18 replies to this topic

[CyclopsSlayer]

The 680 looks to be a beast of a card, both in price tag $500, and in performance which seems similar to many 500 family 2 card solutions. All the while only consuming the power of a 560ti with the same noise level of a 560ti.

Official Announce: http://www.youtube.c...a?feature=watch

Here is a post with a round up of GTX680 reviews: HardOCP GTX680 Roundup

So start saving the cash now for the first card to make the games cry..

[Entaro]

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!

[LadyZENITH]

It is overpriced. This GK104 core is actually a replacement for GF104/114 core aka GTX460/560, not 580 or whatever Nvidia marketing says. It is actually just a gutted mainstream card that was overclocked and cut off all the GPGPU features and the saved space was used to push fillrate and SM3.0 performance even higher. So, that in gaming performance of today's outdated game engines designed with consoles in mind it can compete or even beat the best card of the competition... well... congratulations of creating such a thing that is technologically more backwards then original Fermi.

This is... this is just another G92, and like G92 it will fall in price rapidly, this thing was designed to launch at retail price of 300 dollars and that's its worth. Not 500. If you want to donate to Nvidia there are better ways to do it. I'm not willing to buy a mainstream card for high end price. Simply not. Lets wait a couple of months till that thing gets 1/3 price cut as it should and also, when GK110 core is released, aka the big one, the true high end one, this will be the one I get.

You may get the GTX680 or 670 yeah, but don't do it for this price, or you will curse yourself later. Remember the story of G92. Used and sold like high end in 9800GTX, to be re-released as GTS250 not even half year later with less then half the price. This is exactly what they did and are doing it again. Don't fall for that.

[Entaro]

I wasn't gonna build a new comp until AA is closer to being done anyway.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Yes, on further reading I agree. Seems the truly new GK110 core isn't due until later this year. So this might just be an interim like the 300 family was, immediately to be replaced by the 400's.

The card does say good things about the direction of power, heat and overall performance, mostly due to the 28nm format it seems. The price tag, not so much on the good side.
I wouldn't mind having one, but would regret paying for it. Not planning on a new computer build until 9-12 months down the road, we'll see what is out then. I really don't feel a pressing need to play EQ2 or WoW at 300fps...

[LlexX]

I really don't feel a pressing need to play EQ2 or WoW at 300fps...

Hehe, good point there

And the price of it will drop down drastically from $500 in a matter of few weeks and stabilize somewhere around ~$300 as usually.

Its interesting what Miya said, so at nVidia things not going as planned with the new series of graphic cards, and they had to overclock an older card and give it out with a new name? .

[CyclopsSlayer]

Seems to be partially that, and part some new technologies. The smaller scale die, the turbo boost, these seem new. The TXAA since it is going to also apply to older cards seems just a driver feature.

[Cavarath]

Who care whether or not it is an old core?
Its beating and GPU on the market. Mostly by far. Thats the only thing that counts.

But yeah, its to expensive to buy. On the other side is it still just as expensive as the Raedon 7970 but faster. Its also using a lot less power than the 580 and less than the 7970.

[LlexX]

I just want a powerful and quite graphic card, its not fun when you friends come over, and asking:
"what is this noise, you bought a private helicopter?"

[Cavarath]

Yeah like with my first and last Raedon. I was always thinking a invisible person is using vacuum cleaner right beside me.
The 7970 is 10DB louder than the 680, btw. And dont forget, DB is a logarithmic value.

[CyclopsSlayer]

The 680 is rated at ~41db. My current card is effectively silent at ~39db. With the case side off and all noise in the room off I can barely hear it at my desk and keyboard, case closed and I hear nothing at all. (Case fans are 4x 120mm, 2 in, 2 out, as well as the PSU 120mm.)

[LadyZENITH]

Who care whether or not it is an old core?
Its beating and GPU on the market. Mostly by far. Thats the only thing that counts.

But yeah, its to expensive to buy. On the other side is it still just as expensive as the Raedon 7970 but faster. Its also using a lot less power than the 580 and less than the 7970.

