Windforce 3X, Sapphire Dual-X can be bought for $499, then with maximum overclocking, HD7970 may be faster by 5-10% (assuming they can get to 1250mhz). Reference 7970's probably need a $100 price drop to make any sense. I think AMD would rather AIB's launch HD7970's with factory overclocks and keep that price at $499-549 than to drop prices. I think the new CEO will do everything possible to not drop prices because he was brought onboard to make AMD profitable.

 

[Lepton87]

Reference GTX680 vs. MSI 7970 Lightning Review

Conclusion: Our testing showed that this card did phenomenally well with DirectX 11 game titles and is currently the overall fastest graphics card for gaming. It didn't flat-out win every benchmark at every resolution, but it placed ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 ($549) and the MSI R7970 Lighting ($599) more times than not. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 also ran quieter, used less power, is smaller in length, and had a lower price.

MSI card was even faster in BF3 a game that GTX680 does relatively very well at I don't know how they came to their conclusion. Benchmarks don't lie like reviewers do.

Benchmarks at 2560:

Batman GF 39 7970 32 GF wins
Battlefield 3 GF 47 7970 48 Radeon wins ever so slightly
Dirt 3 GF 65.5 Radeon 62.7 GF wins
HAWX 2 GF 95 Radeon 97 Radeon wins
Just Cause GF 46 Radeon 44 GF wins
Metro GF 16 MSI 19 Radeon wins

3:3

And their game selection is particularly BAD.

They should have included Crysis Warhead, Crysis 2, CIV5, The witcher 2 and Total War: shogun 2 as those games are the most demanding. And instead they benchmark undemanding games like HAWX2. With those games included it would be clear which card is faster at 2560.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

MSI card was even faster in BF3 a game that GTX680 does relatively very well at I don't know how they came to their conclusion.

Where I'm from winning 1/3 is still a loss.

 

[Lepton87]

Where I'm from winning 1/3 is still a loss.

I don't care about petty low resolutions I specifically said faster at 2560

 

[RussianSensation]

I don't care about petty low resolutions I specifically said faster at 2560

Yes the review has 2560x1600 in every game tested and GTX680 is as fast or wins in most of them against an HD7970 @ 1070mhz.

The fact that the MSI Lightning has an MSRP $100 higher, is louder at idle and load , while dumping all that heat into your case and is actually slower on average is ridiculous. The whole point of an MSI Lighting style cooler is to be quieter as a trade-off of not having the heat being exhausted.

There are also some other popular games where GTX680 wins big such as Batman AC and SKYRIM. If you play Metro 2033 and Crysis 1 more than those 2 games, then sure the HD7970 is the better card. But in US and Canada, 7970 actually costs more.

For example, the cheapest quiet HD7970 in Toronto that has any chance of getting to 1250mhz and beat an overclocked reference 680 is an Asus Direct CU for $629.99. After our 13% tax, that works out to $712. Sorry, $700 for a decent HD7970 that can actually beat a GTX680 is insanely overpriced.

Yeah i'm going to fiddle with that a bit. Thats quite opposite of Fermi where memory had little impact, whereas GPU clock made a major difference....of course the memory controller on Fermi was semi broken.

None of this is meant as a slight to the 680, i'm extremely impressed with the stock speed, and the quietness of the card..... but the overclocking situation leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I'm going to wait for a few more rounds of driver updates, or maybe its a BIOS issue. Its just one of those things you deal with as an early adopter I guess.

PureOverclock has a great explanation of why the overclocking scaling doesn't seem as impressive. For example, the Base clock is 1006mhz. Let's say you overclock your card to 1245mhz Base clock. You think it's 24% faster. That's no longer true since some cards can hit 1110MHz from stock 1006mhz due to GPU boost. So your max 1245mhz overclock is really only a 13% increase:

1006 (1110) vs. 1245 Base + 0% Turbo (since you are maxed out the TDP, GPU Boost may be 0).

For example, at Xbitlabs a card that was overclocked to 1186mhz Base clock is actually faster than a card overclocked to 1245mhz Base clock. This is because a card with 1186mhz base clock could still use its GPU boost and often reach up to 1304mhz.

This is why overclocking on 680 is going to be temperature and luck of the draw dependent.

