NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Kepler 2 GB

[W1zzard]

but they both essentially do the same thing. jsut nvidia is hardware side AMD is software

no. the control logic on amd is in hardware, nvidia is software.

the measurements for input data on nvidia are physical measurements, whereas on amd it does not measure anything, just checks idle time on certain units inside the gpu

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

no. the control logic on amd is in hardware, nvidia is software.

do you think it could be hacked ,as id half expect nvidia themselves to already have something or a cetain driver for ln2 guys, and given physx's rock solid hackability

 

[HammerON]

Great review (as always) W1z
I really appreciate the explanation of the Dynamic OC.

 

[Casecutter]

12%overclock headroom will truly give a 12% gain in performance

I doubt it

As for power see how they did it at [H] and it not that big of a deal.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/22/nvidia_kepler_gpu_geforce_gtx_680_video_card_review/13

When looking at it from that perspective, and given the Boost "Clock Speed Nanny" (CSN) there’s some strange things going on. Efficiency across those 5 titles is 3% better in favor of the GTX680. It’s improved in eff/Fps but overall not leaps and bounds over a 7950 given what they had to implement to get there.

While I think given this new technolgy the right thing is to look which produces the lowest mean framerate. As in who's hovers the most in lower 1/3 of the frames. They have learn to play the new game make the way we look at stuff (rules) and promonted what we've always like to see...

 

[W1zzard]

do you think it could be hacked ,as id half expect nvidia themselves to already have something or a cetain driver for ln2 guys, and given physx's rock solid hackability

everything can be hacked. just a question of how difficult and who will spend time on it

 

[RigRebel]

Wow... Still need to do some more reading but at first glance the card specs look good and benches rock to boot. I am really anticiapting the lower TPD for midrange 660ti/660 SLI setups, the TXAA if it's as smooth and non taxing on the FPS as speculated, the dynamic non-precomputed physix; and also, a nice 3D/2D surround solution on a single card other than 2WIN and 690! bravo.. Nice refienments (they were sorely needed) to go with marginal-moderate-high FPS increases depending on games. Now bring on the 660Ti and 660 class please let me seem them boggers in SLI.

PS.. What AMD fans are ready for an "I told ya so"? > lol Nice 2months on top lol. Nvidia will be taking that back now. Thank you. -pimpslap-

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

agreed lets hope theyve allready done it though , i think throwing a water block on one of these ,and a good chip one at that, might be nice

too dear though for not a big enough jump , yet ya never know

any one got a clue when the lower 6xx spec cards are out then?

im tempted to get a 550ti to fold and Batman on ,but i dunno whats comeing out when

 

[RigRebel]

agreed lets hope theyve allready done it though , i think throwing a water block on one of these ,and a good chip one at that, might be nice

too dear though for not a big enough jump , yet ya never know

any one got a clue when the lower 6xx spec cards are out then?

im tempted to get a 550ti to fold and Batman on ,but i dunno whats comeing out when

Certain posts speculate mid April for the 660/650 cards. Early reports from linzfire http://lenzfire.com/2012/02/entire-nvidia-kepler-series-specifications-price-release-date-43823/ was stating the 550ti is going to translate into a 650ti that will perform close to a 570!! I'd wait and see if I were you, could be only a couple months away!. Obviously not all those specs from lenzfire panned out but I sure hope the market translations from the 500 series to the 600series do! A 650Ti PERFORMING LIKE A 570!!! And, probably much better in SLI >>> BRING IT ON!
PSS.. I'm a little hesitant about EK WBs .. are they still cracking ? :/

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

ill throw the gt240 back in then for now ,itll help batman a bit , and hopefully V7 works right now with mixed gpu's

 

[Kreij]

everything can be hacked. just a question of how difficult and who will spend time on it

We have complete faith in you, O' Fearless Leader.

 

[RigRebel]

We have complete faith in you, O' Fearless Leader.

lol I just have to comment on your ISP .gif... lol awesome!

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

When you get another for SLI can we get one of those xfire vs sli scaling charts? Haven't seen one in awhile.

 

[RigRebel]

When you get another for SLI can we get one of those xfire vs sli scaling charts? Haven't seen one in awhile.

here here... ditto.

