NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Prior to the launch of our new benchmark suite, we wanted to include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which is easily the most popular RPG of 2011. However as any Skyrim player can tell you, Skyrim’s performance is CPU-bound to a ridiculous degree. With the release of the 1.4 patch and the high resolution texture pack this has finally been relieved to the point where GPUs once again matter, particularly when we’re working with high resolutions and less than high-end GPUs. As such, we're now including it in our test suite.
Skyrim presents us with an interesting scenario. At anything less than 2560 we’re CPU limited well before we’re GPU limited, and yet even though we’re CPU limited NVIDIA manages to take a clear lead while the 680 still finds room to push to the top. For whatever the reason NVIDIA would appear to have significantly less driver overhead here, or at the very least a CPU limited Skyrim interacts with NVIDIA’s drivers better than it does AMD’s.
In any case 2560 does move away from being CPU limited, but it’s not entirely clear whether the difference we’re seeing here is solely due to GPU performance, or if we’re still CPU limited in some fashion. Regardless of the reason the GTX 680 has a 10% lead on the 7970 here.
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Jamahl - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
And you were all too willing to do so without evening-up the initial crime. Don't insult our intelligence Ryan.SlyNine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
You need to open your mind alittle bit. It's easy to see what would happen in Anand did something that actually limited out of the box performance.Why are you even suggesting they do such a thing. This is how the card ships, and thats how you will be getting it.
Maybe they should lower the memory clock on AMD cards to make it fair. Or wait, their are different number of shaders. Maybe Anand should somehow limit that.
It just doesn't make any sense.
MattM_Super - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Yeah you can't please all the people even some of the time when it comes to GPU reviews. This seems like a through enough review of the card as it comes out of the box. Overclocking is also important, but considering the hassle, increase in temps and noise, and possible voiding of the warranty, it seems unreasonable to demand that the OC scores be treated as more important than the stock scores.Scott314159 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Any chance of running FAH on the 680... it will only take a few minutes and would give us folders a view into its relative performance compared to the outgoing 580 (and the Radeons).I'm looking to buy a new card in the short term and FAH performance is a factor.
Thanks in advance!
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Tried it. It wouldn't run.cudanator - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
C'mon guys, why isn't there a single CUDA-Test? And don't say "cause AMD doesn't support it" :P For me most interesting would be the CUDA-Speed compared to other nVidia-Models.Wreckage - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Not to mention PhysX. Sadly there are a lot of features AMD does not support and so they don't get benchmarked often enough. h.264 encoding is another one.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
On other sites they turn on full PhysX in Batman on the 680 and keep it off on the 7970, and the 680 still wins.LOL
If you watched the release video they show PhysX now has dynamic on the fly unique in game destruction that is not repeatable - things break apart with unique shatters and cracks. I say "it's a bout time!" to that.
My 7970 needs to go fast, in facts it's almost gone as we speak. No way am I taking the shortbus.
SlyNine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Umm, the GNC (7xxxHD) has a fixed function H.264 encoder. Afaik the 680GTX doesn't even have a fixed function h.264 encoder. So I'm pretty sure it would mop the floor with cuda H.264 encoding.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
We have the data, although it's not exactly a great test (a lot of CUDA applications have no idea what to do with Kepler right now). It will be up later today.