What you won’t find today however – and in a significant departure from NVIDIA’s previous launches – is Big Kepler. While NVIDIA is not like AMD in that they don’t announce products ahead of time, it’s a sure bet that we’ll eventually see GK107 move up to the desktop and GK104 move down to laptops in the future. Meanwhile in the mobile space we have the GT640M, which is based on the GK107 GPU. On the desktop we have the GTX 680, based on the GK104 GPU. Technically speaking Kepler’s launch today is a double launch.
As we’ll see, not only has NVIDIA retaken the performance crown with the GeForce GTX 680, but they have done so in a manner truly befitting of their drive for efficiency. Launching today is the GeForce GTX 680, at the heart of which is NVIDIA’s new GK104 GPU, based on their equally new Kepler architecture. The end result of which is NVIDIA’s next generation GPU architecture: Kepler. With a focus on efficiency, NVIDIA has stripped Fermi down to the core and then built it back up again reducing power consumption and die size alike, all while maintaining most of the aspects we’ve come to know with Fermi. So how do you follow up on Fermi? As it turns out, you follow it up with something that is in many ways more of the same. Though it was a very clearly a rough start for NVIDIA, Fermi ended up doing quite well in the end.
#Cost of nvidia gtx 680 professional#
With Fermi NVIDIA not only captured the performance crown for gaming, but they managed to further build on their success in the professional markets with Tesla and Quadro. If you’ve got the money, then this is the card to get.“How do you follow up on Fermi?” That’s the question we had going into NVIDIA’s press briefing for the GeForce GTX 680 and the Kepler architecture earlier this month. The GTX 680 2GB represents a meaningful jump in performance, features and efficiency that AMD's high-end hasn't matched and the result is a simply outstanding GPU.
While we realise that £400 is a great deal to spend on a GPU, we really feel that the performance, power consumption and features on offer with the GTX 680 2GB more than justify the outlay. It’s more than fast enough to warrant the extra £50 over an HD 7950 3GB (by an amazing 42 per in BF3 at 1920 x 1,080 with 4xAA), and considerably faster, cheaper, smaller and more efficient than the HD 7970 3GB too. At these prices, the GTX 680 2GB immediately makes both a poor choice. We’re expecting imminent price cuts to both the HD 7950 3GB and HD 7970 3GB which at time of writing are on sale for around £350 and £415 respectively. At this price Nvidia is certainly asking some tough questions of AMD. Availability is immediate, although stock will be limited retailers have told us that there's likely to be a 'one card per customer' policy. Despite an MSRP of £429, we’ve been told by board partners that many cards will be hitting at prices below £399 on launch day. Pricing of course will be crucial, but even there we’re hearing very encouraging things. Add in performance innovations such as GPU boost, a shorter PCB, and the requirement for just a pair of 6-pin PCI-E power connectors and it’s hard to look beyond the GTX 680 2GB at the top end.Ĭlick to enlarge - Cards from partners such as PNY (left) and Zotac (right) will all be stock models at launch - we'll have to wait for custom coolers and PCBs What’s more, the GTX 680 2GB also addresses a short coming of the Nvidia brand as a whole by finally bringing Nvidia Surround to a single GPU card. To see this sort of performance from a single-GPU card just twelve months later is great, but to see it from a card that pulls 171W less system power is just staggering. Could the GTX 680 2GB’s lesser memory bandwidth be telling here, particularly as this is an area often associated with high resolution performance? Regardless the advantage is still there (albeit by a smaller factor) even at 5,760 x 1,080, and is made more impressive by the fact that in more than a few of our tests, the GTX 680 2GB managed to match the dual-GPU monster that is the GTX 590 3GB. Interestingly, the GTX 680 2GB seems to have more of an edge the lower the resolution at 1,920 x 1,080 with 4xAA we saw frame rates up to 35 per fast faster than the HD 7970 3GB in Skyrim, but this dropped to a 22 per cent advantage in the same game at 2,560 x 1,600 with 4xAA. Click to enlarge - The GTX 680 2GB is a great card, at a great price
0 kommentar(er)
