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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george1976 - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
Excuse me sir but I think you've been reading the wrong article.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Just a heads up guys, we're a bit behind schedule and are still adding images and tables, so hold on.casteve - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
whew - thought my coffee hadn't kicked in :)Granseth - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Hi, liked the review but are missing a few things, though I expect them to be reviewed at a later time in a new article. Like the improved multi-screen support, SLI, overclocking and things like that.But I would like to know more about this turbo as well. What I am courious about is if it will boost minimum framerate as well as average framerate, or if the GPU is so taxed when it hits minimum framerate that it won't have anything extra to offer up to its turbo.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Minimum framerates. -16% power target on the left, stock on the right.Crysis Min: 21.4...21.9
Dirt3 Min: 73.4....77.1
So to answer your question, it depends on the game.
Jamahl - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Just a comment on the power draw - I wonder if you could test the 680 and 7970 in a different game, say for example Batman of BF3. The reason for this is due to the 7970 winning in Metro, while losing in most of the others and I wonder if there is something going on regarding power draw.CeriseCogburn - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
See the GTX 680 win in Metro 2033 all the way on up 1920 and 2560 resolutions >http://hothardware.com/Reviews/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-...
What's different is AAA is used, as well as the Sandy E runs stock at 3,300 and is not overclocked.
What appears to be a big problem for AMD cards is they have been offloading work to the cpu much more than the Nvidia cards, and even more so in CF v SLI, so when you don't have a monster CPU with a monster overclock to boot the AMD cards lose even worse.
SlyNine - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Anandtech uses AAA for Metro.You need to look agian, the difference is no DOF and hothardware is running at lower settings.
you, fail.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Oh I didn't fail, I showed the 680 winning in the game that is claimed it loses in.That's a WIN for me, period.
SlyNine - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Ok so your 500$ video card can win at lower settings than the 459$ videocard.