Taking a Look Back at the GTX 680

[Krenum]

Still have mine in a backup rig as well. Card has been good for what 8+ years now. Mine is a Pallit Gtx 680 with a massive air cooler attached.

I recall that picture made for the 400 series cards.

 

[Elf_Boy]

Wow... I feel outdated... I'm still on a 660Ti, in a Dell precision 490 (dual Xeon E5335s). With the state of cards today I'd be tempted to get a second 660ti and go SLI but sadly the P490 can't do that either :/

SLI / Xfire are neat technologies and I really like the idea of sticking in a second card and BAM double the FSP.

Support across all games is just spotty and sucky. Make sure everything you will want to get better performance is even able to work with SLI on.

Others here have more experience/knowledge to impart then I.

 

[d8lock]

Might have to sell the two that I have...

 

[CAD4466HK]

A couple of months ago, my son's GTX 570 died. So I RMA'ed it back to EVGA and they sent me a GTX 960 SC Gaming 4GB in return.

I decided to swap out the GTX 670 PE/OC 2GB (1200/6300) that I had in my main rig with the 960 and gave him a R9 270 that I had laying around. I wasn't expecting much from it, so I OC'ed it to 1454/7900 and finished off Sniper Elite 4 that I had been previously been playing with the 670. I averaged about 5-10 more FPS @ 1080p.

Since then, I have replayed a bunch of games to see if I could achieve better frames than the 670. The 2 that I could really see a major difference was Dying Light and DOOM.
Dying Light played A LOT better because of the extra VRAM and DOOM was able to be played in Vulkan, which the 670 refused to do.

All said and done, The 960 is faster in some games but slower in others compared to my old trusty 670, but most of the time they equal out. I guess you can say it's like having a 4GB 670 now. It played W2:TNC and FO4 like a champ, but I don't think I could say that about the 670, especially only having 2GB of VRAM.

I've seen a lot of comparisons showing the 960 being on par with the 1050Ti, but since running it through the gauntlet, I'm having my doubts. I feel as if the 1050Ti would be more of an upgrade than a sidegrade like the 960 was. Who knows, maybe when the 960 dies, EVGA will send me a 1050Ti and I will be able to draw my own conclusion. Stay tuned!

 

[Darkswordz]

It's a sad day when we have to scrounge around like dogs for 6 year old GPU's at inflated prices.

 

[HockeyJon]

I’m still rocking my R9 280X, which is plenty for 1080P @ 60hz for most games I play. That said, I’ve budgeted for a new monitor, 1440P, 144hz, all that crap, and a new GPU, but I flat out refuse to upgrade at these prices. I just hope what I have now can go the distance!

 

[AK0tA]

I'm still rocking a 660 Ti and it handles most games very well, yeah it is getting long in the tooth and was waiting for these 1070's to drop in price but we know how that is working out.

 

[Kor]

I still have 3 of these things in a box.

 

[Krenum]

It's a sad day when we have to scrounge around like dogs for 6 year old GPU's at inflated prices.

Scrounging around sqwabbling over scraps from Longshanks table!

Revolution brothers! Find those miners and burn em down!

 

[-=SOF=-WID99]

interesting comparison ..hope they do one of the GTX 960 vs the GTX 2060 ..when .....and if that gpu EVER SHIPS .. but i fear we have a long wait till GTX 1070 Prices and GTX 1080's ever come back to non insane pricing
still have a Strix GTX 960 in my old build ..

can't complain i guess tho as the 1060 6 gig card i have now works fine in 1080 P and i bought .. before GPU price went nuttty.. got it on sale at my local Microcenter for only $239 last march ..brand new

 

[lostin3d]

Nice article. I'm actually running 3x GTX680 in SLI and in most cases, as long as the game actually supports SLI, total performance is around that of a 980Ti. 2GB VRAM isn't that big of a deal since I still use a 1080P monitor (120hz), usually just means I can't crank up the AA.

I was just thinking it'd be interesting to see a comparison of the almost mythical 590's and 690's. Never seen one but heard great stories.

 

[lostin3d]

I remember buying this and thinking, this is the last $600+ card i will ever have to buy....so naive...

That's how I felt when I got my EVGA 780 SC edition. Loved it, and if it wasn't for the vram could still be usefull for a number of things. Made for an incredible PhysX card for a little while. Vram is ultimately my biggest complaint against GPU manufacturers. So many of us would be happy with our older cards if we had options for increasing the Vram.

 

[capt_cope]

I'm starting to think I should dig up my old 680 FTW+ (4gb) and drop it on ebay.

 

[Spire3660]

That's how I felt when I got my EVGA 780 SC edition. Loved it, and if it wasn't for the vram could still be usefull for a number of things. Made for an incredible PhysX card for a little while. Vram is ultimately my biggest complaint against GPU manufacturers. So many of us would be happy with our older cards if we had options for increasing the Vram.

Exactly why i went 1080ti, 11 GB VRAM ain't going out of style anytime soon. Nvidia totally fucked us with the 770 GTX/2 GB bullshit.

 

[harmattan]

So we've been reduced to this.

^ Nice one ^ My first impression when I saw this was "ARE WE LIVING IN "THE ROAD"?!"

I just sold one of my GTX 1080 tis in a secondary machine and picked up a used 780 ti for $180. It's still a superb card and I was flabbergasted how well it did in modern games, running everything highest settings at 1080p and most games with some settings reduced in 1440p.

 

[bman212121]

I'm starting to think I should dig up my old 680 FTW+ (4gb) and drop it on ebay.

