NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Once again we have reached the end of another GPU launch article and once again we have a lot of data to digest, so let’s get to it.
For the last few generations AMD has always put up a good fight and always managed to spoil NVIDIA in some manner, be it by beating NVIDIA to market by months like we saw with the 5000 series, or significantly undercutting NVIDIA and forcing them into a bloody price war as we saw with the 4000 series. This time AMD once again spoiled NVIDIA by releasing the Radeon HD 7970 nearly 3 months early, but as always, at the end of the day it’s NVIDIA who once again takes the performance crown for the highest performing single-GPU card.
What makes this launch particularly interesting if not amusing though is how we’ve ended up here. Since Cypress and Fermi NVIDIA and AMD have effectively swapped positions. It’s now AMD who has produced a higher TDP video card that is strong in both compute and gaming, while NVIDIA has produced the lower TDP and weaker compute part that is similar to the Radeon HD 5870 right down to the display outputs. In some sense it’s a reaction by both companies to what they think the other did well in the last generation, but it’s also evidence of the fact that AMD and NVIDIA’s architectures are slowly becoming more similar.
In any case, this has ended up being a launch not quite like any other. With GTX 280, GTX 480, and GTX 580 we discussed how thanks to NVIDIA’s big die strategy they had superior performance, but also higher power consumption and a higher cost. To that extent this is a very different launch – the GTX 680 is faster, less power hungry, and quieter than the Radeon HD 7970. NVIDIA has landed the technical trifecta, and to top it off they’ve priced it comfortably below the competition.
Looking at the bigger picture, I think ultimately we still haven’t moved very far on the price/performance curve compared to where we’ve gone in past generations, and on that basis this is one of the smaller generational jumps we've seen for a GTX x80 product, or for that matter one of the smaller leads NVIDIA has had over AMD's top card. But even with NVIDIA’s conservative pricing we’re finally seeing 28nm translate into more performance for less, which of course is really what we're interested in. To that end, based on GK104’s die size I’m left wondering where GTX 680 is going to be sitting by the end of the year as 28nm production improves, as there’s clearly a lot of potential for price cuts in the future.
But in the meantime, in the here and now, this is by far the easiest recommendation we’ve been able to make for an NVIDIA flagship video card. NVIDIA’s drive for efficiency has paid off handsomely, and as a result they have once again captured the single-GPU performance crown.
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mm2587 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Well I guess we can expect AMD to slash price $50 across the top of their line to fall back into competition. Competion is always good for us consumers.While theres no arguing gtx680 looks like a great card I am a bit dissapointed this generation didn't push the boundries further on both the red and the green side. Hopefully gk100/gk110 is still brewing and we will still see a massive performance increase on the top end of the market this generation.
Unfortunatly I predict the gk100 is either scrapped or will be launched as a gtx 780 a year from now.
MarkusN - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
As far as I know, GK100 got scrapped due to issues but the GK110 is still cooking. ;)CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Competition isn't "the same price with lesser features and lesser performance". I suppose with hardcore fanboys it is, but were talking about reality, and reality dictates the amd card needs to be at least $50 less than the 680..Lepton87 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=...So they are basically even at 2560 4xMSAA yet anand doesn't hesitate to call GTX680 indisputable king of the heel. It's strange because 7950 is at least the same amount faster than 580 yet he only implicitly said that it is faster than 580.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-27.h...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-680-revi...
http://translate.google.ca/translate...itt_einleit...
judging from those results OC7970 is at least as fast if not faster than OC680. Wonder why they didn't directly compare oc numbers, probably this wasn't in nvidia reviewiers guide. Also it's not any better in tandem
http://www.sweclockers.com/recension...li/18#pageh...
Sabresiberian - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Someone needs to learn how to read charts.What, did you post a bunch of links and think no one was going to check them out?
I'll quote one of your sources, HardwareCanucks:
"After years of releasing inefficient, large and expensive GPUs, NVIDIA's GK104 core - and by association the GTX 680 - is not only smaller and less power hungry than Tahiti but it also outperforms the best AMD can offer by a substantial amount. "
Personally, I don't much care who comes out on top today, what I want is the battle for leadership to continue, for AMD and Nvidia to truly compete with each other, and not fall into some game of appearances.
"Big Kepler" should really establish how much better it is than Tahiti, though I wouldn't be surprised if some AMD fanboys will still turn the charts upside down and backwards to try to make Tahiti the leader - just as they are doing now. Of course, the 7990 dual GPU board will be out by then, and they will claim AMD has the best architecture based on it performing better than Big Kepler (assuming it does).
I don't know what AMD has planned, but I hope they come out with something right after Kepler (September? Too long, Nvidia, too long!) that is new, that will re-establish them. Of course, then there's Maxwell for next year . . .
;)
jigglywiggly - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
it's slower in crysis, it's slowerSabresiberian - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Yeah? What if it's faster in Crysis 2?http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-68...
(While I get why using a venerable bench that Crysis provides gives us a performance base we're more familiar with, the marks for Crysis 2 show why an older model may not be such a good idea. Clearly, the GTX 680 beats out the Radeon 7970 in most DX9 benchmarks, and ALL DX11 Crysis 2 benches.)
So, your troll doesn't just fail, it epic fails.
SlyNine - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
My problem is the tests are run without AA. I'd rather seen some results with AA as I suspect that would cause the 680GTX to trade blows with the 7970.On the other hand 1920x1200 with 2x AA is AA enough for me.
HighTech4US - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
In the review all the slides are missing.For example: instead of a slide what is seen is this: [efficiency slide] or this [scheduler]
HighTech4US - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
OK, looks like it just got fixed