NVidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card: review of features and reviews

The graphics accelerator nVidia GeForce GTX 680 the manufacturer has placed in the initial game class, but many users in their reviews assure that the potential of the video card is worthy to compete with more expensive devices and in the professional segment in the video adapter market. In this article the reader is given the opportunity to get acquainted with one of the best chips in the domestic market, which is able to cope not only with any resource-intensive toys, but also to show excellent performance with applications that require high performance from the computer. Overview of features and feedback from owners will help users determine the choice of video card in the gaming segment.

The king is dead, long live the king!

The nVidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card should become the usual turn of the evolution of gaming graphics accelerators in the high-performance segment and replace the morally outdated GTX 580 video adapter. However, everything went wrong as planned by the manufacturer. The reason for this was the transition of the chip production technology from 40-nanometer to 28. Along with the lowering of the energy consumption of the crystal, the heat release decreased, and accordingly, the chip had an excellent potential for increasing the performance by overclocking.

It is worth noting that it is this technology that has created a whole line of productive video cards for professional use in mathematical calculations for video processing and 3D modeling. True, the manufacturer used a multiprocessor platform for such systems. Needless to say, two or three video cards based on the GTX 680 chip in SLI mode are able to show a decent result in similar calculations.

Specifications

The GTX 680 chip was given the code name GK104. On one crystal, the manufacturer managed to place 3.5 billion transistors, using an area of 294 mm ² . Hardware support for DirectX 11 and the 5th modification of shaders have become a guarantee of high performance in games that the nVidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card is capable of. Performance characteristics are provided by a 265-bit memory bus built using GDDR5 technology. This is done in the form of four independent controllers with a width of 64 bits each.

The amount of RAM of the video adapter is 2 GB, but theoretically it can be assumed that some manufacturers wish to increase the size of the accelerator's RAM to 3 or 4 gigabytes. They will succeed in this by installing larger memory chips, but this change will not affect the bandwidth of the bus, since this capability is limited by hardware.

High power factor

Due to the reduction of heat dissipation, the performance of the graphic core has improved for the nVidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card. After stepping over the psychological barrier at 1 GHz, the manufacturer set a minimum threshold for the crystal at 1006 MHz. However, according to many owners, this parameter is fictitious and, as practice shows, the video adapter is capable of more.

As in the previous versions of the nVidia line, the stability of the device depends directly on cooling, so the performance of chips from different manufacturers in the segment of gaming graphics cards will be effective only if there is a decent cooler for removing heat. True, here the user will have to choose between the price and performance of the platform, since the solutions provided on the market do not have a golden mean.

Technologies and their capabilities

Conducting on the chip nVidia GeForce GTX 680 review, we can conclude that the video adapter is a complete product. Firstly, the crystal is working at full capacity (nothing is blocked at the factory), and this will clearly please any user. The second point is to support all existing technologies in the multimedia market and in the gaming segment. It's about virtualization in working with 3D, support for multiple displays with faster graphics output for all connected monitors and the ability to use a crystal in CUDA mode.

Confuses only one oddity - the manufacturer on the graphics accelerator installed a controller to automatically reduce the frequency of the kernel when idle. It is a little unclear why to reduce the performance and so already economical in the work of the crystal, because, logically, users need efficiency, which is implemented by the corresponding chip in the mode of GPU Boost.

NVidia Mobile Solutions

The spontaneous decrease in the core frequency when idle in the nVidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics accelerator found an explanation after the presentation to the world of laptops with an installed discrete video adapter based on a similar chip. In the process of testing and reviewing laptops by many enthusiasts it was discovered that the manufacturer was initially aimed at the market of portable devices. It was for mobile platforms and such an economical chip was created.

Comparing the performance of games on laptops with the installed graphics accelerators GTX 680M and GTX 580M, users came to the conclusion that the technology of the company NVIDIA simply removed the competitor AMD from the market, giving the world an inexpensive and very effective solution. So, the price of a laptop of a game segment with a new accelerator does not exceed 50,000 rubles (which is 10% higher than the device of the previous generation). While platform performance increased by 35%. Quite a good offer for fans of games.

Prize in the studio!

The potential buyer will certainly notice that the domestic market is full of solutions based on nVidia GeForce GTX 680, which have almost identical appearance. Namely - the same cooling system on most video adapters of this manufacturer. As the tests show, the motherboard together with the crystal and batteries are not subject to strong heating, so many manufacturers decided to leave the cooler of the company nVidia in the factory version, and brand its product with a usual sticker located on the shell of the radiator casing.

The aluminum plate along the perimeter of the entire video card and the turbofan, completely enclosed by the casing, perfectly removes heat from the elements of the device. The technology of 28 nanometers has uniquely positively affected the work of the chip. That's just the case with graphics accelerators, which were not overclocked by the manufacturers at the plant.

Above the Stars Only

However, the famous Taiwanese brand once again wanted to surprise its fans, and the ASUS nVidia GeForce GTX 680 video adapter appeared on the market, which received not only its own cooling system, but also underwent a tremendous overclocking. Increasing the core frequency to 1300 MHz, the company's technologists managed to raise the device's performance by almost 20%. Limit this market leader did not and offered buyers a choice of solutions with 2 and 4 gigabytes of RAM on board.

After the innovation from the company ASUS in the market of video cards appeared products under the brands MSI, Zotac, Palit and other well-known manufacturers. All of them are united by a high factory overclocking of the graphics core and a proprietary cooling system. That's just a choice to make quite difficult, because directly proportional to the efficiency of the chip has increased and the cost of the product (not lower than 20,000 rubles).

Finally

Video adapter based on nVidia GeForce GTX 680 will definitely appeal to all fans of resource-intensive games, but having studied reviews and testing, many potential buyers will be unpleasantly surprised. The fact is that the video card has a huge power reserve, the potential of which will be able to be revealed only if there is a CPU corresponding to the game class. After all, to acquire an expensive accelerator and use half of its power is irrational.

Under the video game adapter will have to completely replace the gaming platform, otherwise it will not be possible to achieve high efficiency. Professionals in the field of IT recommend using multi-core powerful processors of the Core i3 line and above. If we are talking about AMD products, then start better with 4-nuclear platforms.