# New NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Pictures Hit The Web



## Cristian_25H (Mar 13, 2012)

Courtesy of ChipHell we now have a couple of fresh pictures of NVIDIA's first Kepler-powered graphics card, the GeForce (or should we write' GeFORCE') GTX 680. Shot both from above and the back, the incoming card has a black PCB, a dual-slot/single-fan cooler, two (stacked) 6-pin PCIe power plugs, a couple of SLI connectors, and four display outputs - dual DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.

The GTX 680 is equipped with one GK104 28 nm GPU, and reportedly boasts 1536 CUDA Cores, a 256-bit memory interface, 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM (4 GB models should also be in the works), PCI-Express 3.0, and a TDP of around 190 W. The GeForce GTX 680 is expected to be launched next week, on March 22nd. Its rumored price tag is $549.



 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Sir B. Fannybottom (Mar 13, 2012)

cool to see it only uses 2 six pins, but that placement is still really weird to me.


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## hhumas (Mar 13, 2012)

just position is changed .. anyway its nice


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## Prima.Vera (Mar 13, 2012)

550$?? Same as 7970?? So the performance is similar?? hmm.....


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## Lionheart (Mar 13, 2012)

Looking nice, awaiting benchies like everyone else


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## Horrux (Mar 13, 2012)

Interesting, so that's the 660ti / 670ti / now 680... Hm...


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## phanbuey (Mar 13, 2012)

i get the feeling this card will be silent


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## raptori (Mar 13, 2012)

any estimation about review date ?


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## xenocide (Mar 13, 2012)

I wouldn't mind one of those, but $550 is a bit steep.


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## semantics (Mar 13, 2012)

hhumas said:


> just position is changed .. anyway its nice


pretty sure it's so people with short cases can still fit the card in their case and connect the power cables. Along with giving nvidia the room for a bigger fan.


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## Huddo93 (Mar 13, 2012)

Seriously dying to see some gaming benchmarks of the GTX680 pitted against the 7970. Its the only thing holding me back from upgrading my GTX275's


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## ZoneDymo (Mar 13, 2012)

This card still confuses me, was this not suppose to be Nvidia's GTX660?
Was their high end card not suppose to smoke the HD7970 by 40%?

And if that is indeed the case and they will instead of calling this one the 660 just name the high end new cards 770 and 780 (and probably rebrand this card to a 760 eventually) then this stuff really seems like borderline price fixing to me.


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## btarunr (Mar 13, 2012)

Now quarrel over what the markings over the card are


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## LiveOrDie (Mar 13, 2012)

Cool im going to grab one of these for sure .


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## Horrux (Mar 13, 2012)

ZoneDymo said:


> This card still confuses me, was this not suppose to be Nvidia's GTX660?
> Was their high end card not suppose to smoke the HD7970 by 40%?
> 
> And if that is indeed the case and they will instead of calling this one the 660 just name the high end new cards 770 and 780 (and probably rebrand this card to a 760 eventually) then this stuff really seems like borderline price fixing to me.



OF COURSE IT IS PRICE FIXING. That is how a duopoly works. A duopoly is like a monopoly, except there are 2 players instead of one. Still, the market dynamics makes it so that, each company trying to maximize their profits results into a similar price fixing as if they got together and planned it all out.

And yes, that was going to be their GTX 660 but their high end card is having lots of trouble. The GK110 (the "refresh" to the nonexistent GK100 which would have been the GTX 680 which would have beaten the HD 7970 by a hefty margin, will show up when it does). There is no indication of when, so this is it for nVidia this turn. That has got to hurt because in all likelihood it leaves the HD 7970 as the single-GPU king.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 13, 2012)

TDP is pretty low. What is it for the 7970? Hard to believe nvidia might be more efficient for once.


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## Ixtli (Mar 13, 2012)

Kevinheraiz said:


> cool to see it only uses 2 six pins, but that placement is still really weird to me.



The inner most connector is rumoured to conflict with the fan placement, hence the stacked power connectors. AMD solved this in the 6900 series by cutting (literally) a corner of the plastic.

Regardless of the approach, I think we can all appreciate smaller cards 


And about the pricing. This is quite unfortunate for us consumers. But when I take on a company's point of view, I'd market my product the exact same way. Think about it: why would you price your mid range / performance chip at 200-250€ when it can compete with the current high end (i.e. ~500€).

