EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Classified Review: Pushing GTX 680 To Its Peak
by Ryan Smith on July 20, 2012 12:00 PM ESTFinal Words
Wrapping things up, it’s hard not to find ourselves coming to two opinions on EVGA’s GeForce GTX 680 Classified.
Treated like any other GTX 680, out of the box the GTX 680 is a very impressive card. EVGA’s various touches such as 4GB of RAM, a larger cooler, a factory overclock, and of course additional VRM circuitry that leads to a higher stock power target, all serve to make the GTX 680 Classified a clearly better card than the reference GTX 680. Furthermore thanks in large part to EVGA’s binning there’s even more overclocking headroom to play with, leading us to reach a 1211MHz core clock without ever increasing its voltage. It’s a very good – if very expensive – GTX 680.
Of course the real draw with the GTX 680 Classified is with its overvolting support, and that’s where things don’t hold up quite as well. From an end-user perspective NVIDIA’s overvolting restrictions make the entire voltage manipulation process needlessly difficult. The fact that an external controller is required for voltage control and that it can’t easily be tied to overclocking settings is a considerable step back from what GTX 500 series cards could do. NVIDIA has purposely made overvolting more difficult, and while it’s not impossible it’s enough to give you pause as to whether the additional effort and the additional cost are worth it.
Bringing that into further consideration is that our overclocking results with overvolting weren’t all that great. With a reasonable voltage increase we picked up an additional 75MHz on the GPU clock and 100MHz on the memory clock, which compared to our initial overclock on stock voltage isn’t a particularly big improvement. While we hate to draw overclocking conclusions from a single sample, if our results are anywhere near accurate then it means EVGA is wringing out most of the potential of the GTX 680 in the factory, which is great for conservative overclocking, but it diminishes the value of having overvolting.
Ultimately there’s a sizable contingent of enthusiasts that will buy the GTX 680 Classified regardless of the above simply because it has overvolting support, and those enthusiasts will be perfectly happy with the card even with the restrictions NVIDIA has put in place. At the same time gamers who are simply looking for an ultra-premium GTX 680 will find that the GTX 680 Classified fills that role well. Otherwise if you’re on the fringe and are considering other cards (e.g. the GTX 680 FTW+), then this will probably come down to how you view its unique features. The GTX 680 Classified is without question an impressive card, but with a price tag of $659 (+$80 for EVBot) that may not be quite enough if you don’t value voltage control.
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ubernator44 - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
edit, sorry 17 phases :P 14+3 phases :Psan1s - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
This isn't really intended for ordinary gamers, but rather overclockers using exotic cooling. In that case, the overclocking features this card provides makes it a far more valuable card to them in comparison to reference cards.RussianSensation - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
Ya, but in that case the MSI Lightning 680 imo is the better card. It has more premium components and is also ready for LN2.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
And has a 375 W ceiling..... right....Sabresiberian - Sunday, July 22, 2012 - link
As far as cooling solution, that's just your opinion, (actually from what I've read it's wrong because the Lightning gets warmer) and a lot of people aren't going to like MSI's because they want the warm air moved out of the case.The big kicker for me though is the 4GB of memory; if you plan on running 3x 2560x1440, 2GB just isn't enough. I'm an MSI fan, but I can't use their product to fill my needs. If I want 4GB and "unlocked voltage" my only choice is the EVGA Classified.
Amoro - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
I wonder why the SC version is the only one with overclocked memory. Does that mean that overclocking the memory isn't valuable? Typo maybe?ltcommanderdata - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Probably because stable memory overclocking is difficult to achieve when you are trying to drive double the VRAM. Seeing 4GB of VRAM seems to be overkill, keeping 2GB of VRAM and increasing memory clocks would probably have been more worthwhile although it doesn't quite have the same marketing ring to it as "4GB".CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 29, 2012 - link
I wondered where all the blabbering amd fanboys skittered off to in their constant 3GB ram drone psychosis....Let me just share a quote : " Quote :
The 4GB -- Realistically there was not one game that we tested that could benefit from the two extra GB's of graphics memory. Even at 2560x1600 (which is a massive 4 Mpixels resolution) there was just no measurable difference. "
LOL
So now the blabbering jerks will yapper about cost, complain about the 7970 6GB being "superior" and have the most enormous and gigantic brain fart concerning their endlessly godless and irritatingly stupid 3GB ram superiority dance vs 2GB 680 670.
It's a freaking TOTAL BLACKOUT at alcoholic blood toxic death level.
Just wait, because no amount of evidence will do it for the amd fanboy, and their masters at amd have known this for years, and have been playing them like a retarded out of tune fiddle gets played. A week or a day on they will be back at it, on some other article , any webspot they land... and the brain fart will be what they are not even aware of.
It's clear how Hitler came to power.
mpschan - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Where are their mid-range offerings? Where are their $200-300 cards on this latest architecture?I'm starting to think that by the time we see a 660 AMD will be releasing their 8000 series.
superccs - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Yeah I totally clicked on this article thinking it was a 660 review. WTF? Nvida, you no like midrange anymore?Bork!