Hardware Discussions

[chriscoates81]

Hi guys i recieved an email today heres one of the cards. BTW £480 puts it at about £100/$60 more than a 580. Some of the benchies ive seen are a little underwhelming tho.

[Synchronous Failure]

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chriscoates81 wrote:

Hi guys i recieved an email today heres one of the cards. BTW £480 puts it at about £100/$60 more than a 580. Some of the benchies ive seen are a little underwhelming tho.

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That's about $760 USD for the Brits and a mere $500 for North Americans. Jesus Christ.

[dolynick]

Benchmarks are up on Anandtech. Looks like it's about 30%-40% faster than a GTX 580 in most games. It's actually weaker in standard GPU computation though. It trades blows with the 7970, and generally viewed as faster for less money. All in all, it seems like a solid release.

What's interesting is that, according to Anandtech, this isn't the "Big" Kelper. It's more of an evolution of the 560ti rather than the 580. Kind of makes me wonder if there is something significantly more powerful coming down the pipe yet, but I'm not sure what they'll call it since they used their "high end" model number for this.

-dolynick

[jacobvandy]

Yeah, I was reading their article that explains the fancy new features (like dynamic overclocking, smart v-sync, and better AA methods), and they talk about the 680 as a "middle-weight fighter that hits like a heavy-weight." I'm guessing the "heavy-weight that hits like a super heavy-weight" is still yet to come; whether that will be their dual-GPU model or not, who knows.

[Natedog51]

Judas for the price it costs as much as a heavy weight!

[FiSH]

At $500, the 680 is priced between the 7950 and 7990, yet tends to outperform the 7990. That'll surely bring down the price of both AMD cards.  Also, it's nice to see that the 600 series won't be mirroring the prices originally speculated.  I'm betting the sweet spot will be the 660ti, which I'm guessing will run somewhere around $250.

[Natedog51]

Considering my build is taking me forever to complete (thank my wife for the latest hiccup, she accidentally threw away an Intel i7-930 chip.....ya that's what I said) I may just pick up the GTX 660Ti when it is released.

[sqitso]

Are these DX12 cards? Have we done that yet? If not I will just throw in another 560 in my box and be happy.

[Synchronous Failure]

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sqitso wrote:

Are these DX12 cards? Have we done that yet? If not I will just throw in another 560 in my box and be happy.

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No, they're not and no, we haven't.

[Egglick]

The 680 is a decent card.  Not a major performance improvement, but better, and much lower power usage.  I also like how they didn't price it off the chart, as many predicted.  This means that their lower tiered cards should also be realistically priced, and should push ATIs prices down.  The competition is welcomed.

[ZeroGuardian]

I really like the fact that these support 4 monitors on a single card. But I think I will probably wait for the "Big Kepler".

[astriir1]

The only reason I'm excited for these cards is because of the drop in price on other ones.

[ronin410]

Your wife threw away your chip??? That's worse than a retainer!

[Natedog51]

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ronin410 wrote:
Your wife threw away your chip??? That's worse than a retainer!

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I know! Right? I bought it off of Ebay and it was wrapped in anti-static bag/bubble wrap in a small brown cardboard box (just the chip, nothing else). She thought it was just an empty box with leftover packing stuff in it and tossed it in the trash...... I told her that she's the only person I know that has literally thrown $200 away.

[FiSH]

So, would it be advisable to get a motherboard with PCIe 3.0 when getting a card of this series? I read that the i5 has the PCI controller built in and that it only supports 2.0 regardless. Is that accurate?

[Synchronous Failure]

According to benchmarks there's no discernable difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0. At least not yet.

[FiSH]

What the hell just happened?  My fingers must have taken over and typed in my credit card info while I was asleep.  I woke up with a tracking number!  Oh well.  I'm sure I can figure out a use for it.  

[jwhx]

Not exactly cheap are they?

[FiSH]

^ Nope. But I won't have to cough up much after selling my two cards and a number of other things that I've been too lazy to put on eBay.

[Natedog51]

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FiSH wrote:
^ Nope. But I won't have to cough up much after selling my two cards and a number of other things that I've been too lazy to put on eBay.

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Like your first born?

[FiSH]

^ I'd have to put both of my kids up to make a dent.

[Natedog51]

The sacrifices we make for gaming....