I guess that is the advantage of being late to market with your products, you can just wait and see what the competition does.


The way I see it, the real fight will be fought with Nvidia's 700 series vs AMD's 8000.


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## blibba (Mar 13, 2012)

Horrux said:


> OF COURSE IT IS PRICE FIXING. That is how a duopoly works. A duopoly is like a monopoly, except there are 2 players instead of one. Still, the market dynamics makes it so that, each company trying to maximize their profits results into a similar price fixing as if they got together and planned it all out.
> 
> And yes, that was going to be their GTX 660 but their high end card is having lots of trouble. The GK110 (the "refresh" to the nonexistent GK100 which would have been the GTX 680 which would have beaten the HD 7970 by a hefty margin, will show up when it does). There is no indication of when, so this is it for nVidia this turn. That has got to hurt because in all likelihood it leaves the HD 7970 as the single-GPU king.



Nice to see some competent grasp of economics in these threads for once 



LAN_deRf_HA said:


> TDP is pretty low. What is it for the 7970? Hard to believe nvidia might be more efficient for once.



Unless you were born in 2009, Nvidia has always been more power efficient. Fermi was the exception, not the rule.


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## bear jesus (Mar 13, 2012)

btarunr said:


> Now quarrel over what the markings over the card are



If you insist.



Cristian_25H said:


> the GeForce (or should we write' GeFORCE') GTX 680




The markings on the card clearly say GEFORCE not GeFORCE


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## btarunr (Mar 13, 2012)

bear jesus said:


> The markings on the card clearly say GEFORCE not GeFORCE



And never in my older news posts did I call those markings "GeFORCE". It was more about something that looked like "GTX 570TI" to some people, that caused them to completely dismiss the older picture, which is essentially the same card as the one pictured in this article.

Oh BTW, GTX 680's little brother is GTX 670 TI. Lower CUDA core count, lower clock speeds, launched after GTX 570/580 inventories shrink.


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## bear jesus (Mar 13, 2012)

btarunr said:


> And never in my older news posts did I call those markings "GeFORCE".



It was all i could come up with on these pics. 

I spent much time laughing about the "570" posts.


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## 20mmrain (Mar 13, 2012)

Horrux said:


> Interesting, so that's the 660ti / 670ti / now 680... Hm...



The card was only ever rumored to be the GTX 660ti.... but it has been pictured it was supposed to be the GTX 670ti... Also I would not exactly consider this a huge plus.... because remember even if it was supposed to be the GTX 660ti and we are going on rumors....the real GTX 680 would not have been ready until OCT or NOV.... so this another case of Nvidia rushing something to market like the GTX 480. Not saying yet it will be a bad card but.... what I am saying is that doesn't sit well with me.


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## xenocide (Mar 13, 2012)

20mmrain said:


> The card was only ever rumored to be the GTX 660ti.... but it has been pictured it was supposed to be the GTX 670ti



Which bta just said was it's little brother--the next model down.


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## redgoblin (Mar 13, 2012)

i thought it will has something like $300 price tag. so it's true then, that the rumor nvidia will bring $300 mid-end card and crush the $500+ AMD card is another PR BS to screw the sale of AMD card
not a fanboy just spotting something fishy...in the nfishia camp


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## btarunr (Mar 13, 2012)

Will GK104 be competition to HD 7900 series? Yes. Will that cause a price-war leading to happier consumers? Resounding NO.


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## 20mmrain (Mar 13, 2012)

I am just speculating.... But according to some info like Chip Hell and other places I get info from (Including some of my own sources)... I could see it playing out something similar to this.

Nvidia will release the GTX 680 followed by the normal cards that follow GTX 670/660 so on (690 in may) We will see the GTX 685/780 in August. (Depending on how late it releases is what it will be called.)

AMD will release the HD7990 (Which will have lower clocks in order to run cooler) They will also continue to release the rest of their cards.... 7670/7650/7570 and so on.....Later around the same time Nvidia releases their GTX 685/780 AMD will release “Tenerife” which will be either the 7980 or 8970.

