NVIDIA retakes single-GPU performance crown with GTX 680

Brian Ambrozy 22 Mar, 2012 at 9:47pm ET Article published in Tech

NVIDIA laid low and hunkered down for the last couple of generations of GPU releases. AMD crested along, releasing the 6000 and 7000 series of Radeon GPUs that in most cases beat their NVIDIA counterparts in price/performance. Recently, AMD scored major review wins with their 28nm Radeon HD 7970, which was the fastest gaming GPU available in most cases.

Until today.

NVIDIA unleashed their GTX 680 to hardware review sites, and one after another, they’re glowing. AnandTech says,

“The GTX 680 is faster, cooler, and quieter than the Radeon HD 7970. NVIDIA has landed the technical trifecta, and to top it off they’ve priced it comfortably below the competition.”

[H] says,

“The GeForce GTX 680 truly is a win right out of the gate. It has been a long time since we’ve said that about a new GPU from NVIDIA, and it is about time the company got something right the first time!”

While TechReport writes,

“There is very little not to like about the GeForce GTX 680. With this GPU, NVIDIA catches up to AMD on a whole host of fronts overnight, from power efficiency and performance to process tech and feature set. NVIDIA was even able to supply us with working software that uses its H.264 video encoder, something AMD has yet to do for the Radeon HD 7970 and friends.”

It seems like NVIDIA’s strategy with this card was to make some sacrifices in GPGPU performance—an area they traditionally dominate—and focus on power efficiency and gaming performance. What a flip-flop that is, especially considering that NVIDIA has been the go-to for GPU compute-intensive applications; and what’s more interesting is that a new generation of GPGPU accelerated software (such as Adobe’s upcoming Creative Suite 6) is finally supporting OpenCL instead of NVIDIA’s proprietary CUDA exclusively. We could see a day in which AMD becomes the preferred card for GPU compute while NVIDIA focuses on gaming performance. Times be weird.

Specs:

2gb GDDR 5 at 6ghz
1536 CUDA cores
TDP: 195w
2x dual-link DVI outputs
1x HDMI
1x full size DisplayPort
NVIDIA Surround (triple display from single card)
GPU Boost (will dynamically overclock GPU if game doesn’t hit TDP envelope)

The NVIDIA GTX 680 is available at retail today at an MSRP of $499, although Newegg shows them out of stock at the time of this writing.

Comments

22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:01pm fatcat finally 3 monitor support on a single card. welcome to 2009 nvidia

now where is the GTX 660 Ti ?
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:13pm storrm hmmm its funny how when i went to bed there wasn't a peep about this card any wear and now its every wear.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:27pm Cliff_Forster Hopefully a price war is brewing because the cost of high end graphics is out of hand.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:29pm mertesn
finally 3 monitor support on a single card. welcome to 2009 nvidia

now where is the GTX 660 Ti ?
AMD does six displays per card...and has since the Radeon HD 5000 series in 2009.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:30pm ardichoke
finally 3 monitor support on a single card. welcome to 2009 nvidia

now where is the GTX 660 Ti ?
AMD does six displays per card...and has since the Radeon HD 5000 series in 2009.
I think that was the point of his comment... *woosh*
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:31pm fatcat
finally 3 monitor support on a single card. welcome to 2009 nvidia

now where is the GTX 660 Ti ?
AMD does six displays per card...and has since the Radeon HD 5000 series in 2009.
they may do 6 displays, but as Thrax will tell you, you can't do it yet http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/qt8wn/sapphire_releases_a_totally_silent_passively/c40jpvu?context=3
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:36pm fatcat
Hopefully a price war is brewing because the cost of high end graphics is out of hand.
how so?

A GPU has more 'power' than a CPU. an i7 2600k goes for $325. Please don't bring Bulldozer into the argument lol

Now if you are saying CPU's are high and therefor a GPU is high in price, well that's a different story

So seeing a flagship GPU going for $499 seems completely reasonable to me.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 10:48pm Cliff_Forster Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I recall a time when the top end cards ran neck and neck with a game console purchase. $500-$600 in my mind is steep for what you get. I'll stick with my crossfire 6850's a little while longer. Nvidia's Nepetitude (see what I did there?) I crack myself up.... Anyhow, now that Nvidia is back in the saddle and offering not only a more powerful card, but one that's reasonably efficient as well as priced better, now AMD would be best to follow suit by dropping price. Hopefully the competition will be good for all of us.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 11:07pm primesuspect There are probably under 100 people on this entire planet that game with six monitors.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 11:08pm Thrax Radeon 9700 launched at $399. So did several NVIDIA GPUs at any point along the last decade (or more). Nothing has changed.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 11:23pm Winfrey They are referred to as "enthusiast" video cards for a reason.
22 Mar 2012 ~ 11:44pm fatcat
There are probably under 100 people on this entire planet that game with six monitors.
6 monitors is not about gaming.

