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Gtx 680

GTX 680 insanity! SLI, Triple SLI, and Quad SLI

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2012 - 01:45 PM |
Tagged: sli, quad sli, gtx 680

With an Intel Core i7 3960X, 16GB of DDR3, an ASUS Rampage IV Formula motherboard and an Enermax Platimax 1500W PSU, Hardware.Info took four GTX 680s and started benchmarking.  Of course, that means more than one monitor so these benchmarks are at 5760x1080 and due to the new architecture some games were not quite sure what to do with the extra graphics cards.  Some games like Metro 2033 were not able to provide significant scaling at high resolutions but then again Crysis 2 had no idea what to do with three HD 7970s which makes it hard to determine a clear winner between three HD 7970s and four GTX 680s.  The benchmark results offer results we've never seen, with over 80fps from the NVIDIA cards on Crysis 2 and 130fps on Skyrim.  The end result is that apart from games which seem to need updating, the scaling of the GTX 680 is impressive and it pulls less power than the HD 7970s.

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"We just published a comprehensive GeForce GTX 680 4-way SLI review on Hardware.Info. Since we are the first to extensively test a Quad-SLI configuration of nVidia's brand new GeForce GTX 680, we wanted to make these exciting results available to a wider audience and created an English version of the article."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

 

Source: Hardware.Info

Podcast #194 - GTX 680 Leaks, Ivy Bridge Rumors, a Water Cooled Laptop and more!!

Subject: General Tech | March 22, 2012 - 07:07 PM |
Tagged: podcast, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, gtx 680

PC Perspective Podcast #194 - 03/22/2012

Join us this week as we talk about our GTX 680 Leaks, Ivy Bridge Rumors, a Water Cooled Laptop and more!!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 59:55

Program Schedule: 

  1. Introduction
  2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  3. http://pcper.com/podcast
  4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  5. UPDATE: NCAA 2012: PC Perspective Bracket Competition!!
  6. SXSW Trade Show 2012
  7. Cerwin-Vega! XD3 Powered Desktop Speaker Review
  8. More solid information on Ivy Bridge's launch dates
    1. Intel Ivy Bridge Processors To Launch March 23 2012
  9. Google Rumored To Release $199 Nexus Tablet
  10. Seagate Achieves 1 Terabit Per Square Inch Storage Density
  11. Asetek Demonstrates Liquid Cooling For Laptop And All-In-One PCs
  12. PC-exclusive Sim City engine demoed. The peasants approve.
  13. Psst ... Hey buddy. Ya wanna see the GTX 680 under my jacket?
    1. ... and here's Newegg with a GTX 680 leak
  14. Anyone want a GTX580 for $360? (Counting MIR)
  15. Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: A GTX 680 before it launches!!
    2. Jeremy: If you have RAMBUS still, you have a problem!  and Wing Commander Saga, out for free tomorrow!  
    3. Josh: Oldy but goody
    4. Allyn: Samsung 830 - 128GB for $150 on Newegg
  16. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  17. http://pcper.com/podcast   
  18. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  19. Closing

Source: PC Perspective

Want to stop the GTX 680 leaks? Release the card and they will go away!

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 22, 2012 - 02:15 PM |
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 680, 28nm

After a fun filled week of speculation, accidental launches and more leaks than a cruise ship, we can finally talk about the GTX 680 and how it performs.  Start out at [H]ard|OCP who put four monitors on a GTX 680 and started benchmarking.  The card is made with TSMC's 28nm process, sports 3.54 billion transistors and both its GPU and 1536 CUDA cores run at the same 1.006GHz and the 2GB of memory is running at 6GHz on a 256-bit bus.  That is enough power to surpass the performance of AMD's HD 7970 and surprisingly it often draws less power than the Radeon making the card more efficient than AMD's offering and ruining NVIDIA's reputation for power hungry, hot running cards.

You can catch not only the print version of Ryan's GTX 680 review but if your timing is good you can catch a recording of the live stream he did earlier today!

The Inquirer is also worth checking out as they offer a dissenting opinon which places the performance of the GTX 680 as lower than an HD 7870, let alone the 7970!

