NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTBattlefield 3
Its popularity aside, Battlefield 3 may be the most interesting game in our benchmark suite for a single reason: it’s the first AAA DX10+ game. It’s been 5 years since the launch of the first DX10 GPUs, and 3 whole process node shrinks later we’re finally to the point where games are using DX10’s functionality as a baseline rather than an addition. Not surprisingly BF3 is one of the best looking games in our suite, but as with past Battlefield games that beauty comes with a high performance cost
NVIDIA’s cards have always done well at Battlefield 3, which puts the Radeon HD 7900 series in a bad position from the beginning. Short of the GTX 680’s massive lead in the Portal 2 bonus round, this is the single biggest victory for the GTX 680 over the 7970, beating AMD’s best by 28% at 2560, and by continually higher amounts at lower resolutions. Based on our experience with BF3 I’d hesitate to call the 680 fully fluid at 2560 as large firefights can significantly tear into performance relative to Thunder Run, but if it’s not fully fluid then it’s going to be very, very close.
What’s also interesting here is that once again the GTX 680 is doing very well compared to the dual-GPU cards. The GTX 590 and 6990 never pull away from the GTX 680, and at 1920 with FXAA the GTX 680 finally squeaks by and takes the top of the chart. Performance relative to the GTX 580 is also once again good for that matter, with the GTX 680 beating its predecessor by 48% at almost every resolution.
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toastyghost - Sunday, April 29, 2012 - link
oh look, a fanboy fight in the comments on a hardware site. how very original.jewie27 - Sunday, July 8, 2012 - link
tonnes? WTF?santiagodraco - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
If you think overclocking RAM (which you imply but which isn't necessarily even true) makes that big of a difference than overclocking the GPU then you are fooling yourself.The GPU does the work, not the ram.
As for price/performance yes the 680 appears to be better now (they are ALWAYS leapfrogging each other) but wait until ATI releases their new variation, cuts prices to match and beats Nvidia by 20% or more... it will happen. Does every time :)
vol7ron - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
They're both important.What does a fast number cruncher mean, if it's busy waiting on the numbers?
Both CPU and RAM are important and they can both be bottlenecks.
Iketh - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"The GPU does the work, not the ram."LOL you can't say something more stupid!
grave00 - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Sometimes I really wish the editors could come in here and mark posts with strong agreement or disagreement with statements. I'd like to know what they think of things like. GPU does all the work vs RAM doesn't do much. I have an uninformed opinion. The interested but uninformed need some kind of truth detector. Maybe just for a few pages worth. I start to lose my grip on what is real in the forum after awhile. fun though it may be.blanarahul - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Question -1To understand the statement that "GPUs do all the work and memory doesn't", consider this:-
1. You overclocked your Graphics Card, but only the core and not the memory.
You ran a benchmark and let's assume you got a score of 100.
2. Now, you overclocked your memory and ran the same benchmark again.
You got the score of 101.
This is what actually happens in MOST cases. It doesn't happen always.
Question - 2
Why it doesn't happen always?
Answer:- If you use extreme methods and take your core clock too high the memory will become a bottleneck.
Cosider that you try to overclock using Liquid Nitrogen.
1. After overclocking only the core clock to the maximum.
Benchmark score:- 150
2. You overclock your memory too.
Benchmark score:- 200
In this case the memory was holding back the GPU Core from operating at it's full potential.
But this does not happen if don't use extreme methods.
I hope this helps.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Actually the 79xx series is the 1st time in a very long time amd has had a lead, let alone a lead of 20%, let alone "leap frogging".Amd has been behind since the GTX8800 and I don't know how long before that.
Let's face it, the 79xx for 2.5 months was the 1st time amd played Frogger in a long time and made it across the street without getting flattened before stepping off the curb.
You're welcome for the correct and truth filled history.
SlyNine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Sorry but the 7970 is still much faster in crysis min fps, which I would argue is more important then average. It's faster in Metro as well.All things considered, the 7970 stands up against the 680GTX well.
Lets also consider X.264 acceleration, as far as I can tell the 680GTX has none.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
It loses in everything to 680 including 3 monitor performance.That's not standing up well, it's larger, hotter, and slower at everything, with far less features and it's $60 bucks more.
FXAA
dynamic Vsync
turbo
More features I'm sure you fans of the loser underdog don't care about as of 9 am this morning.
It's EPIC FAIL and it's not standing, it's decked to the ground and can't get up.