NVIDIA Kepler GeForce GTX 680 Video Card Review @ [H]ardOCP

Excellent review and a very impressive card! Hopefully prices can cascade down soon as 28nm ramps up.
 
Then there's the AMD track record (or lack thereof) /wrt to driver support for A-list titles at launch. "Hey, here's a new beta driver that might make your game playable... we'll have a real release...sometime. Maybe."
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I really have never had that issue. Most AMD driver issues I chalk up to a user error or fauly hardware.
Both red and green teams have had huge driver issues before in the last 5 years.
The idea that AMD drivers are sub par is such a stupid thought, but its well ingrained into the Gaming enthusiast population, mainly by people that are doing something wrong and cannot fix the issue.
 
Dextar said:
Honestly, if nVidia is willing to dump extra money for top tier games to push their tech and they win out I see that as being a good thing. It means they are willing to give money to developers so people who are green get a better experience. You can't hold that against them because AMD doesn't do the same.
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I don't really hold it against them, I just don't like that there are instances when they don't just optimize, but make it purposefully less optimized for other code paths, see ridiculous tessellation for Crysis 2, etc.

I do like it when they dump money into open technologies that help everyone, see FXAA. Now knowing that FXAA and their drivers are going to do better in the games I want to play is what is pushing me towards getting their cards now. They also seem like they're going to be cheaper now.

I'd like to see how the adaptive vsync works out though, because I really hate tearing.
 
I would never buy a $500 graphics card but this is impressive Nvidia. I am interested to see if this caliber of performance trickles down to the less expensive cards.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Can Brent (or anyone) that gets one test out CUDA performance (or folding@home if the client supports it yet...probably wont). Could run CUDA-Z or something. Want to see the GPGPU performance difference over the older generations before I commit. :D
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http://techreport.com/articles.x/22653/7 Bottom of the page. Doesn't look good at OpenCL, but perhaps its CUDA performance is the opposite.
 
JosiahBradley said:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22653/7 Bottom of the page. Doesn't look good at OpenCL, but perhaps its CUDA performance is the opposite.
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Thats the reason i'd like to see! I don't use any OpenCL, just CUDA but some of these results have me a bit worried as theyre both GPGPU, though OpenCL isn't that widely used and CUDA tends to have better performance, so nvidia probably wouldn't focus on it too much. So with the new arcitecture and various things, it means it's raw OpenCL performance might now really be indicative of much, unfortunately!

CUDA is the backend of stuff like physx, so it's probably going to have decent performance...just how much it's different it is a worry. I'm hoping for some kind of boost! But if it's terrible, then gah!
 
I saw that you guys said in the first page of the article that the 680 is almost garunteed to hit 1058MHz, and then you also talk about seeing the card hit 1200MHz in demos. What was the card ramping up to while you were testing?

Edit: Great article as usual, I eagerly await the OC and multi-card reviews.
 
Man this has been an expensive week for me.

Bought a new monitor (~$420)
Got another 7970
Caved in on a GTX 680

Still need to get around to do my taxes. I procrastinate so bad. :D
 
SolidBladez said:
Man this has been an expensive week for me.

Bought a new monitor (~$420)
Got another 7970
Caved in on a GTX 680

Still need to get around to do my taxes. I procrastinate so bad. :D
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One of the korean monitors?
I suppose this is a good time to sell either one... Will probably be able to get new price-$10 for it! (If you wanted to sell that is)
 
Starting to see them on NewEgg for $500, but I'm waiting to see if Gigabyte brings out a version using their windforce cooling system. That will make for one cool card. ;)
 
I wasn't wholly convinced a real winner was present until I saw the Power Draw and Temperature page...Nvidia just kicked AMD right in the teeth!!
 
Awesome review, awesome card! Nvidia really got with the program this time.

I wasn't sure which way to go with so here's both:

borat-very-nice.jpg


Borat_Great_Success.jpg
 
Where's the SLI reviews? I'm thinking of selling my 7970s because I know I can get almost the value I paid for them, but I want to see how SLI 680s compare to CF 7970s.
 
JMCB said:
Where's the SLI reviews? I'm thinking of selling my 7970s because I know I can get almost the value I paid for them, but I want to see how SLI 680s compare to CF 7970s.
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He already said that's coming up soon along with an OC article too.

It's good that nVidia is finally competing with AMD once again (especially on a performance per watt/heat output basis). The workload I run isn't your standard gaming and uses large quantities of videocard RAM so hopefully it can drive AMD's pricing down since I still need their 3GB of RAM versus nVidia's 2GB. (Can't really use more than 3GB of videocard RAM though since the same workload I'm running also uses a large amount of system RAM and the i7-970 I have can't handle more than 24GB of system RAM)
 
I am waiting on SLI reviews as well, but basing on previous SLI performance scaling with past video cards, I expect almost exactly double performance.

I hope my i7 970 @ 4.0 ghz isn't a bottleneck.
 
Great review! That card is amazing. I'm trying to convince myself SLI 570's are enough for my 1600p monitor. Your review is not helping me in that regard. :)
 
Kueller said:
I'm stoked about the clock scaling feature. It's going to be wonderful to be able to recommend a card to clients and friends who normally wouldn't dream of overclocking...because now their card will take care of it for them!

