NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even four years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a 60fps is still beyond the grasp of a single-GPU card.
While Crysis was a strong game for the GTX 580, the same cannot be said of the GTX 680. NVIDIA is off to a very poor start here, with the Radeon HD 7970 easily outperforming the GTX 680, and even the 7950 is tied or nearly tied with the GTX 680 depending on the resolution. On the bright side the GTX 680 does manage to outperform the GTX 580, but only by a relatively meager 17%.
Given the large gap in theoretical performance between the GTX 680 and GTX 580, as it turns out we’ve run into one of the few scenarios where the GTX 680 doesn’t improve on the GTX 580: memory bandwidth. In our overclocking results we discovered that a core overclock had almost no impact on Crysis, whereas a memory overclock improved performance by 8%, almost exactly as much as the memory overclock itself. When it comes to the latest generation of cards it appears that Crysis loves memory bandwidth, and this is something the Radeon HD 7900 series has in spades but the GTX 680 does not. Thankfully for NVIDIA not every game is like Crysis.
The minimum framerate situation is even worse for NVIDIA here, with the GTX 680 clearly falling behind the 7950, and improving on the GTX 580 by only 10%. At its worst Crysis is absolutely devouring memory bandwidth here, and that leaves the GTX 680 underprepared.
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toastyghost - Sunday, April 29, 2012 - link
oh look, a fanboy fight in the comments on a hardware site. how very original.jewie27 - Sunday, July 8, 2012 - link
tonnes? WTF?santiagodraco - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
If you think overclocking RAM (which you imply but which isn't necessarily even true) makes that big of a difference than overclocking the GPU then you are fooling yourself.The GPU does the work, not the ram.
As for price/performance yes the 680 appears to be better now (they are ALWAYS leapfrogging each other) but wait until ATI releases their new variation, cuts prices to match and beats Nvidia by 20% or more... it will happen. Does every time :)
vol7ron - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
They're both important.What does a fast number cruncher mean, if it's busy waiting on the numbers?
Both CPU and RAM are important and they can both be bottlenecks.
Iketh - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"The GPU does the work, not the ram."LOL you can't say something more stupid!
grave00 - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Sometimes I really wish the editors could come in here and mark posts with strong agreement or disagreement with statements. I'd like to know what they think of things like. GPU does all the work vs RAM doesn't do much. I have an uninformed opinion. The interested but uninformed need some kind of truth detector. Maybe just for a few pages worth. I start to lose my grip on what is real in the forum after awhile. fun though it may be.blanarahul - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Question -1To understand the statement that "GPUs do all the work and memory doesn't", consider this:-
1. You overclocked your Graphics Card, but only the core and not the memory.
You ran a benchmark and let's assume you got a score of 100.
2. Now, you overclocked your memory and ran the same benchmark again.
You got the score of 101.
This is what actually happens in MOST cases. It doesn't happen always.
Question - 2
Why it doesn't happen always?
Answer:- If you use extreme methods and take your core clock too high the memory will become a bottleneck.
Cosider that you try to overclock using Liquid Nitrogen.
1. After overclocking only the core clock to the maximum.
Benchmark score:- 150
2. You overclock your memory too.
Benchmark score:- 200
In this case the memory was holding back the GPU Core from operating at it's full potential.
But this does not happen if don't use extreme methods.
I hope this helps.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Actually the 79xx series is the 1st time in a very long time amd has had a lead, let alone a lead of 20%, let alone "leap frogging".Amd has been behind since the GTX8800 and I don't know how long before that.
Let's face it, the 79xx for 2.5 months was the 1st time amd played Frogger in a long time and made it across the street without getting flattened before stepping off the curb.
You're welcome for the correct and truth filled history.
SlyNine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Sorry but the 7970 is still much faster in crysis min fps, which I would argue is more important then average. It's faster in Metro as well.All things considered, the 7970 stands up against the 680GTX well.
Lets also consider X.264 acceleration, as far as I can tell the 680GTX has none.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
It loses in everything to 680 including 3 monitor performance.That's not standing up well, it's larger, hotter, and slower at everything, with far less features and it's $60 bucks more.
FXAA
dynamic Vsync
turbo
More features I'm sure you fans of the loser underdog don't care about as of 9 am this morning.
It's EPIC FAIL and it's not standing, it's decked to the ground and can't get up.