NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2012 9:00 AM ESTThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Prior to the launch of our new benchmark suite, we wanted to include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which is easily the most popular RPG of 2011. However as any Skyrim player can tell you, Skyrim’s performance is CPU-bound to a ridiculous degree. With the release of the 1.4 patch and the high resolution texture pack this has finally been relieved to the point where GPUs once again matter, particularly when we’re working with high resolutions and less than high-end GPUs. As such, we're now including it in our test suite.
Skyrim presents us with an interesting scenario. At anything less than 2560 we’re CPU limited well before we’re GPU limited, and yet even though we’re CPU limited NVIDIA manages to take a clear lead while the 680 still finds room to push to the top. For whatever the reason NVIDIA would appear to have significantly less driver overhead here, or at the very least a CPU limited Skyrim interacts with NVIDIA’s drivers better than it does AMD’s.
In any case 2560 does move away from being CPU limited, but it’s not entirely clear whether the difference we’re seeing here is solely due to GPU performance, or if we’re still CPU limited in some fashion. Regardless of the reason the GTX 680 has a 10% lead on the 7970 here.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
404 Comments
View All Comments
Hrel - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
It is a little weird that Nvidia gave up ground on the compute side, but their architecture is still vastly superior at tesselation. Which is the main point of DirectX11 and the biggest breakthrough in graphics in the past 12 years; maybe longer. AMD has improved that part of their GPU's quite a bit since the HD4000/HD5000 series; but they clearly still have a long way to go.Nvidia wins on every single front; this is why all my graphics cards are Nvidia now. I'm just glad AMD is so competitive, hopefully prices will start falling again, before December.
SydneyBlue120d - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Hope to see some testing about video decoding and encoding, especially 4K compared with AMD cards :) Thanks :)shaggart5446 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
seems like tom is getting paid just like fuddo where on earth could you say gtx680 is better than 7970 nediot pick your games them what to bench mark why did amd win in some test result shouldnt nediot wins all the bench mark if your gonna say gtx680 is fastersilverblue - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
No.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Obviously amd has been paying off Crysis and Metro game companies )CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
But not Crysis 2 game company which we can't benchmark anymore because amd can't play that modern title )edwpang - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
It'll be interesting to know the real engine clock these cards are running when testing, since GTX 680 has the "Boost Clock" feature.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Unfortunately Precision X doesn't have any logging, so I don't have any precise numbers. However I did take notes from what I saw in Precision X during our testing, which I'm happy to post here (just keep in mind that they're my internal notes).----
Crysis: Generally sustained at 1097; fluctuates some at 2560 between 1071 and 1097 due to power load.
Metro: Frequently bounces between a range of 1045 to 1097.
Dirt 3: Bounces between 1084 and 1097.
Shogun 2: Fluctuates between 1071 and 1019; very high load.
Batman: Some fluctuating between 1097 and 107.
CivV: Mostly 1097; a few drops to 1084.
Portal 2: Between 1058 and 1006.
BF3: 1097 sustained
SC2: 1097 sustained
Skyrim: 1097 sustained
SLG: 1097 sustained
Everyone - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
"the GTX 680 is faster, cooler, and quieter than the Radeon HD 7970"Sounds just like the launch of the 5870. But here's the problem. I bought a 5870 over two years ago, in a decent sale which had it priced at $325. Just now, two years later, are we getting cards that beat its performance by a wide margin and make me feel like it's actually time to upgrade. But look at the pricing! The Nvidia 680 is $500. There still isn't a card out there at the price level I paid two years ago (a price level I feel very comfortable with in contrast to the over $500 card market which I view as 'high end out of my wallet range') gives me a decent jump in performance over my 5870.
I read every new videocard review anandtech posts, but I can't shake the feeling that something here is a little weird. In such a rapidly evolving market, why is it that two years later there hasn't been a realistic improvement in the level of graphics cards that I (and many others I'd imagine) am interested in?
prophet001 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
talk to obama