FRONTPAGE NVIDIA Launches GEFORCE GTX 680, aka Kepler

If these things truly beat out dual 6990's I may be looking to sell my 6950's as a pair and make up the difference for one of these babies, I guess time will tell.

K|ngp|n said:

"tested fully overclocked on air using STOCK VRM/REFERENCE fan sink design"

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1.4GHz on air achieved without addon VRMs, freakin awesome.

TiN's guide to fully modding your GTX680. Not for the faint of heart!

My friend Ramiro tried something similar.

Nice burebista; interesting they used an untouchable on air and that it survived 1.5V without issue. Thanks for sharing!

As far as our end of things, I've been told a card from EVGA was shipped yesterday. EarthDog purchased one from Newegg (a Gigabyte model) so we've got two of these beasts coming for review so far!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this card, the GTX 680, supposed to be the GTX 670 instead, with a matching price point? But since AMD's cards were so lackluster in comparison, Nvidia thought they'd shift the classification of their new cards to more closely compete with AMD, by renaming their 670 to the 680, effectively raising the price of the same card $100.

This doesn't make Nvidia sound like they care about the customers at all...

burebista said:

My friend Ramiro tried something similar.

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Impressive...I see the DVI stack has an odd shape so none of the existing 3-fan aftermarket coolers will fit the 680

I'll respecfully disagree with you there, Fireside. This card performs better than the 7970, yet Nvidia has brought it in at $50 less on the MSRP than the 7970. The cards are direct competitors in performance so I have no problem with it being called a 680GTX. But, it might give Nvidia naming trouble down the road if they release higher end Kepler cores by the end of the year

I suspect 685 will be the next single GPU Kepler

+1.

They are a business. They are in business to make profit. I have to agree whole heartedly with mudd on this one. Doesnt matter what it was *supposed* to be, it is what it is and for the price is a pretty solid deal. I mean fastest single GPU for less than the 2nd fastest, consumes less power, is quieter, and $50 cheaper.

@ Mudd - Why not 7 series... wasnt the 580 a 'full' version of the 480? So if the big daddy does come out, it fits right in, no? Maybe 685?

EDIT: Heh,, Brolloks.

As I understand it (not from NVIDIA, just from reading around) GK110 isn't finished yet, so they couldn't release that. AMD was kicking their prior gen in the rear-end and they had something that could beat it at a better price point. Thus, GK104 was released at a lower price.

AMD has reportedly said they aren't sweating and can beat this (with one GPU), so it was actually smart business not to tip their hand with the full GK110 beast.

It might not be the best for the consumer, but these guys exist to make money. Why release something that puts the competition squarely in their rear-view and charge $600 when you can beat it by a little bit and charge $50 less than the competition at $500?

I spent my IB money.... I should have an evga version here, in a few days too.

My first time ever buying anything on launch day!

The GK110 wasn't anywhere close to done. It just taped out in January/February if you believe the rumor mill. The GK104 wasn't released simply because it was competitive, it was released because it's what they had available. Regardless of what it was "supposed" to be or what chip it follows up on is irrelevant. Nobody here was in the nVidia board room during planning, so nobody knows. Just because the GPU number makes it coincide with the 560ti doesn't mean it was initially intended to be a 660ti. Fact is, it is what it is, and it's what nVidia brought to market. It's a compelling product with good thermals, moderate power consumption, and very good performance at a price point that's extremely competitive. Given its relatively small die size, the price should stay competitive for quite some time. Neither nVidia nor AMD have any obligation to sell their wares for any given percentage over their cost. All these companies have shareholders, and shareholders tend to demand profits, so the products are priced at a level that they think the market will bear. I wish this stuff were less expensive too, but reality is reality and if wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets, y'know?

I tend to think that the GK110 will be a 700 series card, but with the naming shenanigans of recent GPU generations, nobody can really say for sure. nVidia might go to the 7 series just to catch their numbering up to AMD. Time will tell.

xsuperbgx said:

I spent my IB money.... I should have an evga version here, in a few days too.

My first time ever buying anything on launch day!

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Good for you! Exciting, eh? I just came across a pic of the last 68 series card I bought for $500 on launch day:

Our first victim has arrived. Please excuse the cell photo.