I get this from Knowledge with some own personal connections as well as info off the web. I could be completely wrong... I am just putting together pieces. 

http://www.guruht.com/2012/03/amd-tenerife-hd-79807990-graphic-card.html

http://www.chiphell.com/thread-382393-1-1.html


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## Crap Daddy (Mar 13, 2012)

It is very sad that a new generation of cards with new arch and considerably smaller node bring so little in performance for so much money. I don't expect this to be more than 30-35% faster than a GTX580 and I shouldn't care if it's the "performance" chip inside.


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## NHKS (Mar 13, 2012)

if the price indeed turned out as 549$, I would be disappointed. nvidia have a real opportunity of winning customers if they price it within 500$. It would also make AMD think twice before they price a single GPU card above 500$. 
Yes, 28nm yields are an issue now but it is not like these 'high-end' cards are going to see 'large' demand for AMD & nvidia, its the mid-range cards 200-300$ that see most of the demand. So, good yields or not, I feel it is unfair for both companies to raise the price points of their high-end cards. Hopefully, they will bring the prices down as the yields improve.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 13, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> It is very sad that a new generation of cards with new arch and considerably smaller node bring so little in performance for so much money. I don't expect this to be more than 30-35% faster than a GTX580 and I shouldn't care if it's the "performance" chip inside.



I think part of that is from them trying to reduce power consumption vs the prior gen, and not going all out just for performance. The other part is probably immature drivers since both have done big architecture changes.


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## ChristTheGreat (Mar 13, 2012)

Well well, if it's more faster, We will see a drop on HD7k, which is good for us 

I don't like buying a card over 350, well I'll still wait, and see 

Can't wait for next week.


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## xenocide (Mar 13, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> It is very sad that a new generation of cards with new arch and considerably smaller node bring so little in performance for so much money. I don't expect this to be more than 30-35% faster than a GTX580 and I shouldn't care if it's the "performance" chip inside.



It's also a ~320mm^2 chip versus the ~520mm^2 of the GTX580, and is rumored to be on par for the HD7970 (a fellow 500mm^2+ chip).  All things considered, I think it's a pretty solid offering if all the rumors hold up.



ChristTheGreat said:


> Well well, if it's more faster, We will see a drop on HD7k, which is good for us



No we won't.  This is duopoly economics.  GTX680 will be priced just above or at the price of HD7970 depending on if it performs as well or slightly better.  I wouldn't expect prices to budge very much.


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## qubit (Mar 13, 2012)

So, if the GK104 is being branded a GTX 680 and the dual version GTX 690, what's the GK100/GK110 gonna come in as? GTX 685?


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## btarunr (Mar 13, 2012)

qubit said:


> so, if the gk104 is being branded a gtx 680 and the dual version gtx 690, what's the gk100/gk110 gonna come in as? Gtx 685?



gtx 780.


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## vega22 (Mar 13, 2012)

btarunr said:


> Will GK104 be competition to HD 7900 series? Yes. Will that cause a price-war leading to happier consumers? Resounding NO.



which should result in us not buying and turning to the authorities to point out the price fixing.

which we wont :|



btarunr said:


> gtx 780.



are you thinking they will bastardise the 110 core to fill that range out like they are with this too?

after what they did with the 580 core they could do imo.


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## Mindweaver (Mar 13, 2012)

I don't see why anyone would buy any video card at those prices to play console ports? _I had to say it... hehehe _


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## KainXS (Mar 13, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> I don't see why anyone would buy any video card at those prices to play console ports? _I had to say it... hehehe _



too bad your right:shadedshu


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Mar 13, 2012)

Can't wait to see how one of these performs!


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## NHKS (Mar 13, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> I don't see why anyone would buy any video card at those prices to play console ports? _I had to say it... hehehe _



Although its frustrating to know, what you say is true for most games.. but not all games(engines) are & will be console ports.. there is reason to believe that some developers like DICE are making efforts to make full use of Microsoft's DirectX features.. one good example is "DirectCompute" API that is used in some games (ex:BF3 , Metro 2033) for enhancing visuals with 'ambient occlusion', 'DOF', etc.. and these enhancements cannot be handled by consoles, IGPs & APUs.. but can realise the full potential of performance GPUs

so, there is hope that more developers will try to make use of the true potential in discrete performance GPUs


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## SuperSonic X 316 (Mar 13, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> I don't see why anyone would buy any video card at those prices to play console ports? _I had to say it... hehehe _



Heh, this is why I still don't know if I want to jump on one of these cards at full price yet.


