I don't get why people are declaring the 680 the winner already??

What's wrong with using the full potential of a GPU out of the box?

I'm surprised this hasn't been done sooner. I like the fact that I put the new shiny video card in and it's automatically being used to its full potential, nothing wasted.

Nothing wrong... the vast majority of users don't care about overclocking anyway.. but then again, there are some of us who simply love to push their hardware to extremes and there's very little pushing to be done with this card... that being said, they one-upped AMD in the most elegant manner possible, GG nVidia.
 
Right. Best to think of it as auto-clocking and not auto-overclocking.

auto-clocking, i like that versus auto-over clocking, it's not "over"clocking if it's all warrantied and official from NVIDIA with hardware monitoring in real-time, its just auto-clocking itself to what it can do
 
It's not really overclocking, perhaps that's a bad description. It's changing its clock speed, and utilizing what is there. It is taking power available, if the card isn't near its TDP, and translating that power into more clock. It can also do the opposite, and save on clock speed and power if higher clock won't benefit performance.

Therefore, it truly is a dynamic clock, and I like the fact that the GPU can be used at its full potential in every game.

We are all going to have to modify our perception of this thing.

Fact is, the best way to evaluate performance is to do exactly what gamers do, and that is play games and crank up visual quality as high as possible. Which is exactly what we do. It's the only way to compare real-world gaming performance with dynamic clocks in-play.

The 680 is what it is out of the box, the 7970 is what it is out of the box. The ball is in AMD's court to now offer dynamic clocking in the future.

I agree, I think it's a very cool feature, and didn't mean to imply otherwise in the OP. I hope ATI comes out with something similar in the future. But for now, they don't have it. And how many people who spend 550$ on a 7970 just plug it in and leave it at stock settings? I'm guessing not many. I'm looking forward to more reviews from [H] and also from other sources comparing all of these aspects. The video card world definitely just got a whole lot more interesting.
 
So far I like the card, but I can't drop any cash on it until the 4GB cards come out. I don't want to kick myself for jumping on the 680 too soon. I'm also considering a 3GB 580... but the price is too close to decide.
 
That doesn't even make sense. If it's faster in games than a 7970 at stock how is it going to be slower than a 7950 when overclocked?

If you're talking about purely 3DMark...News flash: no one gives a shit about 3DMark outside of a relatively small group of "enthusiasts" who buy hardware as an ePeen extension.

Look again and read again... it was a reference to c/c performance.
 
I think some of you are overreacting. I don't have a dog in the race, but I think the point that is trying to be made is which card is the fastest clock per clock. If you are comparing competing technologies, I think a more uniform clock rate provides a more accurate evaluation.

Now, comparing "out of box" experiences is a different matter entirely. There is no disputing the upper hand goes to NVidia. I don't think anybody is really disputing that here. Since overclocking is now such a big part of marketing cards these days, why not include an overclocked Radeon? One card does it automatically, the other one manually, either way its still overclocking. AMD will probably lower prices now the 680 is out which will change the market again.

Bottom line, the competition will bring value to both sides again that we haven't seen for a while.
 
In before class action lawsuit over dead video cards auto clocking themselves.

that won't happen, the hardware monitoring won't set a clock speed or voltage that will break the card, it's all real-time, and the changes are made in microseconds, it won't go over TDP, and even if you set it to 33% over TDP, it will still work fine, the cards are built for higher TDP then what NVIDIA actually produced, so 195 is the TDP, but really the cards are geared to go a lot higher without breaking
 
I can certainly understand where you are coming from on that. If I were buying today or I was having issues with my Radeon HD 7970 then I would be much more inclinded to go with a GeForce GTX 680. Despite being gun shy of the model number. I still have flashbacks to the 680i SLI fiasco. :eek:

Ahh the good ole days, Q6600 and 680i SLI :> and all the problems that came with it.

Good times.

I haven't been back in the NV camp since...... GTX 285/295. Lets see how it goes, either 2 7970s or 2 680s are going up for sale soon :p
 
I disagree, we should never base what is the best card on OC potential. What matters is out of the box performance, any OC is a bonus, not a guarantee.

I have had 3 HD 7970 in my hands since it was released, 2 in my system at different times and one in a friends.