Also, each 13mhz GPU boost increment is disabled once you exceed temperatures by 5*C above 70*C. So if your card is running at 95*C, you just lost all 4 Turbo Boost increments (75*C, 80*C, 85*C, 90*C). That means 680 in poorly ventilated cases will not be as fast as 680 running at 70*C. This means 680s in SLI will most likely not overclock as well as 1 680 in a case since they'll be running at hotter temperatures with 2 cards. Sounds like the perfect card for watercooling though.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Where I'm from winning 1/3 is still a loss.

Wonder how legit this chart is.

Got my 7970 at 1125/6400 with stock voltages,that would put it at gtx680 performance if not better for this title,then of course the gtx680 can be overclocked as well.

Would this chart if legit just show amd was in the wrong putting their cards at such a low clockspeed?Every single 7970 seems to hit at least 1125/1575 before you even touch the voltage...

 

[blastingcap]

PureOverclock has a great explanation of why the overclocking scaling doesn't seem as impressive. For example, the Base clock is 1006mhz. Let's say you overclock your card to 1245mhz Base clock. You think it's 24% faster. That's no longer true since some cards can hit 1110MHz from stock 1006mhz due to GPU boost. So your max 1245mhz overclock is really only a 13% increase:

1006 (1110) vs. 1245 Base + 0% Turbo (since you are maxed out the TDP, GPU Boost may be 0).

For example, at Xbitlabs a card that was overclocked to 1186mhz Base clock is actually faster than a card overclocked to 1245mhz Base clock. This is because a card with 1186mhz base clock could still use its GPU boost and often reach up to 1304mhz.

This is why overclocking on 680 is going to be temperature and luck of the draw dependent.

Also, each 13mhz GPU boost increment is disabled once you exceed temperatures by 5*C above 70*C. So if your card is running at 95*C, you just lost all Turbo Boost functionality. That means 680 in poorly ventilated cases will not be as fast as 680 running at 70*C. This means 680s in SLI will most likely not overclock as well as 1 680 in a case since they'll be running at hotter temperatures with 2 cards. Sounds like the perfect card for watercooling though.

When both cards are similarly stressed (remember that GPU Boost also means overvolting, so to be fair, slightly overvolt the 7970 and watch it hit 1.2+ GHz), they basically tie. But the 7970 draws more power and has a weaker feature set. On the plus side, it does have +1 GB VRAM, but few people can take advantage of that. 7970 should be priced lower, $450 or less.

 

[Lepton87]

Wonder how legit this chart is.

Got my 7970 at 1125/6400 with stock voltages,that would put it at gtx680 performance if not better for this title,then of course the gtx680 can be overclocked as well.

Would this chart if legit just show amd was in the wrong putting their cards at such a low clockspeed?Every single 7970 seems to hit at least 1125/1575 before you even touch the voltage...

Of course it is legit, why did you even think it is not? At your clocks you have the same performance at 1080P +-2% and slightly better performance at 2560

 

[Lepton87]

Yes the review has 2560x1600 in every game tested and GTX680 is as fast or wins in most of them against an HD7970 @ 1070mhz.

The fact that the MSI Lightning has an MSRP $100 higher, is louder at idle and load , while dumping all that heat into your case and is actually slower on average is ridiculous. The whole point of an MSI Lighting style cooler is to be quieter as a trade-off of not having the heat being exhausted.

There are also some other popular games where GTX680 wins big such as Batman AC and SKYRIM. If you play Metro 2033 and Crysis 1 more than those 2 games, then sure the HD7970 is the better card. But in US and Canada, 7970 actually costs more.

Crysis Warhead, Crysis 2, CIV5, The witcher 2, Total War: shogun 2, Batman AC, Dragon Age 2, BF3, metro2033, AVP Skyrim is not a demanding game so gtx680 being faster has no relevance. Those games are the most demanding on the market. GF680 would probably only win Batman AC, Total War: shogun2 and maybe Crysis 2 at 2560 with msaa. Tho point is their game selection is extremely bad.

 

[RussianSensation]

When both cards are similarly stressed (remember that GPU Boost also means overvolting, so to be fair, slightly overvolt the 7970 and watch it hit 1.2+ GHz), they basically tie. But the 7970 draws more power and has a weaker feature set. On the plus side, it does have +1 GB VRAM, but few people can take advantage of that. 7970 should be priced lower, $450 or less.