6 monitors is about gaming on 3 and having TV/twitter/facebook/internet/youtube/weather app/whatever on the other 3

alt-tab will DIAF!
23 Mar 2012 ~ 7:33am mertesn
There are probably under 100 people on this entire planet that game with six monitors.
6 monitors is not about gaming.

6 monitors is about gaming on 3 and having TV/twitter/facebook/internet/youtube/weather app/whatever on the other 3

alt-tab will DIAF!
I'm using three right now and could see adding two more in ~~landscape~~portrait. Fatcat is right - it's not about gaming, it's about multitasking. For me, the three center displays are for the tasks I'm focused on and the other two are for peripheral tasks.
23 Mar 2012 ~ 12:58pm Sledgehammer70 @Cliff I use to pay $1000 for the newest GPU just 7 years ago... these $500 price points are very much welcome.
23 Mar 2012 ~ 1:23pm UPSLynx FirePro can do six from one card and has been able to do so since 2010.

Of course, the price to get there......
23 Mar 2012 ~ 1:31pm Thrax Radeon can do 6 from one card if you buy a partner board. Asus DirectCU II comes to mind.
23 Mar 2012 ~ 1:53pm Cliff_Forster @Sledgehammer70 - I'm just going by some of my top end purchases, but I recall getting a Radeon 9700 pro when it was the leader for about $250, I purchased a 4870 when it was ATI's top of the line for about $279 (if I recall, Nvidia's top cards at the time maybe pushed $350 or so) - Just a couple years back I got Radeon 5870 a month after it launched for about $369...

$500-$600 for the single chip leader is expensive to me.

What did you pay 1K for?
23 Mar 2012 ~ 2:01pm Thrax And now you can get the 7870, the same class of product as the 5870, for $349.

Nothing has changed. The price band for a 225 watt GPU has been the same for a decade.

GPU technology has recently evolved to support even more powerful SKUs that sit above the products that you're accustomed to buying.
23 Mar 2012 ~ 4:08pm Tim I just read somewhere the other day that the 7970 beat the 680, and the 7870 wasn't far behind the 680.

Either way, I've mostly been an ATI person and I'll stick with them.

I kind of don't like GPUs becoming more power efficient, I think a GPU needing 300+ watts is more interesting.
23 Mar 2012 ~ 4:53pm Tushon just ...
24 Mar 2012 ~ 1:44am Cliff_Forster @Thrax - I'm not sure I'd say the 7870 and the 5870 are in the same class two generations removed. The 5870 was top of the line, then AMD decided to changed the naming convention using the 6970 as their top end single chip offering and watering down the 68xx a little. I'm not saying good arguments are not being made for the advancements in tech, features, efficiency, economic inflation, I get all that. All I'm saying is that I will not pay $500-$600 for a top of the line single GPU, and I do believe my history on the matter is pretty solid, generally, at least for the Radeon lines, the top end cards are usually much closer to $350 or so. Now that Nvidia finally has it's head out of its ass I'm willing to bet a price war will follow. Two weeks from now I'm willing to bet the 7970's will drop at least one Benjamin. We will see if I'm right then, but who are we kidding? It's a foregone conclusion, I'm always right!
17 Apr 2012 ~ 8:36am Cliff_Forster Well, I was fairly close, more like three weeks and $70-$80 or so for the 7970, but if you factor in all the free goods, I'd say it totals at least a Benjamin.

Kneel before the great Oracle!

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/23602/amd_drops_pricing_on_their_hd_7000_series_also_offers_three_for_free_for_hd_79xx_cards_three_free_games/index.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
17 Apr 2012 ~ 10:57am fatcat The fact that a HD7950 is $20 more than a HD7870 makes it the new best/money gpu
20 Aug 2012 ~ 4:39pm Cliff_Forster Price War Incoming!

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/25383/amd_drops_prices_on_high_end_cards_again