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## ChristTheGreat (Mar 13, 2012)

xenocide said:


> It's also a ~320mm^2 chip versus the ~520mm^2 of the GTX580, and is rumored to be on par for the HD7970 (a fellow 500mm^2+ chip).  All things considered, I think it's a pretty solid offering if all the rumors hold up.
> 
> 
> 
> No we won't.  This is duopoly economics.  GTX680 will be priced just above or at the price of HD7970 depending on if it performs as well or slightly better.  I wouldn't expect prices to budge very much.



well, if it's really price at 549 ononline, it will be the price of the HD7970, so if it outperform, there will be a price drop.

But actually, we don't know the performance. If it's 15-20% faster, the HD7970 will need to go down for sure.

Instead yes, this is not good for us as the price is higher.


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## Mindweaver (Mar 13, 2012)

NHKS said:


> Although its frustrating to know, what you say is true for most games.. but not all games(engines) are & will be console ports.. there is reason to believe that some developers like DICE are making efforts to make full use of Microsoft's DirectX features.. one good example is "DirectCompute" API that is used in some games (ex:BF3 , Metro 2033) for enhancing visuals with 'ambient occlusion', 'DOF', etc.. and these enhancements cannot be handled by consoles, IGPs & APUs.. but can realise the full potential of performance GPUs
> 
> so, there is hope that more developers will try to make use of the true potential in discrete performance GPUs



Ok from your statement above you would pay those high prices to play a game you might get from a developer that caters to consoles? I hate to tell you but even DICE started to back track before release... Oh and the last time I checked my 5850's in CF have the latest Microsoft DirectX features... and play all of those games just fine... So, again why would anybody pay these prices that there current cards can handle? You could argue that hey you can go to a single card, but but.. wait my GTX480 that I only paid $219 plays all of these games just fine as well... Err if we listened to NVIDIA - *The Way it's meant to be played* we would all go buy a fu*kn console... [/rant]


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## Super XP (Mar 13, 2012)

So this new card has similarities in performance. The HD 7970 wins a few and the GTX 680 wins others. What happens to the Hot, Loud but Kick Ass performance NV?



> The performance of the GTX 680 is somewhere around Radeon HD 7970 as it wins in some games and benchmarks and loses in others. Of course, these are all results that came from Nvidia so we'll hold our judgement until we see some reviews.


http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26308-nvidia-gtx-680-pixellized-in-more-detail


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## NdMk2o1o (Mar 13, 2012)

btarunr said:


> gtx 780.



c**ts so basically this was earmarked as as mid range with GK104 being high, though now this is their high range of the 6 series? knew the 50% improvement on like for like basis was to good to be true, so I will now wait for 7 series


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## NHKS (Mar 13, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> Ok from your statement above you would pay those high prices to play a game you might get from a developer that caters to consoles?  [/rant]



No, and in fact I am totally disappointed seeing the price speculation of the GTX680 @ 550$.. I was hoping nvidia to price the GK104 competitively.. we all know that  GK10*4* means a mid-to-high range gpu.. since GK100 has nt seen light we get the 104 branded as GTX680 at the price of GK100(?), which is just unfair of nvidia.. GK104 should have got the GTX660 branding like GF114 was GTX560Ti.. and so u can find my 'meme' for nvidia under my earlier comment..

EDIT:to futher support my view on GK104 being a mid-range > http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26310-nvidia-aims-for-record-quarter (Massive margins on GK104)


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## Crap Daddy (Mar 13, 2012)

These are meant for enthusiasts, a very small community who want to spend whatever it takes to have the high-end. Even if a 150$ card can play any of the games out there at decent framerates with decent settings on a decent monitor, if you want higher resolutions, multi-monitor setups and 60 FPS at least, even a 350$ card will choke. So that's why we have these prices.

Now the problem is that there's not enough of a performance jump for the money in lower segments as witnessed by the recent AMD offerings and I don't see Nvidia improving on this given the price and the estimated performance of their top card. So what I'm saying is that basically we pay the same amount of money for the same performance as last gen or we have to pay much more for a jump in performance. That's the catch here and not the fact that the top cards cost 550$.