Most HD7970 cannot hit 1.2ghz on air, not with a slight overvolt. We've seen countless reviewers stumble to get there. It looks like 1150-1185mhz is a fair average on air without overvolting to 1.25-1.3V (which is way higher than 1.175V max of GTX680). If you actually get an HD7970 card that can do 1.2ghz, you'll want a non-reference cooler because the reference card is loud. Now the non-reference once cost at least $50-100 more.

Also, right now overvolting is locked for all GTX680s. HD7970 is already struggling to beat a reference Oced 680 despite 1150mhz overclocks with 7000mhz memory. 7000mhz memory is also pretty good for air cooled 7970s since a lot of them don't cool the memory properly and crap out before that.

So what happens when there are factory preoverclocked, binned GTX680s with 8 power phases and aftermarket cooling for $549?

Even if HD7970 was $499, it would still be a hard sell. The most reasonable argument right now FOR HD7970 is bitcoin mining and distributed computing work that benefits from DP.

Crysis Warhead, Crysis 2, CIV5, The witcher 2, Total War: shogun 2, Batman AC, Dragon Age 2, BF3, metro2033, AVP Skyrim is not a demanding game so gtx680 being faster has no relevance. Those games are the most demanding on the market. GF680 would probably only win Batman AC, Total War: shogun2 and maybe Crysis 2 at 2560 with msaa. Tho point is their game selection is extremely bad.

Not even close. You should read 10-15 reviews to get a decent picture.

I'll get you started with half of those games in 1 review alone:

GTX680 wins in Witcher 2, Dragon Age 2, Batman, BF3, Crysis 2

In SKYRIM, with massive amounts of AA: 8xMSAA + Adaptive AA, it's not even close.

It's interesting how you also ignore that HD7970 costs at least $50 more in US, $80-100 more for solid versions with after-market cooling (Direct CUII, Sapphire Dual-X, Gigabyte Windforce 3X) and WAY more in Canada.

I guess those countries don't matter?

7970 should be priced lower, $450 or less.

Some people think it's reasonably priced at $549. AMD has no reason to lower prices it seems. How far we've come from the days when the 2nd best single-GPU was the $369 HD6970 and when a $350 GTX570 offered great bang for the buck against a $500 GTX580 by having 90% of its performance. I guess people really hated AMD's bang for the buck philosophy. Maybe AMD should have priced all their slower cards at $549 starting with HD4870.

Now HD7970 is priced higher, needs overclocking to win, consumes more power (which normally doesn't matter, but this time it's actually slower), loses by 10% in 1080P, loses by miles in 3x 1080P surround gaming in 2011 Game of the Year. Perhaps AMD's brand value is really strong this generation. HD7950 for $450 sounds like a deal: 30% slower but can be overclocked to match a stock $499 card. I know where I heard this before: FX8150, slower than a 2500K, costs more but can be overclocked to match it. :biggrin:

 

[MrK6]

Crysis Warhead, Crysis 2, CIV5, The witcher 2, Total War: shogun 2, Batman AC, Dragon Age 2, BF3, metro2033, Skyrim is not a demanding game so gtx680 being faster has no relevance. Those games are the most demanding on the market. GF680 would probably only win Batman AC, Total War: shogun2 and maybe Crysis 2 at 2560 with msaa.

The 7970 without a doubt has the potential to be much faster. However, most users are going to go for quick and easy overclocks.

 

[Imouto]

7970s and 50s only went OOS in the USA. Prices in Europe are just sick and since there's no MSRP retailers will charge you all they want. For example:

Sapphire HD 7970 Dual-X at newegg: 580$
Sapphire HD 7970 Dual-X at alternate.de: 688$ (519€)
ASUS GTX 680 at newegg: 499.99$
ASUS GTX 680 at alternate.de: 688$ (519€)

So don't cry about it being OOS and dare to order one in an european retailer. As for us both have the same price an you can find randomly better deals (*lol*) either way.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Most HD7970 cannot hit 1.2ghz on air, not with a slight overvolt. We've seen countless reviewers stumble to get there. It looks like 1150-1185mhz is a fair average on air without overvolting to 1.25-1.3V (which is way higher than 1.175V max of GTX680). If you actually get an HD7970 card that can do 1.2ghz, you'll want a non-reference cooler because the reference card is loud. Now the non-reference once cost at least $50-100 more.