 

[KainXS]

damn even im flabbergasted, over 1100mhz on stock cooling

god damn

waits for AMD to ram their prices down, thanks nvidia, now i can get a cheaper card, but AMD would have to drop the price to at least 460 dollars for me to consider it now

come on drop them prices AMD I want a cheap card

 

[bongpack05]

Where's the 680 GT? cough 8800 gt cough

 

[jamsbong]

Remember the brilliant RV770? This is history repeating with Nvidia as the one with the clever architecture.

GTX680 = Tahiti. So either card is worth buying in terms of performance. The reason to buy Kepler would be the better price, lower power consumption (i.e. GPU produce less heat energy), CUDA, fancy AA. As for features that were unique to ATI is also now available in NV, eyefinity and the lean/low power consuming architecture. I hope NV will never make another barbarian/joule guzzler GPU again.

This is really the perfect achievement from Nvidia! This is definitely a worthy buy, lets see if this will ignite the price war. I'll definitely get one when the price is a bit better than they are now.

What I seriously love about this card is that it is able to keep up despite being lean and consumes less power. Moreover, for once, this chip does not have a heat spreader like previous NV cards. This makes the job of adding water block a lot easier. When I mod my 560TI to water cooling, it was quite annoying that the spreader was in the way. I end up drilling holes and a whole lot of custom mod to get it to work.

The dynamic clocking system is a good feature. I actually tried my own custom dynamic clocking on my 4890. It worked but everytime the clock changes, there is a noticeable halt. This is similar to the problem faced by Kepler now. See the last paragraph:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22653/9
Hopefully future drivers will fix this up because I hate those inconsistent framerate.

 

[ensabrenoir]

....Im about to spend alot of money..... Now quick somebody make ...something fun that will max out a sandy bridge e and a pair of these in sli.

 

[entropy13]

I hope NV will never make another barbarian/joule guzzler GPU again.

I personally think that they HAD to do that (first incarnation of Fermi - GTX 400 series) just so they could tone it down a bit with the GTX 500 series. And then eventually have Kepler.

Hopefully future drivers will fix this up because I hate those inconsistent framerate.

They used 300.99 drivers. The 301.10 drivers got released hours before reviews did, so we don't have to wait for a long time.

 

[bongpack05]

No longer buying 500$ cards had a 7800 gtx and x1800xt brick on me and warranty ran out 600$ paper weights.

 

[v12dock]

your dreaming because that would never happen. The 7970 still performs pretty well, except Nvidia just kicked AMD in the teeth by releasing a card that is about 15% faster across the board for $50 cheaper.

15%? according to W1zzard's review its only 6% faster

 

[Frizz]

Sold out on pccasegear.com already!! It's only been a few hours lol

 

[newtekie1]

i think you are confusing
- voltage controller (which controls the voltage regulators to generate output voltage)
- power measurement IC (which checks how much power is running through the 12V input lines and reports that to the driver)

obviously both cards needs a voltage controller, otherwise they couldnt dynamically adjust voltages.

power measurement IC is only present on NVIDIA, AMD does not use any components to get the input data for their powertune algo

No, I'm not. You talked about the extra micro-controller on the AMD GPU that measures load and such, then the driver estimates power consumption based on that. While nVidia uses separate sensors that measure actual power draw.

I know what a voltage controller is and what it does.

no. the control logic on amd is in hardware, nvidia is software.

the measurements for input data on nvidia are physical measurements, whereas on amd it does not measure anything, just checks idle time on certain units inside the gpu

So the AMD solution is no longer software/driver based like you said it was in the HD6970 review?

 

[owikh84]

Can someone buy 3 of this bad boy & bench'em on SB-e?
I'd love to see 3x GTX680 vs 3x 7970.

 

[swirl09]

Its a great card, and while it brings some new tech to the table and all this achieved on a smaller die, its not quite the clear cut victory for me.

13 DX11 games (looking at 2560res):
7 NV win
5 AMD win
1 draw

And at this moment in time there are OC'd 7970s (@1010) for the same money as the GTX 680 :-s

Im sure prices will change between now and the time I buy (IB), and I do think Ill be buying nV - hopefully a custom (with 4GB if it provides gains at higher res). Just sayin, not as easy a decision as Id have liked ;p

 

[Melvis]

15%? according to W1zzard's review its only 6% faster

Correct!!

and the 7970 is been held back by poor drivers in the review as proven by the 7870 later on beating the 7970 in the odd game (Crysis 2) Which should never happen.