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## bmwmaster (Mar 13, 2012)

I only hope it will support 3 Display connection to one card....................
580 GTX only supports 2, and i have to do SLi for 3 Screens :-(


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## Super XP (Mar 13, 2012)

NdMk2o1o said:


> c**ts so basically this was earmarked as as mid range with GK104 being high, though now this is their high range of the 6 series? knew the 50% improvement on like for like basis was to good to be true, so I will now wait for 7 series


I don't like this one bit. It's as though we have no more competition, just collaborative hardware pricing or should I say price fixing.


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## THE_EGG (Mar 13, 2012)

sounds like fermi story again. Top end card having troubles, therefore cores have to be shut-down/disabled in it. Except this time it seems to be bad yields rather than crazy ass out of control temperatures. so looks like the 780 will be the upgrade of the 680 like the 580 was of the 480. Can't wait till the fully enabled 780 then!


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## acerace (Mar 13, 2012)

@Mindweaver I think this kind of cards are very useful to Let's Play-ers on Youtube. They play lots of games, so this is useful to them. Just look at the system spec from most of the LP-ers, my god..

Edit: They also play the games on max setting, so it kinda makes sense.


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## Vulpesveritas (Mar 13, 2012)

My main problem with the rumors of the 680 come primerally in performance/watt.  AMD made the 7xxx series all bout performance/watt compared to the last generation, yet while Nvidia was doing worse than AMD last year at performance/watt, and AMD's entire focus this year was to bolster better performance/watt, Nvidia is claiming to have done better... yet Kepler uses shrunk CUDA cores, which Fermi which is known for power inefficiency was the first to implement.  
Also, there are rumors that Nvidia is pushing two to three times the transistors on a die size half that of the 580, yet by geometry alone that is impossible without a 3d transistor layout.  

Simply put- we don't know which rumors may be true and which are not.  While Nvidia did announce earlier they were "disappointed" with GCN, there is nothing which says they truly are.  There is no proof to the point, merely a single statement.  

Which should AMD cards prove faster, then all it would do is mean that Nvidia was trying to do was keep AMD cards from selling as much as they could.  If kepler is so good, why the NDA?  Nvidia should be touting benchmarks and proclaim how great their card is, not hide and let rumors abound about their card.

Because of this fact I believe that the 79xx-killer rumors are likely going to be down-turned.  By the rumored architecture design, it should prove to be similar to the 7870 in most respects.  And the 7870 outperforms the 7970 in Crysis 2.  Which also means that AMD likely has driver issues (big surprise?) with the 79xx series.  

However, the main thing I am doubting on is the performance/watt, so we'll see how it turns out.  All these rumors just play to Nvidia by making people who would otherwise buy AMD now wait until kepler is released to make a decision, which means that AMD won't have quite as high 2st quarter profits.  Also note that Nvidia has the NDA held until near the end of the 2st quarter?  Seeing as the NDA ends on the 22nd, and the 2nd quarter ends on the 31st.  Oh and that means that most people won't hear the news until the end so that means that Nvidia gets to keep AMD profits down.  

Think about it.  If Kepler is a flop, then this gives Nvidia a little more buffer until they're able to get their mobile cards out, where they have deals with OEMs in place and they're able to start making profit, without loosing too much to AMD in the performance desktop end.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Mar 13, 2012)

I just want nvidia to release their new cards so i have more choices to leave this 470. Im not going ati though.


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## Mindweaver (Mar 13, 2012)

NHKS said:


> No, and in fact I am totally disappointed seeing the price speculation of the GTX680 @ 550$.. I was hoping nvidia to price the GK104 competitively.. we all know that  GK10*4* means a mid-to-high range gpu.. since GK100 has nt seen light we get the 104 branded as GTX680 at the price of GK100(?), which is just unfair of nvidia.. GK104 should have got the GTX660 branding like GF114 was GTX560Ti.. and so u can find my 'meme' for nvidia under my earlier comment..
> 
> EDIT:to futher support my view on GK104 being a mid-range > http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26310-nvidia-aims-for-record-quarter (Massive margins on GK104)



Nice to see you agreeing with me!




