560ti >> GTX 680

[wildpluckings]

system:

2600K 4.4ghz
16GB RAM
Gigabyte GTX 560ti

displays:

BenQ XL2420T 120Hz - 1920x1080 (competitive games)
Dell U2711 - 2560x1440 (casual games)

I'm aiming for 60fps on the Dell display, and a solid 120fps on the BenQ. The 560ti struggles with this in games like Battlefield 3 & Crysis 2. I was previously using two 560ti's in SLI but even this required compromise to achieve these frame rates. (no AA/no ambient occlusion/lowering textures due to smaller video memory). SLI is troublesome too, I wasn't that fussed about the extra noise but the cards would run up to 90C and 80C heating up the entire room after a lengthy gaming session!

Questions:

1) How does the GTX 680 compare to the 560ti SLI? I've read it outperforms the 570 SLI in most cases (that would be enough convincing for me ) If it is generally on par or below the 560ti SLI setup I had, I might be inclined to wait for the next generation of GPUs
2) Will the 2GB VRAM allow for "ultra" textures in Battlefield 3 without running into any stuttering @ 1080p? I had to set textures to "high" to avoid stuttering problems in BF3 (in MSI afterburner I could see the 1GB video memory being choked to death @ultra)
3) Are there any other options I should consider (today or in the near future)? My analysis is that the GTX 690 is overkill, and the GTX 680 offers better value for money than the ATI 7970. I am also considering the previous generation GTX580, but I'm not sure if it would be a worthy upgrade (from the 560ti SLI I was using). I'm after the best price performance really. I want to get as close as I can to 120fps/60fps in games, but I am very open to compromise. If there is a 660ti or something on the horizon I don't mind waiting for that.

 

[monsta]

Going from the 560ti SLI to a 680 Ive noticed a big difference , its much smoother and feels faster in BF3, everything is set to Ultra and it doesnt miss a beat.
I sold both my 560ti's and the money went to the 680. A cheap upgrade and well worth it.
Best part about it is , less heat , less power and less noise than the 560ti SLI.

 

[ilysaml]

No, a GTX 680 wouldn't be a worthy upgrade over the GTX 560ti SLI, you won't feel a difference. Only in power consumption, heat & noise as mentioned above.

1- No, it doesn't outperform 2 GTX 570s in SLI, regarding to the GTX 560s in SLI in most cases you won't feel a difference between them and a GTX 680 but technically GTX 560 ti in SLI should be faster a bit.
2- Yes, certainly today's games doesn't require more than 2 GB of VRAM specially in 1080P, results won't differ a lot when running 2500x monitor.
3- For what you mentioned, running 120 FPS in 2D 1080P and 60 FPS in 1440P is pretty hard with a single card solution, definitely you'll need 2 GTX 680s in SLI.

 

[photonboy]

re: microstutter
Microstutter exists in all SLI so you can't just compare raw FPS benchmarks. The experience at 60FPS with microstutter is not as goo as 60FPS without it (i.e. on a single card).

However, if you want triple monitor or 3D you often can't hit 60FPS with maximum settings. So you have to choose:

1) go with 2xGTX680 (or GTX690) and get microstutter?

2) turn down the quality to achieve higher FPS?

3) Run at lower FPS (i.e. 30FPS)

STUTTERING:
There are two main types of stutter:
#1 - sudden stutter caused by dropping below 60FPS with VSYNC ON. Adaptive VSYNC fixes this.

#2 - microstutter. A side effect of AFR in SLI or Crossfire. Varies between games and cards, and the chosen settings but is a real issue.

*Note that the GTX690 improves upon, but does not completely fix the microstutter issue with their hardware based, Frame Rate Metering mechanism. Too bad they couldn't have completely solved the issue, because I would have bought this card.

Note that microstutter is not as bad on the GTX690 due to this mechanism. The GTX690 also runs cooler and quieter than SLI 680's. However, it really should be a 2x3GB or 2x4GB solution, and not 2x2GB of VRAM as this is a bottleneck for triple monitor at times.

 

[jdw_swb]

I highly doubt a 680 beats 570 SLi.
My 480's floor a 680, aswell as the 7970.

Calm down, 480's in sli hold a slight advantage in fps (hardly noticeable), but they also use up a hell of a lot more power and generate lots more heat.

A 680 can offer 90% of the performance using less heat and power.

480 SLI vs Single 680

 

[blazorthon]

The 680 is a better option than two 560 TIs. I wouldn't get the 680 myself because it only has 2GB of VRAM and I'd rather have more than just 2GB at a performance level as high as the 680's, but I can say that it is a better buy than two 560 TIs. It has roughly identical performance, but it has double the VRAM (if it's 560 TI 1GBs that we're talking about) and although that isn't TOO important at 1080p, 2560x1440 would show a huge advantage on the 680. The fact that the 680 uses far less power than 560 TI SLI will save you money in the electricity bill. The 680 is also probably faster, most of the time (even when the 560 TI's VRAM capacity isn't a problem), even if not by much.