I think Nvidia has really hit a home run here for the consumer market, lower price, better performance and extremely user friendly thanks to these new features.

As an enthusiast with no problems overclocking my own hardware though, I'm still a little on the fence, I need to see multiple OC'd benches (and OC's from store bought cards not just review samples) before I make a decision myself. Hopefully AMD will also be coming along with some price adjustments.
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I did not read all the previous posts but I'm surprised anyone would be complaining about the clock scaling feature. No one seems to complain about it with the CPU's. :confused: I hope the scaling features are not an indication of anything close to the maximum overclock. I'd love to see another 10% on top of that added with good cooling. It will make for an interesting overclock follow up indeed. Looking forward to it.

I'm glad to see some competition as well but the crowing of the NV fanboi's is getting old on this topic already. My recommendation to those prone to buyers remorse... don't buy new hardware... ever. :p I'm still perfectly happy with my 7970 and I'm glad the 680 turned out well and is cheaper.. competition is always good for the end user.
 
This kepler reminds me of a song I heard before "everything you can do I can do better"

Kinda like after intel put mem controller on chip with AMD.
 
Competition in the high end video card market again.

Good for consumers. AMD card buyer or not, when two horses run side by side constantly we all win.
 
Great review. Now to find a buyer for that extra kidney i've been holding onto all my life and get 2 of these & monitors for NVsurround setup. :cool:
 
Topweasel said:
The human eye is both amazingly complex and amazingly simple and how the mind handles the information it gives changes between users.
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I remember 3DFX saying 60fps was needed to give the sense of completely smooth motion. I consider anything over 60fps to be just extra icing on the cake and superfluous. I am more interested in average and minimum FPS in video card reviews than I am max FPS.

Why did newegg get all the GTX 680s and NCIX none?
 
Awesome review guys!!!!

Exactly what I wanted to see... Nvidia getting the best of AMD this

Please please please by the crap out of these cards... so i can get my hands on more HD 7k series cards. :D

Also I want my price matching to kick in, cause you know 7970s are going to drop.

Good news all around!!!!
 
kontact said:
I remember 3DFX saying 60fps was needed to give the sense of completely smooth motion.
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Completely smooth motion would indicate the highest refresh rate the human eye could resolve. I don't believe even 120 Hz has that perfectly covered.

There are other factors at play, too. Because no engine can render scenes at absolutely precise intervals (each frame will take a variable amount of time to render), the refresh rate alone cannot tell the whole story on smoothness.
 
H-street said:
you'll need the 6x0 lineup for a single card surround..
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Yep, it's hardware, not software.

As I understand it, with DVI and HDMI (and VGA) you need a separate RAMDAC per monitor . So this is a hardware limitation rather than a software one. With DP they probably could do away with this limitation even on older boards, but I don't think they have.
 
5 days left in my EVGA Trade-Up eligibility. Anyone know if EVGA is offering a trade-up yet?
 
kontact said:
I remember 3DFX saying 60fps was needed to give the sense of completely smooth motion. I consider anything over 60fps to be just extra icing on the cake and superfluous. I am more interested in average and minimum FPS in video card reviews than I am max FPS.
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Yeah, personally I cap my FPS at 59 and use VSync as well, and I never notice a lack of "smoothness" at ~60 FPS. Anything above that is really just your GPU working harder than it needs to IMO.

I realize some people have 120 Hz monitors and maybe 120 FPS looks marginally smoother than 60 FPS, but I haven't seen it personally so I can't say.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, personally I cap my FPS at 59 and use VSync as well, and I never notice a lack of "smoothness" at ~60 FPS. Anything above that is really just your GPU working harder than it needs to IMO.

I realize some people have 120 Hz monitors and maybe 120 FPS looks marginally smoother than 60 FPS, but I haven't seen it personally so I can't say.
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Personally I find that it LOOKS good even at 30fps, but I can feel the difference in mouse feel up to 60fps (mouse response feels sluggish under 60fps).

Remember, most movies play at 23.97hz...
 
Zarathustra[H];1038524075 said:
Personally I find that it LOOKS good even at 30fps, but I can feel the difference in mouse feel up to 60fps (mouse response feels sluggish under 60fps).

Remember, most movies play at 23.97hz...
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Which is why my eyes scream bloody murder whenever I'm in a theater. Can't wait for 48 (47.94) FPS screens.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038524075 said:
Personally I find that it LOOKS good even at 30fps, but I can feel the difference in mouse feel up to 60fps (mouse response feels sluggish under 60fps).

Remember, most movies play at 23.97hz...
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Well, yeah. Until it hits 25 FPS or so for me I can notice a difference in smoothness but it's not THAT big of a deal. Lower than that and it's unplayable.

All I'm saying is that above 60 FPS I can't really make any distinction in smoothness, at least on a 60 Hz monitor. 120 Hz may be different but until they make (guaranteed) 120 Hz IPS panels I'm sticking with my U2311H. :cool:
 
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