Crap Daddy said:


> These are meant for enthusiasts, a very small community who want to spend whatever it takes to have the high-end. Even if a 150$ card can play any of the games out there at decent framerates with decent settings on a decent monitor, if you want higher resolutions, multi-monitor setups and 60 FPS at least, even a 350$ card will choke. So that's why we have these prices.
> 
> Now the problem is that there's not enough of a performance jump for the money in lower segments as witnessed by the recent AMD offerings and I don't see Nvidia improving on this given the price and the estimated performance of their top card. So what I'm saying is that basically we pay the same amount of money for the same performance as last gen or we have to pay much more for a jump in performance. That's the catch here and not the fact that the top cards cost 550$.



Oh I understand the concept, but this is not a enthusiast card.. it's a midrange card.. an enthusiast card is a MARS.. something you can overclock the piss out of and has great cooling.. We should not be paying $550 for just a highend card or midrange card.. but hell if people keep buying them then shit i don't see any fault in Nvidia or AMD.. Everybody waits for the other guy to make something better to lower prices.. Well shit that's not great economics when they are not doing it.. If we want better prices.. then stop buying the bullshit they keep putting out. [/Class]


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## NHKS (Mar 13, 2012)

Vulpesveritas said:


> .. which means that AMD won't have quite as high *2*st quarter profits.  Also note that Nvidia has the NDA held until near the end of the *2*st quarter?  Seeing as the NDA ends on the 22nd, and the 2nd quarter ends on the 31st.  Oh and that means that most people won't hear the news until the end so that means that Nvidia gets to keep AMD profits down. ...



i guess u mean *1*st quarter


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## radrok (Mar 13, 2012)

That power supply pin arrangement... GTFO I watercool my graphics to have them single slot.


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## 15th Warlock (Mar 13, 2012)

*$549?*

$549.99 for a GPU that's around 300 mm2? Can you imagine Nvidia's margins on these cards? Do the math, the G92b which had about the same die size was around $300 when it came out, sure Nvidia has to make up for R&D expenses, low yields and whatnot, but we are talking about a $250 markup give or take...

Take a good look boys and girls, this is price fixing at its finest, both manufacturers are ripping costumers a new one, don't be fools, vote with your wallets.

I pride myself in being at the bleeding edge of technology, and believe me, it required a lot of effort not to jump on the 7970 bandwagon a few months ago, the only couple things that stopped me were the fact that I wouldn't be able to fully utilize my 3D surround setup, and I also felt pricing wasn't quite right for what I deemed relatively small jump in performance compared to my current setup.

So I made up my mind and decided to wait for Nvidia, keeping up with the rumor mill has meant day after day of one disappointment after another, and this is the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, if this price is indeed true, I'm not favoring Nvidia with my business either.

Price fixing is a crime, ask the LCD and RAM manufacturers how that worked out for them, even both video card manufacturers have been caught red handed conspiring to price fixing in the past if memory serves me right, and then what, a big lawsuit from the government, millions of dollars in fines, and absolutely no benefits to your costumers.

I just bought a couple of GTX480s for $440 dollars at Newegg to replace my aging 285 for my game room; $440! Yes, this setup might be hot, its doesn't have the latest GPUs, it might not beat a 680 in performance by a hair, but it sure beats it in price, and it is faster than a 7950 at a lower price, and the best thing is it runs all of my _console ports_ PC developers are releasing just fine, thank you!

As I already said, don't be fools, vote with your wallets :shadedshu


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## NHKS (Mar 13, 2012)

radrok said:


> That power supply pin arrangement... GTFO I watercool my graphics to have them single slot.



why u need watercooling?... with GK104, u dont need water cooling, chip reaches 50C max at full load(8xMSAA, 3d mode, folding,etc).. u can overclock it by 20% over base clock and still it only reaches 70C max.. thats why nvidia demands 550$ for its all in one high-end(ahem mid-range) gpu.. 

just kidding.. i still cant understand the reason behind the stacked 6 pin-connectors.. & maybe even the stacked DVi outs


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## Wrigleyvillain (Mar 13, 2012)

15th Warlock said:


> As I already said, don't be fools, vote with your wallets :shadedshu



I too just bought a GTX 480 for $220 so...yeah.