 

[fizzle22]

Don't even consider a gtx580. Dual 560Tis outperform a single 580 for the most part. In terms of benchmarks I was getting better scores using Heaven DX11 with dual 560Tis compared to my new 580. My WEI score also dropped from 7.9 to 7.8 for whatever that's worth.

I expected the 580 to be a bit better, granted it is a reference model. However it is simply a placeholder for whenever I can get my hands on a non-reference gtx680 (Micro Center has a pretty sweet trade in deal with the video cards).

Also I would not worry about Vram so much. Guru3D just bench-marked the new Palit Jetstream 4GB 680 and it actually under-performed the 2GB model (which is clocked slightly higher, but still) even at resolutions above 1080p.

 

[davemaster84]

I upgrated from gtx 460 sli to gtx 680 and it worths the effort. I know the gtx 560ti was a big deal compared to the 460. Maybe go for a gtx 680 sli

 

[blazorthon]

Don't even consider a gtx580. Dual 560Tis outperform a single 580 for the most part. In terms of benchmarks I was getting better scores using Heaven DX11 with dual 560Tis compared to my new 580. My WEI score also dropped from 7.9 to 7.8 for whatever that's worth.

I expected the 580 to be a bit better, granted it is a reference model. However it is simply a placeholder for whenever I can get my hands on a non-reference gtx680 (Micro Center has a pretty sweet trade in deal with the video cards).

Also I would not worry about Vram so much. Guru3D just bench-marked the new Palit Jetstream 4GB 680 and it actually under-performed the 2GB model (which is clocked slightly higher, but still) even at resolutions above 1080p.

680, not 580... Also, the WEI is junk. It means next to nothing. The WEI is a synthetic benchmark, not a real-world benchmark and does not correlate to real-world performance very well.The 4GB is just as fast as the 2GB if you simply raise it's clocks. Also, the 4GB beat the 2GB in most of the games regardless (I read the full 26 page review). It was the 2GB OC that beat the 4GB. Also, of course the 4GB wasn't far faster than the 2GB, Guru3D benchmarked at less than high AA and only did 2560x1600 as the max resolution. 2GB is enough for 2560x1600. Going any higher (such as 5760x1080), the 680 needs either FXAA or zero AA because of it's 2GB of VRAM being overloaded by MSAA. The 680 4GB would have no such problem.

I really dislike when someone who doesn't know about this stuff tries to use a benchmark that doesn't even apply to this situation to prove their point and fails miserably.

 

[fizzle22]

680, not 580... Also, the WEI is junk. It means next to nothing. The WEI is a synthetic benchmark, not a real-world benchmark and does not correlate to real-world performance very well.The 4GB is just as fast as the 2GB if you simply raise it's clocks. Also, the 4GB beat the 2GB in most of the games regardless (I read the full 26 page review). It was the 2GB OC that beat the 4GB. Also, of course the 4GB wasn't far faster than the 2GB, Guru3D benchmarked at less than high AA and only did 2560x1600 as the max resolution. 2GB is enough for 2560x1600. Going any higher (such as 5760x1080), the 680 needs either FXAA or zero AA because of it's 2GB of VRAM being overloaded by MSAA. The 680 4GB would have no such problem.

I really dislike when someone who doesn't know about this stuff tries to use a benchmark that doesn't even apply to this situation to prove their point and fails miserably.

Well if you were to read the original post, the OP does mention that he is also considering a 580. Since I do not have any personal experience with a 680, I cannot comment on it based on any facts. I also said "I got a lower WEI score for what it's worth". That little caveat there implies that it is not worth much.

Furthermore, the OP said he would be gaming at 2560x1440 for casual games and 1080p for hardcore games. In which case a 2GB 680 would be more than capable of handling. And great, you read the entire 26 page review! The first 5 or so so pages are the same for every 680 they test aside from the pictures.

I really dislike when someone who doesn't fully comprehend the topic at hand tries to dish out some ultimate wisdom as if they are some almighty computer god. I am merely giving my two cents. It may not be worth much as I have only been gaming on the PC for 8-9 months, but I have not, and do not intentionally spout out misinformation nor claim to know all the answers. So please, give me a break, but more importantly, instead of reading the full 26 page review at Guru3D, you ought to at least read a page or two of posts (or at the very least the OPs post in it's entirety) before bashing someone for what you perceive to be ignorance.

 

[blazorthon]

Well if you were to read the original post, the OP does mention that he is also considering a 580. Since I do not have any personal experience with a 680, I cannot comment on it based on any facts. I also said "I got a lower WEI score for what it's worth". That little caveat there implies that it is not worth much.

Furthermore, the OP said he would be gaming at 2560x1440 for casual games and 1080p for hardcore games. In which case a 2GB 680 would be more than capable of handling. And great, you read the entire 26 page review! The first 5 or so so pages are the same for every 680 they test aside from the pictures.

