EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Classified Review: Pushing GTX 680 To Its Peak
by Ryan Smith on July 20, 2012 12:00 PM ESTPortal 2, Battlefield 3, Starcraft II, Skyrim, Civilization V, & Compute
Moving on to the back-half of our benchmarks, these are the games that the Kepler architecture traditionally excels at. Hopefully this means we’ll get to see the GTX 680 Classified spread its wings a bit more here.
Given how much of an emphasis SSAA puts on GPU performance it comes as no great surprise that the GTX 680 Classified does fairly well here, picking up an additional 9-10% compared to the reference GTX 680. At 52.4fps it’s just shy of what would be needed to smoothly play Portal 2 at 5670x1200 with SSAA.
Meanwhile its gains in BF3 are tempered somewhat, only picking up 7% at 2560. Though this is still enough to push it past 70fps. 1920 resolution gamers looking for a 120fps experience will also see some improvement, but it’s still not enough to average 120fps on a single card.
Oddly our SC2 framerates are almost flat. SC2 is most often CPU bound so that does come into play to some degree, but we would have expected a bit of a gain at 2560 given the 4% gain at 1920.
However the typically CPU-bound Skyrim actuals eeks out a small 3% performance improvement at 2560. Still, even a reference GTX 680 is overkill for Skyrim without 3rd part modifications.
Finally, Civilization V sees some performance improvements, but again it’s less than the full force of the factory GPU overclock. 6% at 2560 will be all that the GTX 680 Classified can do.
Moving on to compute quickly, since most compute tasks are GPU-bound the factory overclock does help to some degree. The Radeon HD 7970GE is still more than a potent adversary though.
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Belard - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
Its been a few years... so I was a bit off on the price ;PI've owned 3DFx, GF2/3/4/5/7 series and ATIs 9800Pro/4670.
I paid $190 for the GF7600GT with the extra large cooler to reduce nice (Exhaust heat out the back)... and I laughed when the reviewers complained about the dual-slot being a "problem"... WTF?! Blowing heat out is better than blowing heat off the GPU and having it stay inside the case.
After than, I spent $85 on the ATI 4670 with the HIS blower... With the way PC gaming is, I don't see the value of spending a dime over $200. And considering its been 3 years since the ATI 5000 series, the 7850 should be a $150 card at the most.
Yes, I'm planning on the PS4 to replace my PC gaming and to rid me of Windows. NO PC games = Why use Windows?
RussianSensation - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
Console gaming has its appeals. Sitting on a nice couch in front of a 50-60 inch LED/Plasma after a long-day's of work is often more comfortable than gaming on a chair at a desk. However, that PS4 won't be $150, probably more like $400-500.Visual - Monday, July 23, 2012 - link
Eh, what does your screen have to do with the rest of the hardware?I've been playing my PC games on a couch 2m away from a 47" TV for the last 5 years, a lot of them with a wireless XBOX360 controller as well, at least when I feel the extra precision of a mouse is not needed, and always at a resolution and details settings much better than the console alternative. I only play exclusives on the actual XBOX360. There is no way in hell I will ever consider console gaming a serious option.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, July 24, 2012 - link
The same type of brainfart had the guy spewing nVidia has nothing below the $400 gtx670 worth buying.Thank you for adding a dose of reality.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
The 4850 has been below $100 for a long, long time. Brand new it has been $60 for a year.Now it's $40 with a special aftermarket HS
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-ATI-Radeon-HD-4850-EA...
Whatever, you're all screwy on numbers, as it makes it easy to moan and whine.
will54 - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
I read somewhere that the GTX 660 will be coming out in August and than they are going to focus on the 700 series. Not positive but I think I read on Toms Hardware.shin0bi272 - Sunday, July 22, 2012 - link
WTF Anand? I post a link as a reply and its instantly marked as spam? that's bull shit.poohbear - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
why do you benchmark shogun 2 @ 1600p using Ultra Quality and then in 1200p you benchmark it @ very high quality? why did you drop the detail level exactly? makes no sense.Ryan Smith - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Because it was utterly unplayable at 5760x1200 at Ultra, even with 2 video cards. I'm all for bogging down a video card, but there has to be a limit.poohbear - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
no i mean u dropped the quality when u went down to 1980x1200. why did u do that? not many people really pay attention to 5760x1200, most of us are on 1080p (according to Steam hardware survey).