NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTCivilization V
Our final game, Civilization 5, gives us an interesting look at things that other RTSes cannot match, with a much weaker focus on shading in the game world, and a much greater focus on creating the geometry needed to bring such a world to life. In doing so it uses a slew of DirectX 11 technologies, including tessellation for said geometry, driver command lists for reducing CPU overhead, and compute shaders for on-the-fly texture decompression.
Remember when NVIDIA used to sweep AMD in Civ V? Times have certainly changed in the last year, that’s for sure. It only seems appropriate that we’re ending on what’s largely a tie. At 2560 the GTX 680 does have a 4% lead over the 7970, however the 7970 reclaims it’s lead at the last possible moment at 1920. At this point we’ve seen the full spectrum of results, from the GTX 680 losing badly to winning handily, and everything in between.
On a final note, it’s interesting to see that the GTX 680 really only manages to improve on the GTX 580’s performance at 2560. At 1920 the lead is only 8%, and at 1680 we’re just CPU limited. Haswell can’t get here soon enough.
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Makaveli - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
what are you ranting about wreckage NV would have done the same thing if they released their card first!Gouging its customers don't make me laugh. If the price is too high for you don't buy it.
AMD didn't put a gun to anyone head.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Nvidia released it's last 4 flagship cards at $499, yes that's correct, and this one is that.Not sure what imaginary world you live in, but it's one that does not include the common facts at hand.
In other words, AMD already knew far beforehand the $499 flagship Nvidia card price was coming, and so did everyone else who paid attention.
consolePoS - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
I said haha busted you dickhead goddamnconsolePoS - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
woops thought my well thought out comment had been removed, oh well whilst I'm already commenting heres another: "Wreckage is a complete benson and an all around arse-bandit"slayernine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Actually it looks to me like the 680 is hugely disappointing, losing to the 7970 and even the 7950 in some tests.Try reading the article....
Hauk - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Wreckage first again! LMAO..pandemonium - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
I'm confused...are we reading the same article? The 7970 and 680 swap top positions for the most powerful single GPU in several different ways.Where is this, "This cards beats AMD on EVERY level! Price, performance, features, power..... every level"?
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
We always, since game engines favor one style core over another, have a reasonable average of the games chosen to be tested as indicator of "performance".Every common and popular website testing has that "performance" chalked up the GTX680 winning.
you can't argue price
you can't argue features
you can't argue power
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20% slower overall
$80 more expensive
no on the fly OC, no dyna vsync, no physx- no unique destrcution, no TXAA
loses on watts per frame
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Yes we are looking at the same review but your bias has your brain dreaming up other things ?
IceDread - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
No it does not.SLI scaling is really bad as is surround.
http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/15196-geforce...
Check the graphs.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
I guess SWE clockers are amateurs or have some shoulder chip..http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-680-sli-...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cross...
Nvidia 101 FPS
AMD 89 FPS