NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTDiRT 3
For racing games our racer of choice continues to be DiRT, which is now in its 3rd iteration. Codemasters uses the same EGO engine between its DiRT, F1, and GRID series, so the performance of EGO has been relevant for a number of racing games over the years.
First it loses, then it ties, and then it starts to win.
After a very poor start in Crysis NVIDIA has finally taken a clear lead in a game. DiRT 3 has historically favored NVIDIA’s video cards so this isn’t wholly surprising, but it’s our first proof that the GTX 680 can beat the 7970, with the GTX 680 taking a respectable 6% lead at 2560. Interestingly enough the lead increases as we drop down in resolution, which is something we have also seen with past Radeon and GeForce cards. It looks like Fermi’s trait of dropping off in performance more rapidly with resolution than GCN has carried over to the GTX 680.
In any case, compared to the GTX 580 this is another good showing for the GTX 680. The 680’s lead on the 580 is a rather consistent 36-38%.
The minimum framerates reflect what we’ve seen with the averages; the GTX 680 has a slight lead on the 7970 at 2560, while it beats the GTX 580 by over 30%.
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coldpower27 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Well, it's possible, but for financial reasons they won't do so.If they had created a 28nm product with similar thermals as the GTX 580 as well as similar die size you would indeed see a massive increase in performance..
However this generation nVidia wanted to improve on all aspects to some degree so as such not as much can go into performance.
We have an massive improvement in die area, a mile improvement in performance and a decent improvement in energy consumption and considerable improvement in energy efficiency. A very well balanced product.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
The GTX580 is $470, so who believes Nvidia was dropping a killer card in at $299 like Charlie D the red fan lie disseminator said in his rumor starting post ?His lie has worked magic on all minds.
silverblue - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
The 680 shouldn't be $300 any more than the 580 should be $470.CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Spinning so hard you're agreeing while drilling yourself into a dark hole.SlyNine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Agreed, back when the 9700pro came out we seen the first signs of this. The cards began needing external power adapters. The HSF's started growing to get those 4x increases.It was only a matter of time until they hit a wall with that method, and here we are.
johnpombrio - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Rumor is that BIG Kepler will be named GTX685 and be out in August.Philbar71 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"it takes a 16% lead over the GTX 7970 here"Whats a GTX 7970????
prophet001 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
hahai saw that too... must have been a late night last night. we can let it slide :)
N4g4rok - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
It's pretty impressive. I'd like to see what it will cost from one of the retail sites. I'm not necessarily regretting the 7950 i got, but that nice little FPS bump you get from the 680 is nothing to turn your nose up at.Jorgisven - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"Overall GTX 580 is targeted at a power envelope somewhere between GTX 560 Ti and GTX 580, though it’s closer to the former than the latter." Is this a typo (580 instead of the intended 680)? Or am I just not understanding this correctly?