NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTTotal War: Shogun 2
Total War: Shogun 2 is the latest installment of the long-running Total War series of turn based strategy games, and alongside Civilization V is notable for just how many units it can put on a screen at once. As it also turns out, it’s the single most punishing game in our benchmark suite (on higher end hardware at least).
With Shogun 2 the GTX 680 sees its first decisive win at last. At the all-punishing resolution of 2560 the GTX 680 not only becomes the first single-GPU card to crack 30fps, but it takes a 16% lead over the 7970 here. Even at a more practical resolution and setting of 1920 the GTX 680 still leads by 15%. Meanwhile the GTX 580 fares even worse here, with the GTX 680 leading by 51% at 2560 and a whopping 63% at 1920. Even the GTX 590 can only barely beat the GTX 680 at 2560, only to lose at 1920.
At this point we’re not sure what it is about the GTX 680 that improves on the GTX 580 by so much. Shogun 2 does use a lot of VRAM, and while the greater amount of VRAM on the GTX 680 alone wouldn’t seem to explain this, the fact that most of that memory is consumed by textures just might. We may be seeing the benefit of the much greater number of texture units GTX 680 has.
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saturn85 - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
can we have folding@home benchmark?warmbit - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
I invite you to the statement of GTX680 card performance based on the results of the eight websites (tom's too):http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=...
lhotdeals - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
I never posted a reply to reviews... but the conclusion of this review leaves me baffled. It is clear that 680 has its advantages, but looking at the numbers, the 680 and 7970 trades punches pretty equally in terms of performance. 680 does beat the 7970 in power usage and noise level, but the actual lead is miniscue...I do not see how the reviewer can reach the dominating position of the 680 in the conclusion... It is nothing but misleading to an otherwise great review with tons of data points.
sngbrdb - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
"...at the end of the day it’s NVIDIA who once again takes the performance crown for the highest performing single-GPU card."Are you kidding me?? Are we looking at the same charts? This card only "excels" on the lower end of resolution and quality settings. And in many of your charts, the cards that beat it in higher resolutions are conspicuously absent in the lower-resolution charts (the GTX 590 and Radeon 6990 are frequently missing).
GPU reviews need to be written by someone who isn't biased toward a brand, and Mr. Smith, that is clearly not you.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Sorry, you can't lie to yourself forever - how about a massive database with percentages and totals from many reviews...http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=...
At the highest resolutions amd still loses. Amd also loses the lower and lowest Enjoy.
sngbrdb - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
My comments are about the conclusions Mr. Smith draws form the charts he displays, not about whether the card does better elsewhere. The charts that Mr. Smith shows and the conclusions he draws from them are not logical... there may be other data out there that supports his conclusions, but that would mean the data he's displaying here is flawed/inaccurate. Either way, you can't look at those charts and act like the 680 has slaughtered AMD, you end up sounding like a fanboy.And charts need to be consistent about the cards being compared... you can't put a card in the chart for one resolution, and leave it out in another.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Yes, and anandtech's charts percentages are at the link I provided, that prove you incorrect, period.Reality doesn't make anyone a fanboy.Ignoring reality does.
_vor_ - Saturday, March 31, 2012 - link
So does replying to nearly all 40 pages of discussion flagrantly waving the NVIDIA banner. Maybe you need to look up the word hypocrisy.CeriseCogburn - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Vor you're angry because you got caught waving the amd flag * incorrectly*.There wouldn't be a need if there wasn't false information being spread about.
It's no wonder it happens when the amd card loses.
Addressing it is helpful and the right thing to do.
sngbrdb - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Um.... the charts at the link you provided point back to this article. Please do your research before being rude.From the article:
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Sources of data:
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Anandtech - www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review