[FiSH]

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Natedog51 wrote:

The sacrifices we make for gaming....

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Indeed.  I had been experiencing issues here and there with my SLI setup.  Nothing major, but enough to be annoyed at times.  Couple that with the numerous games that you have to remember to turn SLI on and off for them to perform well.  I'd been ready for a single card solution.  Two 560 ti's is fairly compariable to a 680 performance wise, but the 680 does pull ahead enough to decide on it being my one nVidia option to maintain similar performance.  And with 2 gigs or RAM verses 1 gig, it's a no brainer.  Shelling out the extra cost is never pleasant, but in the end I'll have the peace of mind that I chose a strong performer that I won't need to upgrade for a long time.

I'm curious to see how the 680 acts with a Z77 board's PCIe 3.0.  Not expecting any real benefits over 2.0 right away, but the potential is there.

[chriscoates81]

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FiSH wrote:

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Natedog51 wrote:

The sacrifices we make for gaming....

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Indeed.  I had been experiencing issues here and there with my SLI setup.  Nothing major, but enough to be annoyed at times.  Couple that with the numerous games that you have to remember to turn SLI on and off for them to perform well.  I'd been ready for a single card solution.  Two 560 ti's is fairly compariable to a 680 performance wise, but the 680 does pull ahead enough to decide on it being my one nVidia option to maintain similar performance.  And with 2 gigs or RAM verses 1 gig, it's a no brainer.  Shelling out the extra cost is never pleasant, but in the end I'll have the peace of mind that I chose a strong performer that I won't need to upgrade for a long time.

I'm curious to see how the 680 acts with a Z77 board's PCIe 3.0.  Not expecting any real benefits over 2.0 right away, but the potential is there.

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Thats why im waiting till the 7xx series, i cant justify changing 2 560ti's for 1 680. A 780 maybe

[sqitso]

Am I smoking really good stuff?

Newegg says out of stock on everything

[FiSH]

Tiger has a couple available.

[JethroBodine]

Listen up FS- you must all order these cards. ZOMG- NVIDIA has really done it this time and.....

Heh, I kid, I kid.

They are nice cards though. I used one to power 57X10 pretty well, so they have a good deal of power for display flexibility.

I went to this launch event, what resonated with me was the new features. I like the FXAA in CP, TXAA and adaptive vsynch.

[sqitso]

I'm debating spending the money for an SLI motherboard and new i7 proc and using my old 560ti until I can afford a second 560ti.. or just buying one of these and keeping my old i5.

[FiSH]

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sqitso wrote:

I'm debating spending the money for an SLI motherboard and new i7 proc and using my old 560ti until I can afford a second 560ti.. or just buying one of these and keeping my old i5.

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I just sold one of my two 560 ti's.  The other's going on eBay this evening.  I've offered it to the guy who bought the first one.  If he doesn't want it it's yours for $170.  I'll pay for the shipping.  It's a suplerclocked version which may or may be be an issue if yours is reference.  But it's like new and come in its retail box with all accessories.  I'll give you an SLI bridge too.  Just let me know!

[Synchronous Failure]

The drivers will slow the faster card to match the slowest one so it shouldn't present a problem.

[FiSH]

^ Good to know. Thanks!

[sqitso]

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FiSH wrote:

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sqitso wrote:

I'm debating spending the money for an SLI motherboard and new i7 proc and using my old 560ti until I can afford a second 560ti.. or just buying one of these and keeping my old i5.

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I just sold one of my two 560 ti's.  The other's going on eBay this evening.  I've offered it to the guy who bought the first one.  If he doesn't want it it's yours for $170.  I'll pay for the shipping.  It's a suplerclocked version which may or may be be an issue if yours is reference.  But it's like new and come in its retail box with all accessories.  I'll give you an SLI bridge too.  Just let me know!

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Well I don't have an SLI motherboard yet.. still debating if I need to upgrade this particular box. I keep upgrading my other boxes, but can't bite the bullet on the most expensive one.

[JethroBodine]

Sqitso, I'd just sell the 560ti, get 560Ti SLi performance (and double the VRAM, less power, heat, noise) with a 670 OC edition of some sort.

I bought a GTX670SC for my secondary rig, most of the performance of the 680 for $420 bucks. These days they sell the FTW edition for that, even better.