VTX3D HD 7970: Best stable OC without voltage increase - 1100/1575
HIS HD 7970: Best stable OC without voltage increase - 1135/1540
Gigabyte Windforce 3X: Best stable OC without voltage increase - 1050/1670

So not one of the HD 7970s I have tested could reach the much vaunted 1150-1200 many seem to think AMD could have easily aimed for. Don't get me wrong, the HD 7970 is a great card with great OC potential. But the idea that they ALL OC to the max without problems is wrong.
 
Good lord. It has already been stated multiple times, this is very similar to Intel's Turbo Boost. It is a new technology, not "cheating".

And for those crying about it being OC'ed and comparing to a "stock" 7970 check out this video. Linus himself said the 680 still pulled ahead when compared to an OC'ed 7970. The trick it using new OC techniques to take advantage of the GPU boost.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRChkEvBXQA&list=UUXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw&index=5&feature=plcp

It's time for people to evolve, and move on from this old way of thinking. Clock speed is becoming irrelevant, this is the first step in removing clock speed as a factor that gamers need to worry about. When a GPU can use whatever clock speed it can, and maximize its performance automatically, clock speed is less relevant.

What's important is to compare the cards "out-of-box" since this is what gamers will get. You take the card out of the box, install it in the system, and start gaming. How it performs straight out of the box is what matters, and if you compare competing cards in this way, it is 100% completely fair. It is the experience NVIDIA wanted to give gamers out of this card. It is the experience AMD wanted to give gamers out of their cards. It just is what it is.

We compare by price anyway, that's the real "benchmark" of competing video cards, not clock speed. You want to compare a $499 card to a $499 card. Then you see if Card A is better at gaming or Card B, and what experience they deliver. Price is the ultimate "fair" comparison, clock speed has nothing to do comparing video cards, period, end of story. Price, and the out of box experience is where it is at.
 
I disagree, we should never base what is the best card on OC potential. What matters is out of the box performance, any OC is a bonus, not a guarantee.

I have had 3 HD 7970 in my hands since it was released, 2 in my system at different times and one in a friends.

VTX3D HD 7970: Best stable OC without voltage increase - 1100/1575
HIS HD 7970: Best stable OC without voltage increase - 1135/1540
Gigabyte Windforce 3X: Best stable OC without voltage increase - 1050/1670

So not one of the HD 7970s I have tested could reach the much vaunted 1150-1200 many seem to think AMD could have easily aimed for. Don't get me wrong, the HD 7970 is a great card with great OC potential. But the idea that they ALL OC to the max without problems is wrong.
Highlighted your problem ;)
 
So far I like the card, but I can't drop any cash on it until the 4GB cards come out. I don't want to kick myself for jumping on the 680 too soon. I'm also considering a 3GB 580... but the price is too close to decide.

This is the main problem I have with the 680. Last round I bought a 1GB 6950 because everyone said "oh you'll never need 2 gb unless you're gaming at ultra-high resolutions". Well, that isn't the case any more. I don't upgrade that often, so when I do I like to make sure it's fairly future-proof (or as future-proof as hardware can be). I was hoping to order a 7950 or a 680 this week, looks like I'll be waiting a bit longer :( Gotta see if 4GB versions come out, and how the 2 cards really compare in more detail
 
Dude, thanks for posting this up. I can't wait to read a [H] review on SLI vs CF, but you just gave me piece of mind. 7970 CF destroys SLI GTX 680s at three monitor setup!

I haven't seen any numbers on this but it stands to reason that it's possible. Wider memory bus and more physical memory FTW.
 
Nothing wrong... the vast majority of users don't care about overclocking anyway.. but then again, there are some of us who simply love to push their hardware to extremes and there's very little pushing to be done with this card... that being said, they one-upped AMD in the most elegant manner possible, GG nVidia.

I disagree. There are several ways in which to overclock, you can overclock the TDP of the card, and the offset between baseclock and GPU Boost. Simply by moving the TDP of the card up, you are allowing the GPU to run much higher, well past TDP.

We'll see what happens when i get to overclocking, but considering custom boards, with better coolers, voltage tweaking, and these overclocking techniques, I think it might be fun for enthusiasts to play with.
 
