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.
404 Comments
View All Comments
Owls - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Not hasty but trolly.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
He states the facts that shame amd's recent launch fiasco and it's trolling...Way to go. Tell the truth, you're a troll. Only if we tell lies for amd are we being a good poster boy.
Lazlo Panaflex - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
The Bitch is back! Go troll some other site, chump.flashbacck - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Lol. What a loser!medi01 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
But he read the title.Besides, Anand never misses chance to piss on AMD's cookies.
medi01 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"but as always, at the end of the day it’s NVIDIA who once again takes the performance crown"Oh boy...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
The 680 stomped the 7970 in Civ5 and the reviewer obviously a you know what fan, said the 7970 tied. He's trying as hard as he possibly can for his brothers like you.mschira - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Oh come on. You're just annoyed he beat you.And his comment almost makes sense.
M.
N4g4rok - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
You should probably go look at the charts, at least.Belard - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Er... no. In some games, AMD's $350 card was faster... in many games they are are comparable with each other. But nothing deadly to AMD.In general, the 680 is the faster card.... hopefully we'll see a price war.