NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Once again we have reached the end of another GPU launch article and once again we have a lot of data to digest, so let’s get to it.
For the last few generations AMD has always put up a good fight and always managed to spoil NVIDIA in some manner, be it by beating NVIDIA to market by months like we saw with the 5000 series, or significantly undercutting NVIDIA and forcing them into a bloody price war as we saw with the 4000 series. This time AMD once again spoiled NVIDIA by releasing the Radeon HD 7970 nearly 3 months early, but as always, at the end of the day it’s NVIDIA who once again takes the performance crown for the highest performing single-GPU card.
What makes this launch particularly interesting if not amusing though is how we’ve ended up here. Since Cypress and Fermi NVIDIA and AMD have effectively swapped positions. It’s now AMD who has produced a higher TDP video card that is strong in both compute and gaming, while NVIDIA has produced the lower TDP and weaker compute part that is similar to the Radeon HD 5870 right down to the display outputs. In some sense it’s a reaction by both companies to what they think the other did well in the last generation, but it’s also evidence of the fact that AMD and NVIDIA’s architectures are slowly becoming more similar.
In any case, this has ended up being a launch not quite like any other. With GTX 280, GTX 480, and GTX 580 we discussed how thanks to NVIDIA’s big die strategy they had superior performance, but also higher power consumption and a higher cost. To that extent this is a very different launch – the GTX 680 is faster, less power hungry, and quieter than the Radeon HD 7970. NVIDIA has landed the technical trifecta, and to top it off they’ve priced it comfortably below the competition.
Looking at the bigger picture, I think ultimately we still haven’t moved very far on the price/performance curve compared to where we’ve gone in past generations, and on that basis this is one of the smaller generational jumps we've seen for a GTX x80 product, or for that matter one of the smaller leads NVIDIA has had over AMD's top card. But even with NVIDIA’s conservative pricing we’re finally seeing 28nm translate into more performance for less, which of course is really what we're interested in. To that end, based on GK104’s die size I’m left wondering where GTX 680 is going to be sitting by the end of the year as 28nm production improves, as there’s clearly a lot of potential for price cuts in the future.
But in the meantime, in the here and now, this is by far the easiest recommendation we’ve been able to make for an NVIDIA flagship video card. NVIDIA’s drive for efficiency has paid off handsomely, and as a result they have once again captured the single-GPU performance crown.
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SlyNine - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
lol, you're way of the mark.My point wasn't that the 680GTX isn't faster, it's however that it does stand up well against the 680GTX in performance.
As far as compute goes, I'm not sure I understand your premise. Frankly I think it's an invalid inference. I said kills it. If that somehow implies it means it losses in the other compute tests, I'm not sure how you got there. Again invalid inference of the data.
Galidou - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
You didn't get the point of what he meant. Yes AMD is loosing but mostly in games that already run 60+fps. The games AMD wins is where it's still not maxed out yet(below 60 fps).Which maybe means if some big demanding games come out, the winning/loosing shceme might go back and forth. But right now, not much games out there will push those gpus unless you got very high resolutions and right now, I think 90% of gamers have 1080p and lower which still runs super smooth with 95% of graphical options enables on a 150$ GPU...
Still gotta say that this GTX 680 is really good for a flagship and the first one that's not uber huge and noisy and hot...
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Shogun 2 TOTAL WAR, in this bench set is THE HARDEST GAME, not metro2033 and not crysis warhead.Sorry feller but ignoring that gets you guys the big fib you want.
Sorry.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
SHOGUN 2 680 wins in top rez.from article " 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"
OH WELL guess it's the metro2033 and crysis game engines cause the hardest game Nvidia 680 wins.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
No you're WRONG. 1. 608 wins 1 bench in Merto2033, and ties within bench error on the other two resolutions.The hardest game as stated by the reviewer (since you never read) is Shogun2 total war, and Nvidia makes a clean sweep at all resolutions there.
In fact the Nvidia card wins everything but Crysis here, ties on Metro, and smokes everything else.
If Metro isn't a tie, take a look at the tie Ryan has for Civ5 and get back to me... !
(hint: Nvidia wins by far more in Civ5)
So--- let's see, one game with wierd benching old benching and AMD favored benchmark (dumping the waterfall bench that Nvidia won on all the time) >(Crysis)
One "tie" metro2033, then Nvidsia sweeps the rest of them. many by gigantic frame rate victories.
Other places show Nvidia winning metro2003 by a lot. (pureoverclock for one)
....
No I'm not the one fudging, spinning and worse. You guys are. You lost, lost bad, man up.
b3nzint - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
gt680 got more clocks, way higher memory bandwidth than 7970 thats why it got lower power load and price. but i think we can only compare 2 things if they have the "same" engine like drag race cars. both of them made a big leap from previous tech. and thats a win for us.btw, who comes out first ..amd. i say amd win period. so next time maybe they must release next gen gpu on the same time.
b3nzint - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
sorry what i meant was gtx 680 has lower memory, so it gain lower power.CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Or so a memory overclock unleashes it and it screams even further away at the tops of the charts...dlitem - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Actual street prices can be different:At least here on the eastern shores of Atlantic ocean German retailers are selling 7970's starting 460-470 eur including taxes with cards on stock and GTX680's are starting 499eur with taxes...
TheRealArdrid - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Sigh, are people really relying on that weak argument again? It's the same thing people said when Intel starting trouncing AMD: it's not fair because Intel has Turbo Boost.