Nope, if you understand it, you know details, technology and future matters. Buying this fro 500 dollars is really unwise. You are buying mainstream chip for high end price, it is only roughly 1/3 faster then GTX580 and that is about 2 years old thing. I do not see that as a considerable progress. It is a huge progress from GTX560 aka GF114, and that actually is what it should be, this is the new top mainstream card, just renamed and placed as high end because the competition from AMD id pretty weak this generation and their prices are even more awful. But when the full Kepler aka GK110 core comes, that will be the moment to make a decision.

[Zil]

I'm gonna 3-way SLI those bitches.


Will go well with my 8x8gb RAM.

[LadyZENITH]

SLI suxx because it is based on the crappy AFR rendering.

Actually I just finished testing the 680, even in SLI. It was kinda hard to spot the negative impacts of SLI, because it was so overpowered by default. I was unable to crop under 60fps in crysis when i had AF16x, AA16Q and even TRAA to 8x supersample and I was still unable to break it. It has a very solid brute-force performance. They fixed the only issue the Fermi architecture had, aka too few texture units, they doubled them and as a result, when using TRAA the performance is almost double then what it was on 580.

When I under-clocked it to 400/1600 i could fially observe how SLI behaves. Well, if you keep it 45+ fps it is fine, under that serious issues, so it is like always worthless. The frame limiter and adaptive vsync are also not doing great in SLI. Especially the frame limiter which OI was hoping to solve the microstutering issues, is actually ruining it completely.

But that being said, we all know SLI/Crossfire both suxx horribly, but the card itself is good, very good. It is the best performing card in games so far. + The new features are awesome. Not that much the adaptive vsync, not at all the dynamic turbo and such, but the frame limiter combined with standard vsync is.

I managed to get a result with it, that I can play with vsync on so no tearing ever and much smoother feeling + NO INPUTLAG which was unheard off till now (except with old 3DFX glide, that had vsync without inputlag).

You basically need to force vsync on, then use nvidia inspector to activate the frame limiter and set it under your vsync. So if you have 60hz monitor,set it to 58 or maybe even less. The only condition is that your GPU must be faster then that. That is never an issue with GTX680 in today's games, so, if that happens, the GPU can produce more frames then is demanded, as a result, you not only save power and make it more quiet and cold, but that way you also keep the pedbuffer empty. And with pedbuffer (where there are usually 3 frames stored in) empty = no inputlag. And that is really amazing.

And one more thing, some of the features Nvidia marked as GTX680 only that they will not be implemented trough drivers on older cards. Well, guess what.... it is a SW only thing, GTX680 as a HW is not more advanced then original Fermi, it actually is in some ways more simple, to be more energy efficient, so both can do the same. It took me like 10 minuted to make the drivers work on my old GTX480 and it works the same, aka great, and 680 is off course 40% faster in average.

But with all of that being said, I would still say wait and do not buy it. Rumors are that Nvidia is going to introduce the big chip already in may, and it will sell in August. My expectations is that their marketing will name it GTX780, based on the big GK110 core. The current GK104 aka GTX680 will be send where it belongs, aka to mainstream, it will receive smaller PCB and different cooler, it will look similar to GTX560TI, and it will drop in price by 20-30%. The 780GTX will cost 20-30% more then 680, but the performance will remain unbeaten for the whole 28nm generation, as far as my information go, AMD has nothing that can come even close to that even planned (if you do not count some worthless X2 crossfire based card). Their flagship has issues competing with GK104 and that is automatically win for Nvidia, because their drivers and support are just superior, and the gap got even wider with the 300-series drivers and the new features in them.

[Shango]

Thank you, Miyafuji. My friend (and I) are grateful (well... I can't say he is 100% happy because he doesn't like to be patient and now he has to consider waiting until August to see how prices change...). Still, very useful information and the time you took to test things and write down your thoughts is much appreciated. Thx again for all of your tech-related posts^^

[Entaro]

Indeed, I may need to get you to get a kickass build together for me near the NA release.

[CyclopsSlayer]

The 680 is expensive, but damn does it perform. I cannot wait until the GK110 drops the price of the 680 or there is a new flavor of the mainstream card based on the 110. Either way looks like a new card in my future a few months down the road.

