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.
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mckirkus - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
We need an ability to vote bad comments down. You have one guy refreshing the page to get the first comment in and the next four pages are replies to it complaining.It's broken and this system is ten year old technology. What gives?
kallogan - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
If it's 0,5" less than the GTX 580, this gpu should just fit a sugo sg05thunderising - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Buddies, this card is 499$.AMD is not going to lose much of a market share. Remember, the 400$ upwards market accounts for the smallest % of the market share of GPUs.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Well god bless that I'm such a fanboy I'm constantly checking whose market share is increasing or decreasing and then I check stock prices...( Are you all bidding for CEO jobs?)
Since this is such a twist and spin, let me share...
Last I heard once clarity was given, Nvidia's discreet desktop market share which is what we're talking about here was @ 68%, so amd can't lose much more.
You can get a distorted pretty figure for amd if you glom "all chips made" together - that may even include the console wins for amd...
Sabresiberian - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Okay, right now this IS Nvidia's flagship, because it is the best performer the company has released, but let's not forget it is not intended to be their top offering based on Kepler; it's their middle-of-the road chip.(Hopefully we really will see a price war so that "Big Kepler" isn't even more expensive, heh.)
;)
kallogan - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
A 500 dollars middle of the road chip huhuSeriously there really are people who intend to buy at this crazy price ?
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Oh yes, goodbye to my 7970.There's just a bit too much complaining going on.
I know it helps a lot and you all feel like you've done something when all the lowered tiers prices keep coming down, but an HD is $100 to $200, you people pay well over $100 each for a case and a power supply, and SSD's are $200 each at small size and quality.
Why is there so much complaining ?
4870 was $500 bucks out of the gate.
We have $739 duals standard now for long periods.(6990)
HD 5870 was $425 two months ago used when bitcoin was higher in market.
Seriously. AMD blew it, didn't give us 7970 at $249 so Nvidia couldn't drop at $299 - but do you really believe any of that right there was ever in the works ? It's very hard to swallow and say it is true.
just4U - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
Most expensive card I ever bought was a Geforce 3. Thing cost me $700.von Krupp - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Smells like victory...for the consumer!I look at these numbers and it almost makes me regret my two HD 7970s...but then I realise that the only game I play out of these benchmarks where Nvidia wins is Battlefield 3, and with 2 cards, who cares? The number of rendered frames per second are laughing all the way to the buffer bank no matter whose product you choose!
I'm just glad that ATI--I mean AMD--has finally gotten its act together to the point where they can compete head-to-head with Nvidia in performance instead of having to undercut on price. It brings back memories of the days where it was the Radeon 9800 Pro vs. FX 5900 Ultra.
I can see Nvidia taking this as a win and holding back on GK110, refining it more, and then releasing it as the GTX 780 after AMD launches the HD 8970. It wouldn't be too dissimilar from the GTX 480/580, except instead of just enabling locked cores they release the original high-end chip. Making a dual-chip GK104 for the GTX 690 to counter the inevitable HD 7990 seems more logical to me from a business standpoint, because I can hold GK110 and spend less on R&D for the next year.
At any rate, this is awesome. If only the CPU race was this close...
marc1000 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
your point seems logical. 2x 680 to counter 7990, bigkepler really later because there is no need for it now. i bet a beer that this is what they will do.