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## Vulpesveritas (Mar 13, 2012)

NHKS said:


> i guess u mean *1*st quarter


The U.S. government's fiscal year begins on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year with which it is numbered. Prior to 1976, the fiscal year began on July 1 and ended on June 30. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 stipulated the change to allow Congress more time to arrive at a budget each year, and provided for what is known as the "transitional quarter" from July 1, 1976 to September 30, 1976. As stated above, the tax year for a business is governed by the fiscal year it chooses.[17]
For example, the United States government fiscal year for 2012 ("FY 2012" or "FY12") is as follows:
1st Quarter: October 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011
2nd Quarter: January 1, 2012 - March 31, 2012
3rd Quarter: April 1, 2012 - June 30, 2012
4th Quarter: July 1, 2012 - September 30, 2012
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year#United_States


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## sanadanosa (Mar 13, 2012)

Does anyone see white Sapphire box?


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## Crap Daddy (Mar 13, 2012)

15th Warlock said:


> I just bought a couple of GTX480s for $440 dollars at Newegg to replace my aging 285 for my game room; $440! Yes, this setup might be hot, its doesn't have the latest GPUs, it might not beat a 680 in performance by a hair, but it sure beats it in price, and it is faster than a 7950 at a lower price, and the best thing is it runs all of my console ports PC developers are releasing just fine, thank you!



I bet 2 480 in SLI will beat a 680 fairly easy. Anyway Nvidia users may consider themselves privileged compared to AMD since they are asked to pay only 50$ more for 30-35% increase in performance (my estimate) over last gens top card launch price while AMD users are asked 170$ more for 40% performance increase over last gens top card launch price.


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## 15th Warlock (Mar 13, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> I bet 2 480 in SLI will beat a 680 fairly easy. Anyway Nvidia users may consider themselves privileged compared to AMD since they are asked to pay only 50$ more for 30-35% increase in performance (my estimate) over last gens top card launch price while AMD users are asked 170$ more for 40% performance increase over last gens top card launch price.



Either way we are all being screwed by this pricing scheme, I guess we are going back to the good old days of the $600 GTX8800, both manufacturers must be salivating at the thought, and laughing all the way to the bank I believe :shadedshu


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## NHKS (Mar 13, 2012)

sanadanosa said:


> Does anyone see white Sapphire box?



good spotting!.. I think u are right too, the stylised 'E' looks it.. i can also see the words PURE & 'White A'.. It means 'Pure White' series.. but currently there is only 'Pure White E350' (Zacate APU).. so could 'White A' mean something new(unrealeased) ?
 (click here to see the Pure White E350 box)


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## Horrux (Mar 13, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> Ok from your statement above you would pay those high prices to play a game you might get from a developer that caters to consoles? I hate to tell you but even DICE started to back track before release... Oh and the last time I checked my 5850's in CF have the latest Microsoft DirectX features... and play all of those games just fine... So, again why would anybody pay these prices that there current cards can handle? You could argue that hey you can go to a single card, but but.. wait my GTX480 that I only paid $219 plays all of these games just fine as well... Err if we listened to NVIDIA - *The Way it's meant to be played* we would all go buy a fu*kn console... [/rant]



Yep, the last gen is AMPLY SUFFICIENT for the VAST MAJORITY of users. Of course, there are those who play on 3 monitors, heck 3 x 120hz monitors, and need the bleeding edge in video cards. It goes all the way to 6 x 120hz monitors (or projectors) which requires 12x the GPU power of gaming on a single monitor. But that is such a tiny minority. The vast majority are doing plenty well playing at 1080p with an HD 6870 or GTX 560 or so.

The need to upgrade comes from those who are still running something significantly below these cards. And in all likelihood, they're, generally speaking, not paying $500 for a video card, when their previous one was a $200 item.


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## Recus (Mar 13, 2012)

http://translate.google.lt/translat...om.cn/graphics/news/1203/2702126.html?ad=6431


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## Wrigleyvillain (Mar 13, 2012)

The only reason I upgraded recently was more vram. Wanted to try the NV drivers again for a change but hardly gonna swap cards just for that.


