The KFA² Geforce GTX 680 LTD OC is one of the fastest GTX 680 cards available on the market. Thanks to its large GPU overclock out of the box, the card is 8% faster than the GTX 680 reference design and 5% faster than the recently released AMD HD 7970 GHz Edition. Compared to the last-generation dual-GPU GTX 590, the card provides similar performance - what an improvement with just a single graphics processor! It would have been nice to see an overclock on the memory too; the card can certainly take it as shown by our manual overclocking tests.
Manual overclocking yielded an excellent 1240 MHz maximum GPU clock, which is higher than that of any other GTX 680 cards we have tested so far, almost 100 MHz higher than the GTX 680 reference design. Memory performance, on the other hand, did not do so well and reached a bit below what we have seen on other GTX 680 cards. Overall, the real-world performance improvement from manual overclocking is 10%, which is pretty good.
Power consumption of the card is increased in all power states. For gaming, the increase is relatively small and can be explained by the higher clock speeds. I have no explanation for the extra power draw in idle mode and multi-monitor use; my best guess is that the revamped voltage regulation circuitry plays a role in it. The overall increase is not big enough though to make it a dealbreaker.
KFA² has opted for a large triple-fan cooler which covers the whole front of the card and blocks the view of the pretty white PCB design; white plastic or frosted acrylic would have worked wonders here. When considering the back side of the card, the white PCB adds a unique, stylish touch to the GTX 680 OC. Cooling performance is decent, the card has no problems staying cool, and it is also significantly quieter than the NVIDIA reference design. Overall noise levels are similar to those of other custom-designed GTX 680 cards, none of which, in my opinion, is as quiet as they should be.
KFA² has changed the monitor output configuration of its card. Instead of two DVI, one HDMI and one DP port, the card comes with no DVI port, three mini-HDMI ports, and one full-size DisplayPort. So if you want to use a DVI monitor at any resolution higher than 1920x1080, like 2560x1600 or 2560x1440, for example, then you will have to buy an active dual-link DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter, which costs $100-$150. Also, if you plan to build a multi-monitor gaming rig, don't forget to buy some extra mini-HDMI adapters as only one is provided with the card - I had to wait 3 days for delivery before I could do our 5760x1080 testing. I'm not sure why KFA² went this route with the display outputs, but, in my opinion, every card on the market should have a native dual-link DVI output, period.
KFA²'s GTX 680 LTD OC is only available in Europe at this time, which is why we converted the €570 retail price to USD without taxes, which comes out at around $560. This means that the card sits in the category where we usually see cards with 4 GB of memory - the KFA² card has only 2 GB. Nevertheless, the card is still an excellent choice for an ultra-high end gamer, if you are willing to pay a premium and can work with the lack of a dual-DVI output.