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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Makaveli - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
what are you ranting about wreckage NV would have done the same thing if they released their card first!Gouging its customers don't make me laugh. If the price is too high for you don't buy it.
AMD didn't put a gun to anyone head.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
Nvidia released it's last 4 flagship cards at $499, yes that's correct, and this one is that.Not sure what imaginary world you live in, but it's one that does not include the common facts at hand.
In other words, AMD already knew far beforehand the $499 flagship Nvidia card price was coming, and so did everyone else who paid attention.
consolePoS - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
I said haha busted you dickhead goddamnconsolePoS - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
woops thought my well thought out comment had been removed, oh well whilst I'm already commenting heres another: "Wreckage is a complete benson and an all around arse-bandit"slayernine - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Actually it looks to me like the 680 is hugely disappointing, losing to the 7970 and even the 7950 in some tests.Try reading the article....
Hauk - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Wreckage first again! LMAO..pandemonium - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
I'm confused...are we reading the same article? The 7970 and 680 swap top positions for the most powerful single GPU in several different ways.Where is this, "This cards beats AMD on EVERY level! Price, performance, features, power..... every level"?
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
We always, since game engines favor one style core over another, have a reasonable average of the games chosen to be tested as indicator of "performance".Every common and popular website testing has that "performance" chalked up the GTX680 winning.
you can't argue price
you can't argue features
you can't argue power
--
20% slower overall
$80 more expensive
no on the fly OC, no dyna vsync, no physx- no unique destrcution, no TXAA
loses on watts per frame
--
Yes we are looking at the same review but your bias has your brain dreaming up other things ?
IceDread - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
No it does not.SLI scaling is really bad as is surround.
http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/15196-geforce...
Check the graphs.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
I guess SWE clockers are amateurs or have some shoulder chip..http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-680-sli-...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cross...
Nvidia 101 FPS
AMD 89 FPS