.

I agree with this post,i got my 7970 to 1200 core using 1237mv in trixx,or 1.186v vddc in gpu-z and i found the extra noise from my reference cooler and the additional heat to be more hassle then it was worth.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

The biggest problem right now for the 680 is that it's max OC is limited to 225w TDP.


Nvidia crippled it badly in that regard.

 

[MrK6]

I agree with this post,i got my 7970 to 1200 core using 1237mv in trixx,or 1.186v vddc in gpu-z and i found the extra noise from my reference cooler and the additional heat to be more hassle then it was worth.

People are generally having to turn up their fans to 65-70% to get stable overclocks on the GTX 680 as well. Nature of the beast.

 

[blastingcap]

Most HD7970 cannot hit 1.2ghz on air, not with a slight overvolt. We've seen countless reviewers stumble to get there. It looks like 1150-1185mhz is a fair average on air without overvolting to 1.25-1.3V (which is way higher than 1.175V max of GTX680). If you actually get an HD7970 card that can do 1.2ghz, you'll want a non-reference cooler because the reference card is loud. Now the non-reference once cost at least $50-100 more.

Fine, 1185MHz, then, it will still be very close to the GTX 680 at stock voltage with highest usable offset and the concomitant voltage. It will more or less tie, depending on the game and resolution and if Xfired or SLI or whatever, but you know what I mean.

The point remains, though: other than +1 GB VRAM that most people won't really benefit from, why get the 7970? It has a weaker feature set and eats more power. No physx, CUDA, adaptive VSync, and the 7970 requires displayport to get to 3+ Eyefinity screens whereas the 680 doesn't.

7970 should to be at $450 or less to be competitive with a $500 GTX 680.

 

[Tempered81]

People are generally having to turn up their fans to 65-70% to get stable overclocks on the GTX 680 as well. Nature of the beast.

The cooler the gk104 is, the less power it will pull and the higher the frequency will be on the boost clocks. Run 3dmark at 10% fan and then run at 100% fan. Change no other settings, and watch a nice increase in 3dmarks. Pretty neat little feature of "GPU BOOST". Freeze it, and it wants to run full boost more often.

http://www.4gamer.net/games/120/G012093/20120322072/

 

[RussianSensation]

The cooler the gk104 is, the less power it will pull and the higher the frequency will be on the boost clocks. Run 3dmark at 10% fan and then run at 100% fan. Change no other settings, and watch a nice increase in 3dmarks. Pretty neat little feature of "GPU BOOST". Freeze it, and it wants to run full boost more often.

:thumbsup:

Sounds like wishful thinking, but if true this supports exactly what you posted - if you cool the card enough, you can overclock it sky high:

ZOTAC’s General Manager Mr Kwai announced during AIC Partners conference that ZOTAC is planning to release a GTX 680 chip clocked at 2GHz.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

:thumbsup:

Sounds like wishful thinking, but if true this supports exactly what you posted - if you cool the card enough, you can overclock it sky high:

ZOTAC’s General Manager Mr Kwai announced during AIC Partners conference that ZOTAC is planning to release a GTX 680 chip clocked at 2GHz.

lol...

Am I the only one who thinks it's a joke Nvidia released a high end card with a 225w hard cap?


I mean it's a nice card and all, but giving end users only 30 additonal watts to play with for overclocking? WTH?

Hopefully they did it to limit it's potential against BigK, but seriously... It's just awful

 

[blastingcap]

:thumbsup:

Sounds like wishful thinking, but if true this supports exactly what you posted - if you cool the card enough, you can overclock it sky high:

ZOTAC’s General Manager Mr Kwai announced during AIC Partners conference that ZOTAC is planning to release a GTX 680 chip clocked at 2GHz.

They better have hellaciously good cooling for the memory too, else that 256-bit bus will seriously bottleneck it. Or maybe it will be one of the rumored 4GB VRAM variants....

 

[Imouto]

They better have hellaciously good cooling for the memory too, else that 256-bit bus will seriously bottleneck it. Or maybe it will be one of the rumored 4GB VRAM variants....

They can release a 8 GB VRAM card and it will still be bottlenecked by the 256-bit bus.