H_680.jpg

"The silicon we have all been waiting for is here. NVIDIA is launching its next generation GeForce GTX 680 video card, poised with the new flagship GPU from NVIDIA. Can it compete with AMD's Radeon HD 7970? We were somewhat amazed at how this NVIDIA GPU does when it comes to gaming, pricing, efficiency, and features."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

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Source: [H]ard|OCP

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Graphics Card Review - Kepler in Motion

Author:
Date: March 22, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 680, 28nm

The Kepler Architecture

Join us today at 12pm EST / 9am CST as PC Perspective hosts a Live Review on the new GeForce GTX 680 graphics card.  We will discuss the new GPU technology, important features like GPU Boost, talk about performance compared to AMD's lineup and we will also have NVIDIA's own Tom Petersen on hand to run some demos and answer questions from viewers.  You can find it all at http://pcper.com/live!!

NVIDIA fans have been eagerly waiting for the new Kepler architecture ever since CEO Jen-Hsun Huang first mentioned it in September 2010. In the interim, we have seen the birth of a complete lineup of AMD graphics cards based on its Southern Islands architecture including the Radeon HD 7970, HD 7950, HD 7800s and HD 7700s.  To the gamer looking for an upgrade it would appear that NVIDIA had fallen behind; but the company is hoping that today's release of the GeForce GTX 680 will put them back in the driver's seat.

This new $499 graphics card will directly compete against the Radeon HD 7970, and it brings quite a few "firsts" to NVIDIA's lineup.  This NVIDIA card is the first desktop 28nm GPU, the first to offer a clock speed over 1 GHz, the first to support triple-panel gaming on a single card, and the first to offer "boost" clocks that vary from game to game.  Interested yet?  Let's get to the good stuff.

The Kepler Architecture

In many ways, the new 28nm Kepler architecture is just an update to the Fermi design that was first introduced in the GF100 chip.  NVIDIA's Jonah Alben summed things up pretty nicely for us in a discussion stating that "there are lots of tiny things changing (in Kepler) rather than a few large things which makes it difficult to tell a story." 

arch01.png

GTX 680 Block Diagram

Continue reading our review of the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Graphics Card!!

... and here's Newegg with a GTX 680 leak

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | March 21, 2012 - 09:51 PM |
Tagged: pelly wants revenge, nvidia, leak, gtx 680, fermi, 28nm

Not to be outdone by NCIX, NewEgg also managed to jump the gun on the GTX 680 earlier today. The screengrab that was sent tp Bright Side of News shows their pricing of the soon to be released GTX 680 with models ranging from $500 to $535.  The specs are there for all to see, a GPU running at 1.006GHz, Shader clock of 2.012GHz, effective memory of 6.008GHz and 1536 Stream Processors.  Contrast that with the last GTX 580 that Josh reviewed which had a 782 MHz core, 1.564GHz shader, memory at 4.008GHz and 512 SPs and you can see it is a big step up!

Oh_Newegg.jpg

If you visit NewEgg now you will be greeted with a different result, a page describing the GTX 680's various features and a Buy Now button which unfortunately doesn't work at this moment.  That is a situtation which obviously cannot last as NewEgg would not have put it up.  Of course the realization that you can pick up a pair of GTX 570's for the same price might just mean some recalculations will be in order once we see the performance of the actual card.

2012-03-21_2137.png

Source: Bright Side of News

Psst ... Hey buddy. Ya wanna see the GTX 680 under my jacket?

Subject: General Tech | March 20, 2012 - 11:26 PM |
Tagged: pelly, nvidia, leak, gtx 680, fermi, 28nm

The gang over at Tweaktown managed to get pictures of a retail Gigabyte GTX 680, which is not only better than candid snaps from Las Vegas making it to the web, it also solidifies a few facts.  For instance, as you can see below there are two 6-pin PCIe power connectors which pegs the maximum supplimental power that this card can draw at 150W.  That is a big difference from the two 8-pin PCIe connectors that could deliver up to 275 to a GTX 580; NVIDIA has obviously made a huge step forward in power savings with the move to 28nm regardless of any design or manufacturing problems they may have had to overcome to deliver this card to retailers.  

TT_23087_02_pictures_of_a_retail_gtx_680_have_been_leaked.png

Tweaktown didn't stop there either GPU fans; it seems that the online\brick and mortar computer chain NCIX made a little mistake and let the GTX 680 appear on their wishlist app.  Both an EVGA and an MSI model of the GTX 680 could be added to your wishlist ... for the price of $578.20 USD plus delivery.  That same retailer currently sells HD 7970's for between $564.99 USD to $619.99.  If only there had been some leaked benchmarks which might indicate which way AMD might have to adjust their pricing.