Unfortunately we have visitors this weekend and I can't touch it until next week, but rest assured it will be tortured as much as I can well when the time comes!

muddocktor said:

I'll respecfully disagree with you there, Fireside. This card performs better than the 7970, yet Nvidia has brought it in at $50 less on the MSRP than the 7970. The cards are direct competitors in performance so I have no problem with it being called a 680GTX. But, it might give Nvidia naming trouble down the road if they release higher end Kepler cores by the end of the year

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The thing is prices for the 680 over in the uk (dependant on model spec) are the same or higher than a 7970. average prices =
gtx680 = 424 gbp 7970 = 400 gbp

Secondly as seen on overlockers uk theres quite a stir up about how the 680gtx is compared to a 7970 in reviews. Comparing a standard 680 against a standard 7970 yes the 680 will win. But as we knows the clocks on the 7970 are artificially low. Yes there are reviews of overclocked vs overclocked and i'm not going to debate which card is the best, because quite honestly its sometimes one or the other depending on the game.

My issues are with this, people misquote the 680 as being faster than the 7970 like its faster in every game. This mostly true when the 7970 is standard, but some games stock for stock the 7970 wins. Secondly fair play to nvidia for making a card which is their midrange offering but can equal/ sometimes beat a 7970 depending on game.

The gtx680 really is impressive and I congratulate Nvidia on everything bar the price (uk price).

The 7970 is overpriced and so is the gtx680. Everyone in the uk knocked down the 7970 as underwhelming and expensive for the performance it offers. Yet the gtx 680 is so close to performance and price but yet it seems to be acceptable because its Nvidia?
I really can't understand this. Neither can I understand people saying that the 680's release should drive down the price of the 7970's?

On overclockers uk theres a guy called martini who is going to prepare a game bench test between an overclocked 7950 and a 680.
So when I get home from work I look forward to his findings.

Finally I have an unlocked 6950 and clocked. Now the games I've noticed that have struggled a bit have been Crysis 2 with the dx11 extra pack, Bf3 does struggle a little bit on multiplayer but I turn down the msaa, and the other game is metro in dx11 not too great at all.

A 680 or 7970 does offer almost double my 6970s performance, but in metro both cards still are way below 60fps.

It depends on how games are made in the future as to how well these cards architectures will perform in the future, but if games are going to be more taxxing like metro, then I can see both of these cars might struggle on future titles.

But thats how you compare... Stock vs Stock. Sure you can overclock a 7970 to the moon, but is it enough to beat an overclocked 680 (which also clocks well (maybe not as far as 7970)? Is it worth the extra $50 (in the US), power consumption, noise to see? Thats up to the user.

EarthDog said:

But thats how you compare... Stock vs Stock. Sure you can overclock a 7970 to the moon, but is it enough to beat an overclocked 680 (which also clocks well (maybe not as far as 7970)? Is it worth the extra $50 (in the US), power consumption, noise to see? Thats up to the user.

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I agree thats how you compare stock for stock yes and this is amds fault for clocking them so low, Depends on what games as to where the cards battle it out vs their clock speeds.
For myself I wont be buying either I'm happy with what I've got, It's going to be interesting with the round 2 of nvidia/amd's offerings.

I cant see them offering a bios flash upgrade to up the clocks for the avrage user who doesnt know how to overclock.
So will be intersting how amd play their next card.
Speculation is a 7990/their usual dual gpu malarky, Or could they make a 7980 and clock it and work it a bit ?

The 7970 is overpriced and so is the gtx680. Everyone in the uk knocked down the 7970 as underwhelming and expensive for the performance it offers. Yet the gtx 680 is so close to performance and price but yet it seems to be acceptable because its Nvidia?
I really can't understand this. Neither can I understand people saying that the 680's release should drive down the price of the 7970's?

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I dont think I have witnessed that sentiment (acceptable b/c its Nvidia). There are a couple of games the 7970 wins, but the rest the 680 takes it (Read: Anandtech review, Tom's, Techpowerup).

In reading the Anand review, it beats out the GTX 580 by an average of like 30-40%. Thats big. Prior to its release, the GTX580 was selling (in the US) from $400-$530 (non watercooled). Now its $360 - $500 (non watercooled).

On overclockers uk theres a guy called martini who is going to prepare a game bench test between an overclocked 7950 and a 680.
So when I get home from work I look forward to his findings.

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I dont understand this... I would imagine it would catch up and possibly beat it. BUT, (like fractions) do to one side what you do to another. When you overclock the 680, I would imagine it still beat out the 7950.

I think performance and overclockability are two separate issues, personally.

Stock performance is important - it represents what any non-faulty card is capable of.

Overclockability has two parts to it: how far? and how likely? This is something we'll not properly see until the cards have been out for longer. Is every card equally overclockable? Is it a case of just getting lucky? How many of each card are people like kingpin binning? Did he bench just those four or did he chuck out two, seven, thirty-eight cards before them?

Overclocked vs overclocked is an interesting facet, but I think stock performance is an important variable. Any card will run stock, but we don't know yet necessarily how good the cards are for overclocking generally.