[LadyZENITH]

Thank you, Miyafuji. My friend (and I) are grateful (well... I can't say he is 100% happy because he doesn't like to be patient and now he has to consider waiting until August to see how prices change...). Still, very useful information and the time you took to test things and write down your thoughts is much appreciated. Thx again for all of your tech-related posts^^

It is not about patience but logic. There is the golden original rule. When it comes to key components, do not upgrade if the upgrade will not at least double your performance.

I'm actually forced to test things by my own because the reviews these days have got terrible. Everything is getting good reviews, even the worst crap. I did a little probe inside to find out most of the review sites do it to not make the manufacturers or retailers angry, because if they keep good with them, they give them early samples so they can have the reviews ready the second the NDA is lifted, etc. So most of the reviews are actually corrupted, and even those which are not completely ignore very important stuff like driver settings, texture filtering quality tests, etc. I really do not care if that cards consume 30W less under load, but I had to test myself the performance with transparency antialliasing, as none of the reviews featured that, and it is a crucial thing if you are really want to buy a high end card, I expect you want the best image possible, and in many games, TRAA gives a lot. This is even Archeage relevant because in Cry engine there is a lot of vegetation and it helps there a lot, it is a significant visual improvement. And no, none tests it because it is actually not working on AMD cards since mid 2009 due to bugged drivers... .and we do not want to look at what they do not want us to look.... pff... so I had to test it all myself again.

It actually fascinates me, that sometimes companies release official videos or screenshots without properly set drivers. Those videos are supposed to promote the game and I never saw there TRAA, sometimes even missing AA (sharp geometry edges) and often missing AF (blured textures).

[Shango]

Unfortunately, your observations about HW reviews is true for pretty much everything else, including consumer goods and services, interviews with politicians and celebrities, entertainment reviews (including gaming), etc. I'm pretty sure you know all of this, but I just can't resist getting on my soapbox for a second here...

Nowadays, most "journalists" and "critics" are little more than over-glorified PR people for the big companies who send them crap. The minute that anybody actually asks hard questions, or tests for things that are important (but that might highlight some flaw, like the buggy AMD drivers), or pans a blockbuster film and gives it an enthusiastic "thumbs down" -- well, you can bet that reviewer will be blacklisted and will no longer have exclusive access to the very things that they review in order to make their livelihood. In other words, they lose their job because without exclusive access to the newest gpu, or some big name celebrity/politician, they have little to offer the masses (who care only about getting reviews and "exclusive interviews" as early as possible, not whether or not the information is accurate or not).

It's unfortunate, but when most reviewers/journalists in that position face a choice between being dishonest to pay the rent or being honest despite the consequences, it doesn't take them long to decide that dishonesty is the best policy. So, we get reviews just like you mentioned that are little more than spitting back the key talking points and leaving consumers to fend for themselves (in other words, everything is great... even crap). Fortunately, there are people like you out there who have the knowledge (and means) to test things in an in-depth fashion. It's valuable information and I hope others take the time to read through what you say about builds/HW/etc.

Between pestering CyclopsSlayer relentlessly, bugging my impatient friend, and reading your various posts about HW -- I feel pretty confident about what I will do re: building a PC (or two) for AA. All it took was a lot of reading and then looking things up and then reading some more. But, there's the problem, I guess: It's all a matter of how much people are willing to read and research and, unfortunately (as you've said before), people don't like to read. It's a pity too.... because then they wouldn't post questions that you've answered like 2-3 times in the very area of the forum where they asked the question in the first place. DAMNIT! WHY WON'T IT REAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD!!!!? <-- sorry, couldn't resist xD

P.S. My friend knows all about limiting upgrades until you are sure they are really worth it, but he has been using a 4870 for a looooong time and can finally afford to upgrade, so he is just anxious to do it now that he can finally afford it (getting married + having two kids + buying a house = expensive). I sent him all of your stuff about the 680 and the next line being rumored to come out in August, so he was just dismayed that he can either upgrade now or wait until the "780" helps drops the price for the 560ti, and even the 680. I suggested he wait, but he doesn't want to hear that right now. Sometimes logic gets trumped by other things (it doesn't help that I've been asking him endless HW questions over the past several days).