TT_23087_01_pictures_of_a_retail_gtx_680_have_been_leaked.png

Lucas is so going to sue you!

Source: Tweaktown

A possible GTX 680 specs leak?

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | March 14, 2012 - 05:29 PM |
Tagged: rumour, nvidia, leak, gtx 680

Below you can see a screen grab from PConline which purports to show the specifications of the GTX 680. While the specs are well within reason, without any way to verify this leak, or to translate the Chinese characters it is hard to have these specs confirmed or denied as they stand.  Whether you should take the below with a good dose of NaCl is as of yet unknown but for now we can enjoy the speculation until NVIDIA finally releases the cards for review.

670leakage.png

Please feel free to add any speculations, doubts or other leaks in the comments below ... or even a decent translation would be great!  You can catch the Google Translation here, if you wish to torture your brain with exclusive exposure.

Source: PConline

GTX 680, Turbo Cores, and Cuda Cores!

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 8, 2012 - 06:59 PM |
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 680, GDC

It seems that there have been a few leaks on NVIDIA's first Kepler based product.  Techpowerup and Extreme Tech are both reporting on leaks that apparently came from Cebit and some of NVIDIA's partners.  We now have a much better idea what the GTX 680 is all about.

mark-rein-kepler-nvidia-gk104.jpg

Epic's Mark Rein is showing off his own GTX 680 which successfully ran their Samaritan Demo.  It is wrapped for his protection.  (Image courtesy of Extreme Tech)

The chip that powers the GTX 680 is the GK104, and it is oddly enough the more "midrange/enthusiast" offering.  It has a total of 1536 CUDA cores, runs at 703 MHz core and 1406 MHz hot clock, has a 256 bit memory bus pumping out 196 GB/sec, and has a new and interesting feature that is quite a bit like the Turbo core functionality we see from both AMD and Intel in their CPUs.  Apparently when a scene gets very complex, the chip is able to overclock itself up to 900 MHz core/1800 MHz hot clock.  It will stay there for either as long as the scene needs it, or the chip approaches its upper TDP limit.

These reports paint the GTX 680 as being about 10% faster than the HD 7970 in certain applications, but in others it is slower.  I figure that when reviews are finally released the two cards will have traded blows with each other over who has the fastest graphics card.  Let's call it a draw.

The GTX 680 should be unveiled in the next week or so, but initial reviews will not surface until later in the month.  Retail availability will be relegated until then, but with the issues that TSMC has had with their 28 nm process (it has been stopped since the middle of February) we have no idea how much product NVIDIA and its partners has.  Things could be scarce after the introduction for some time.

Source: NVIDIA

Nvidia May Launch GK104 "Kepler" GPUs Ahead Of Schedule

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 17, 2012 - 06:08 AM |
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 680, gf104

AMD's latest graphics cards are already hitting the street, but Nvidia's high end GPUs are nowhere to be seen. Late last year, we heard rumors that Nvidia's GK104 "Kepler" graphics cards may be delayed to an early summer or late spring launch. If the latest rumors reported by Maximum PC hold true; however, Nvidia's Kepler cards' release may be leaning more towards a late spring launch instead of an early summer window.

Nvidia-GTX-680.jpg

They report that sources from Chinese website ChipHell.com have indicated that Nvidia's new high end GTX 680 graphics cards may be released as soon as February 2012. This is a relatively big push forwards compared to the previously rumored March or April launch window, and is likely being accelerated in response to AMD's successful launch of their GCN (Graphics Core Next) based Radeon 7970 graphics cards.  Although we do not know much about the upcoming cards, the general consensus is that the GTX 680 cards will have 2 GB of video memory on a 256-bit bus.  Further, the Kepler cards' core will run at 780 MHz, and the GK104 cards will have TDP (thermal design power) ratings of 225 Watts.  

Whether the company will have actual hardware to sell or if it will be more of a "paper launch" remains to be seen. If I had to venture a guess, the cards will likely see limited availability in a late February launch but will not be around in significant quantities until later this year. With the delays caused by manufacturing the 28nm Kepler cards over at TSMC, the company is not likely to have all that big of a stockpile on hand.

Source: Maximum PC

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