Review: Nvidia GTX 680

In the first few months of this year, enthusiast PC gamers have been treated to the launch of not one but two all-new ranges of graphics cards, from both AMD and Nvidia. We’ve already tested out AMD’s full range, and now we finally get to try the first off the block from Nvidia, the GeForce GTX 680, thanks to PlayTech kindly loaning us a Galaxy-branded specimen.

The GeForce GTX 600 series of GPUs is built on the new 22nm Kepler microarchitecture, which according to Nvidia is a reengineering rather than a complete redesign of the older Fermi microarchitecture of the GTX 500 family.

Compared to the older GTX 580, the GTX 680 has three times the number of stream processors running at just under two-thirds of the speed, almost doubling raw processing power. Memory speed has been increased from 4GHz to 6GHz, but bus width has reduced from 384bit to 256bit which neatly cancels out the speed boost. The card does boast an extra 512MB of GDDR5 memory however, bringing the total to 2GB.

Physically the GTX 680 is a not-insignificant 250mm in length, is rated to draw about 195W, and requires one 6 pin and one 8 pin PCI-E power connector. An aft-mounted fan exhausts heated air out of the system in a relatively quiet manner via aluminium fins connected to the GPU via three large heatpipes. Connection-wise the Galaxy model we tested follows Nvidia’s reference design (as pictured), which is two dual-link DVI ports, one full size HDMI and one full size DisplayPort.

These ports can be used to run up to three monitors from a single GTX 680, although one of those monitors must be connected to the DisplayPort output. If you don’t have monitors with DisplayPort inputs, then you will need to purchase an active DisplayPort to DVI adaptor at a cost of roughly $70.

Enough yapping though, let’s get down to business: gaming. To gauge the capability of the GTX 680 I’ve put it up against its predecessor the GTX 580 and its nearest AMD competitor, the HD 7970 3GB.

Looking at those results, the GTX 680 is over 20% faster than the GTX 580 in the titles we tested. Considering it doesn’t quite cost 20% more than what the GTX 580 sold for, that’s not a bad deal.

While it also handily outperforms the AMD Radeon HD 7970, it loses the value fight with a higher dollars-per-FPS rating. A lot of initial reviews from around the global were done when the GTX 680 was priced lower than the HD 7970, so it’s always a good idea to bear current, local pricing in mind.

Hopefully the upcoming releases of the GTX 670 and 690 cards will push its price back into line.


Comparison: GTX 680 vs HD 7970

Test	Settings	Nvidia GTX 680	AMD Radeon HD 7970
3DMark 11 (Score)	Performance (1280x720)	9034	8065
	Extreme Preset (1920x1080)	3144	2769
Heaven 2.5 (FPS)	Default Preset (1920x1080)	78.9	68.4
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (FPS)	Ultra 4xAA, HBAO High + Tess. (1920x1080)	102.7	102.9
Battlefield 3 (FPS)	Ultra Preset (1920x1080)	61.3	59.5
	Ultra Preset (3840x1024)	36.8	37.2
DiRT3 (FPS)	Ultra + 8xAA (1920x1080)	101	87.5
	Ultra + 4xAA (3840x1024)	70.7	59.6
Trackmania Nations Forever (FPS)	Very high, 4xAA (1920x1080)	102.0	84.5
	Very high, 8xAA, 16xAF (3840x1024)	86.5	60.4
Anno 2070 (FPS)	Very High , Vsync off (1920x1080)	87.1	79.8
	Very High , Vsync off (3840x1024)	46.9	44.3
Average FPS		77.4	68.4
Average retail price (at time of writing)		$ 949.00	$ 799.00
Dollars per FPS (lower = better)		$ 12.26	$ 11.68
Idle power (Windows desktop)		97W	89W
Load power (3DMark 11 Extreme)		275W	289W

Comparison: GTX 680 vs GTX 580

Test	Settings	GTX 680	GTX 580
3DMark 11 (Score)	Performance (1280x720)	9034	6689
Battlefield 3 (FPS)	High Preset	102.3	68.4
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (FPS)	Ultra, 4xAA, HBAO high + Tess.	102.7	88.2
Heaven 2.5 (FPS)	Default Preset	78.9	55.7
Trackmania Nations Forever (FPS)	Very high, 4xAA	102.0	117.0
Anno 2070 (FPS)	Very High , Vsync on	59.3	42.9
Average FPS		89.04	74.44
Average retail price		$ 949.00	$ 799.00
Dollars per FPS (lower = better)		$ 10.66	$ 10.73

Test system: Intel DP67BG motherboard, Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz CPU, 2x2GB Kingston DDR3-1600 CL9 memory, 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD, Windows 7 Pro SP1.

Note: After testing the GTX 580 and sending it back home, we expanded the gaming tests to include DiRT3 and multi-monitor resolutions across most titles, with the help of three 1280 x 1024-pixel LCD screens (for a total resolution of 3840x1024), hence the two separate comparisons.