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## Casecutter (Mar 13, 2012)

We're told the GTX680 that has a capability overtake a 7970 (here or there for) at $550, although for that they use much more cost-effective chip, 256-Bit and just 2Gb. But for that you get those Dynamic Profiles to spike the clocks by 35%. 

Such the Deal!

Remenber 28Nm GPU production had a increase that basically wiped out the normal incentive of move to a die shrink, so AMD has contented with that, and so is Nvidia by working from a GK104.
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=210049



Recus said:


> http://www.abload.de/img/2702126_03aaaafe-863drr0ai.jpg
> http://i.imgur.com/mcj2P.png


Isn't this how AMD formats such slides in their presentations? That has me seeing it as a photo-shop.


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## sanadanosa (Mar 13, 2012)

NHKS said:


> good spotting!.. I think u are right too, the stylised 'E' looks it.. i can also see the words PURE & 'White A'.. It means 'Pure White' series.. but currently there is only 'Pure White E350' (Zacate APU).. so could 'White A' mean something new(unrealeased) ?
> (click here to see the Pure White E350 box)



So sapphire will ship Pure White APUs bundled with GTX 680?


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## Horrux (Mar 13, 2012)

Recus said:


> http://www.abload.de/img/2702126_03aaaafe-863drr0ai.jpg
> 
> http://translate.google.lt/translat...om.cn/graphics/news/1203/2702126.html?ad=6431
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/mcj2P.png



What's the source? How valid are these slides?

Also, 195W TDP? I wonder how they'll make a dual-GPU card with these...


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## Mindweaver (Mar 13, 2012)

Recus said:


>




What is that graph supposed to show us? AMD is consistent..  I call fake..


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## N3M3515 (Mar 13, 2012)

btarunr said:


> Will GK104 be competition to HD 7900 series? Yes. Will that cause a price-war leading to happier consumers? Resounding NO.



So much WIN in this comment.

All of the "wait for nvidia to offer xxxxx so that AMD can price its cards at a reasonable price"
Still calling whinning to those complaining about MAD stratosferic prices? 

RESULT = coumsumers, perf/price . . . . . . SCREWED UP.......big time.


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## Horrux (Mar 13, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> What is that graph supposed to show us? AMD is consistent..  I call fake..



Well I guess it's supposed to be scores normalized at 7970 = 1.0.

I call fake too, no way that GK104 is 50% more powerful than the 7970.


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## Animalpak (Mar 14, 2012)

pfff damn! Why out so soon? My 580 still has a lot to give !


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## Wrigleyvillain (Mar 14, 2012)

You have a point re. your 580 but I think you're like the only one saying it's too "soon"...


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## erocker (Mar 14, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> What is that graph supposed to show us? AMD is consistent..  I call fake..



According to my calculations using that graph GTX 680 is about 11.4% faster than HD7970 on average. Seems very plausible to me.


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## xenocide (Mar 14, 2012)

erocker said:


> According to my calculations using that graph GTX 680 is about 11.4% faster than HD7970 on average. Seems very plausible to me.



Yea I was just doing that math in my head, and it doesn't seem unreasonable.  People's eyes are just drawn to the BF3 bar.


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## INSTG8R (Mar 14, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> What is that graph supposed to show us? AMD is consistent..  I call fake..



Yeah that was the first thing I caught too. There is no change at all in the AMD numbers with different settings yet the NV numbers are up and down. Makes no sense at all and is obviously BS.

WTH is hell is up with this proposed pricing for this "supposed" mid/mainstream card? So when the GK100 or whatever it ends up as which is supposed to be the "enthusiast" card comes out are we talking $700-800 price tag? Something stinks here...:shadedshu


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## erocker (Mar 14, 2012)

INSTG8R said:


> Yeah that was the first thing I caught too. There is no change at all in the AMD numbers with different settings yet the NV numbers are up and down. Makes no sense at all and is obviously BS.
> 
> WTH is hell is up with this proposed pricing for this "supposed" mid/mainstream card? So when the GK100 or whatever it ends up as which is supposed to be the "enthusiast" card comes out are we talking $700-800 price tag? Something stinks here...:shadedshu



You aren't reading the graph correctly. The AMD figures for 7970 are a baseline for each individual game. The nvidia bars show how much more or less performance it has versus the 7970. Same with the 7950.


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