I agree, I think it's a very cool feature, and didn't mean to imply otherwise in the OP. I hope ATI comes out with something similar in the future. But for now, they don't have it. And how many people who spend 550$ on a 7970 just plug it in and leave it at stock settings? I'm guessing not many. I'm looking forward to more reviews from [H] and also from other sources comparing all of these aspects. The video card world definitely just got a whole lot more interesting.

Believe me, I'll OC the living crap out of the GTX 680, and the 7970, and put them head-to-head overclocked. I know what you guys want to see, cause I want to see it too :p
 
why is it a winner?

out of the box it's
$50 cheaper
5-10% faster
uses 5-10% less power

So lets look at it again,, cheaper, less power, faster

how is that not winning? :confused:

I think you forgot to put on your blinders!!!

The GTX680 is the winner and it will be the winner even when AMD lowers their prices due to nVidia getting higher margins off their cards (the manufacturing price of the GTX680 is almost certainly lower than the 7970). The only place it doesn't win is compute but that's not a big deal at the moment.

I guess the other one would be the 1GB less vRAM? but at the moment that really doesn't seem to hurt it too much. Maybe in the future for more demanding games but by then nVidia will have released more appropriate cards.
 
EVGA has specs for their 4GB card, but their site has been wonky today. I think the 4GB drops either this july or early fall. I wish I made enough money that I could just buy whichever feels good now, and grab a 4GB later, but with my paycheck every purchase I make is like a move in a chess game.
 
Maybe it was august 7th and I read the date wrong? I'll be checking eventually, but I've got at least 30 tabs open and I keep bouncing between case modding, video cards, skyrim, and TVs. I've still got work to do and the day is half gone >.<
 
if you go through my posts you will see that I have no favorites, but Nvidia made a damn good card this time. Performance, Power usage and heat. It hits all the marks. I am glad they took their time and atleast this time they are late but late with an efficient fast product that beats the competition. 7970 is a great card but no longer at the price AMD is selling it at.

Once you see the inventory builds up for gtx 680 I am sure AMD will have lot of price adjustments to do.
 
July?

Isnt the gk110 suppose to be coming in august?

I highly doubt you see gk110 for a while. Nvidia has absolutely no need to release it as of this time, they can take their time on finalizing that. The reason they named this gtx 680 was for that particular reason.

I thin gtx 680 surpasses their expectations and that is probably the only reason they changed it from gtx 670 ti to gtx 680. No need to hurry up with a product that market has no need for when you already have the fastest product in the market.
 
imageview.php


i play BC2 alot and it ripps it apart at the resolution i play, 1080p.
 
Mm don't forget. Ati will have a refresh card coming around August time At that time, Nvidia will also have something newer ready for that....

There is always something newer coming....
 
let me just remind you that less than 3% of steam users use anything more than 1920x1200
/flamesuit on
 
Look AMD fans, here's the deal: If you like the 7900 series better, then buy them. They are readily available from all sites right now (Kepler is sold out everywhere so you have to wait). However don't whine about it, try to justify it, hate on others for making a different choice, etc. Make your own choice based on what matters to you and be happy in it.
 
I disagree. There are several ways in which to overclock, you can overclock the TDP of the card, and the offset between baseclock and GPU Boost. Simply by moving the TDP of the card up, you are allowing the GPU to run much higher, well past TDP.

We'll see what happens when i get to overclocking, but considering custom boards, with better coolers, voltage tweaking, and these overclocking techniques, I think it might be fun for enthusiasts to play with.

Well, then we'll pick this up after you had time to overclock the card yourself.. until then I'm holding on to my current impression.. it's not an enthusiast card, it's cheap, the TDP limitation shouldn't be there in the first place, a well built card doesn't need that to begin with, the GPU boost is pseudo overclocking since the clock dynamic is beyond my control(the end user).

Hopefully we'll see some high end integration with the TDP limitation removed, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
Don't care Nvidia or ATI, don't care this one overclocks better then that one, Don't even care about the high end enthusiast cards at all since I wouldn't ever pay that much for a card, but I do have to laugh at the constant bickering between the two camps, it's almost as bad if not worse then the 360/ps3 bickering.