You could put it up here on [H], someone might want to use it. I don't think miners are going to go after those cards because the performance / Watt is going to be very low. A 1050ti probably draws half the power, so you can cram more of them into an area. So good for gaming, probably not great for mining.

 

[harmattan]

The GTX 680 was the first chip from Nvidia to get the middle chip top tier pricing....

NVidia did all sorts of rebranding and tier segmentation fun with Kepler. The 600/700/800 series didn't know whether it was going or coming.

 

[Jeremy C]

I hadn't kept up, but it's crazy that I can make a profit off cards I bought almost 3 years ago (got my 970's with a pricing error for $160/piece). The third 970 I have was bought off evga b-stock a little over a year ago for about $175 if I remember right. Maybe it's time to skip out on gaming for a while, use on-board and make some money.

 

[thebufenator]

Can't we buy R9 290's and 390's for $200 and under?

One of those has to be faster than a 1050ti.

 

[lostin3d]

Exactly why i went 1080ti, 11 GB VRAM ain't going out of style anytime soon. Nvidia totally fucked us with the 770 GTX/2 GB bullshit.

I totally agree. I, unfortunately, went thru the same thing again with a pair of 970's, but hey those class action checks helped a little with my 1080's. Once again though, I found that 8GB was even a little low for some 4k stuff. WIth the TI, only ROTTR has maxed it on 4k so far but I mainly use it for 1440p so I'm not worried. 11GB should just be the standard for anything above a 1060 right now. At this point I going to commit to nothing less than x80TI's from now one. Do it right the first time and enjoy the ride!

 

[Elf_Boy]

I totally agree. I, unfortunately, went thru the same thing again with a pair of 970's, but hey those class action checks helped a little with my 1080's. Once again though, I found that 8GB was even a little low for some 4k stuff. WIth the TI, only ROTTR has maxed it on 4k so far but I mainly use it for 1440p so I'm not worried. 11GB should just be the standard for anything above a 1060 right now. At this point I going to commit to nothing less than x80TI's from now one. Do it right the first time and enjoy the ride!

I do everything at 4k on my 980 to 6gb.

What do you run into trouble with?

MMOs like ESO are pretty texture heavy and with aa on....

 

[lostin3d]

I do everything at 4k on my 980 to 6gb.

What do you run into trouble with?

MMOs like ESO are pretty texture heavy and with aa on....

First I should explain what the rigs are connected to.

The TI rig is connected to a plethora of displays. Primary is a Asus 27" 1440p/144hz G-sync, secondary is a Optoma UH60 4k HDR10 projector(roughly 170" wall), and an LG 4k T.V. Both 4k displays are capable of 4096x2160 60hz 4:2:2 or standard 4k 4:4:4. Real limiting factor for these are the HDMI 2.0 bandwidth.
The 1080 SLI rig is connected to 2 displays. Primary is a LG 10bit 4k(4096x21600-https://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Digital-31MU97-B-31-0-Inch/dp/B00OKSEVTY connected via DP. A truly spectacular display in terms of color reproduction and clarity. Secondary is the 55" 4k/HDR/60hz HiSensse T.V..(3860x2160). For the t.v. I haven't made up my mind which looks better, rgb 8 bit or 4:2:2 12 bit. I've done a bit of reading on it and can't find anything that truly points to a superiority between the two. I can say that true 10bit color or 4:4:4 is noticeable but the 8bit depths not so much.

Games a I play the most:
Most first/third person RPG's/FPS like Witcher 3, MEA, ROTTR, Metro's, Crysis(any), Doom, RE7, Fallout 4, Dragon's Age Inquisition, and now Kingdom Comeeliverance. I usually use the most maxed out settings a game has to offer(sans motion blur since to me it defeats the purpose of hi-res screens). I normally use v-sync or g-sync since I'm not a fan of tearing in a game with split second side-to-side movements. Some other older games like Mass Effect 3, Batman Arkham CIty, Assassin's Creed BF, BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider. Some of these I play because I really like them or their stories, some just for the eye candy.

Doom is the only thing on the current list my TI will rock 60+ fps with those settings in 4k, in 1440p it's not uncommon to see it go over 120-144fps. Truly an awesomely visually designed game optimized for performance! The TI will average 35-45 for everything else in 4k(vram averages 5GB for most but some are 8-10+). Granted that if I turn off the usual suspects such as AA and v-sync it'll then mostly hold 60fps. In 1440p it really finds it strengths since most games will average 65-120 with totally maxed settings. Vram in 1440p usually averages 3-5GB.

The 1080's will play all but Kingdom Come at 50-70 fps with maxed settings(v-sync on) in 4096x2160. This truly is the 4k gaming rig. Minimal to no compromises needed for most games. Just click, set to ultra, and play. The only real exceptions are some of the more demanding AA settings, but TX/FX or SM x2 are visually fine to me. Most of these games don't normally tick AA to max even when an ultra is chosen so I don't normally count it outside of benching. The real catch is SLI support and I've become accustomed to learning about SLI bits/profiles, and I've seen a few ram ceilings hit. MEA, ROTTR both regularly tapped that 8GB ceiling in 4096x2160. When I tested ROTTR on the TI rig in 4k I even saw it hit 11GB! with those exotic AA settings but at that point the TI was barely pushing 30fps. It's become fascinating to see the games that are GPU/shader heavy while using less Vram and then the ones that are the opposite.

For 4k I usually tell people that 4-8gb ram will suffice for most things if the settings are dialed back appropriately and I've read numerous stories about 980's, 980ti's, 1080's, and 1080ti's holding 60fps using the same compromises. Take things to ultra and it's a whole new territory that these same cards start to drop off with demanding rpg/fps games.