What I care about is the midrange since $300 for a video card is a little more reasonable, and all today's announcements have left me with is waiting more :/ first it was wait for 7870's to launch, then wait for them to become available, now AMD is going to reprice everything to match Nvidia's offerings (dropping 550 to 500 means everything lower also needs repricing... so my prediction is $50 drop on everything from 7970 down to 7850). so I gotta wait for that, and by the time AMD actually does it, i'm sure nvidia will have the 660's coming soon so i'll be stuck waiting on that :/

It may be a great time for enthusiasts, but it's a horrible time for the average consumer.
 
.
well, it may not win by a large margin, but out of the box... (for someone like me who haven't yet bought 7970...)

- still, more powerful, also in high resolution
- very power efficient
- $50 cheaper, at least for now
- for similar price, new TXAA, Physx are bonus, and better supported drivers in game (in general)

For those who don't bother overclocking manually their cards, aka: walk into the store and just want a card for best perf/price then go home and play right away, this round 680 it is the winner. Maybe there aren't many here on [H], you know most people out there just buy and play.
.
 
Last edited:
imageview.php


i play BC2 alot and it ripps it apart at the resolution i play, 1080p.

I find this hard to believe BC2 ran smooth as butter on a pair of 6970s @ 3600x1920...
and my single 7970 gets better fps than the 2560x1600p test in that one running 3600x1200 in BF3.
 
It shouldn't be a surprise that a new card is ahead of the older one. This game of leapfrog has been going on since there have been graphics cards.

Though the leap is relatively tiny here. Not enough to make it worth upgrading if you have 7970.

AMD will likely have to adjust prices to be more competetive as well.
 
[EDIT: didn't realize you linked translated version of same page.]

and this,
the SLI scalling...
comeon.... need more review on GTX680 SLI performance..
Sweclockers had SLI benches.

By their performance index with GTX580 referenced at 100 points, average sample of 5 games:

SLI 680 won by 4,1 % [at 1080p]
Single cards 680 won by 8,7% [1080p]
XF 7970 won by 0,8 % [at 1600p]
Single 680 won by 3,1 % [1600p]

Not counting gpgpu work and AMD lowering the price where it belongs it would be pretty even between the two.
 
45148.png


i have a hard time believing it, but its true.

how in the world........................................................
 
Nvidia is cheating because they are using a smart technology...

52mhz = 99% of the performance, without that extra 52mhz the GTX 680 would get 2 FPS in every game

Stop being so defensive. The OP didnt say anything remotely similar to what you are saying.
Its a fair and valid point.
That doesnt mean we dont respect that Nvidia has a great technology approach. It is a smart system for the card and its great. But as enthusiasts I think determining which card wins when both are OCed would be a huge benefit to this community and many others.
 
I currently have a 7970. Out of the box Nvidia does "win". Not by enough to make it worth selling my card for.

Plus.. I'm massively overclocked on water :D Not sure how the benchmarks would look if the 7970 was o/c'ed like mine.

Everything I play runs perfectly well at the max settings. That would be the main reason for me not needing to change cards right now.
 
It shouldn't be a surprise that a new card is ahead of the older one. This game of leapfrog has been going on since there have been graphics cards.

Though the leap is relatively tiny here. Not enough to make it worth upgrading if you have 7970.

AMD will likely have to adjust prices to be more competitive as well.

I agree 10000% how can you compare when they are not released at the same time? nvidia made sure the 680 beats the 7970...now if nvidia releases their next card at the same time ati does thats a winner... otherwise is just leapfrog from card to card..

we all get so crazy over this when i think we are all the fools... i havent seen a leap worth talking about since the 8800gtx.. that blew my mind.. nvidia holds the fastest out of the box card now, and check my sig im not a green fan...but like he said guess whats coming a faster ati card... and another 550$ from us...
 
Stop being so defensive. The OP didnt say anything remotely similar to what you are saying.
Its a fair and valid point.
That doesnt mean we dont respect that Nvidia has a great technology approach. It is a smart system for the card and its great. But as enthusiasts I think determining which card wins when both are OCed would be a huge benefit to this community and many others.

At least some people on here are reasonable. This is all I was trying to say. I really don't understand why some people get so defensive over a computer hardware company
 
Back
Top