I really dislike when someone who doesn't fully comprehend the topic at hand tries to dish out some ultimate wisdom as if they are some almighty computer god. I am merely giving my two cents. It may not be worth much as I have only been gaming on the PC for 8-9 months, but I have not, and do not intentionally spout out misinformation nor claim to know all the answers. So please, give me a break, but more importantly, instead of reading the full 26 page review at Guru3D, you ought to at least read a page or two of posts (or at the very least the OPs post in it's entirety) before bashing someone for what you perceive to be ignorance.

What misinformation am I spouting? I said that 2GB is enough for up to about 4MP resolutions (2560x1600 is 4MP and 2560x1440 is just shy of 4MP). You said that the VRAM is not much to worry about. As of right now, 2GB is enough. However, all it would take is one new game that uses only a little more memory than current games and 2GB would no longer be enough and the AA would need to be turned down. If turning it down isn't enough, then it needs to be turned off. If that's not enough, then quality settings get turned down, all of this just so the game is playable at that resolution.

See where I'm going with this? New games would be crap compared to old ones, even if they are better, just because we OP decided to go with *enough* VRAM for current games instead of thinking about the future, like your quote clearly states.

 

[monsta]

Theres no need to use AA now that we have FXAA and TXAA, they arent as taxing and dont use as much memory, so 2GB vram isnt really an issue anymore even at that resolution.
The game has changed now with these new technologies.

 

[blazorthon]

Theres no need to use AA now that we have FXAA and TXAA, they arent as taxing and dont use as much memory, so 2GB vram isnt really an issue anymore even at that resolution.
The game has changed now with these new technologies.

FXAA and TXAA are AA (notice how they have AA in their names, meaning anti-aliasing), FXAA is far inferior to MSAA, and TXAA is not only untested, but it's MIA. It isn't even usable right now! Even if it was here, most games still wouldn't support it.

 

[blazorthon]

Also, FXAA is not new anymore.

 

[wildpluckings]

aha. GTX 670 (released today?) is a tempting option at £100 less. I read through the review here on toms hardware, I was on the fence with the 680 but the 670 seems like a simple decision. Regarding the 560ti SLI setup I had, I returned one of them recently for a full £180 refund because it was faulty.

I still have the second 560ti which I can sell for around £150. So the GTX 670 would be almost a free transition and I could consider SLI later down the line for significant improvement over the 560ti SLI setup.

I'm happy to budget up to £600 but I want the best price performance and I am open to compromise. The 670 performs 5-10% slower than the 680 which seems easily worth the £100 saving to me.

I have been very happy with the gigabyte/windforce 560ti's so I am quite inclined to go for this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/368520-gigabyte-gv-n670oc-2gd-gv-n670oc-2gd £339.99

There are cheaper gainward/msi models though (msi is factory overclocked)

What do you guys think?

 

[monsta]

aha. GTX 670 (released today?) is a tempting option at £100 less. I read through the review here on toms hardware, I was on the fence with the 680 but the 670 seems like a simple decision. Regarding the 560ti SLI setup I had, I returned one of them recently for a full £180 refund because it was faulty.

I still have the second 560ti which I can sell for around £150. So the GTX 670 would be almost a free transition and I could consider SLI later down the line for significant improvement over the 560ti SLI setup.

I'm happy to budget up to £600 but I want the best price performance and I am open to compromise. The 670 performs 5-10% slower than the 680 which seems easily worth the £100 saving to me.

I have been very happy with the gigabyte/windforce 560ti's so I am quite inclined to go for this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/368520-gigabyte-gv-n670oc-2gd-gv-n670oc-2gd £339.99

There are cheaper gainward/msi models though (msi is factory overclocked)

What do you guys think?

Go for it , I sold both my Gigabyte Windforce 560ti's and got my 680 with it, i'm really happy with my choice, so the 670 for you would be like a free upgrade.
The Gigabyte Windforce 670 is pretty fast and a good choice.

 

[blazorthon]

The 670 will not beat 560 TI SLI much, if at all. Only thing it would do for gaming today is reduce power usage while keeping similar performance. The 670 is the better option here, but it wouldn't be much different.

 

[monsta]

Overclocked it will depending on the game , the performance of the 670 is very close to the 680 in the reviews , some games it will be quicker in some it won't.
At 400 bucks its cheaper then 560ti SLI.

 

[blazorthon]

Overclocked it will depending on the game , the performance of the 670 is very close to the 680 in the reviews , some games it will be quicker in some it won't.
At 400 bucks its cheaper then 560ti SLI.

The problem with so many reviews is that they are often too narrow. Not enough games and situations per game in a single review means that we don't see the whole picture. That is a big part to why reviews often differ (other than the fact that some reviewers can be biased or simply make a mistake without knowing it). Regardless, the 7950 and 7970 are better overclocking cards than the 670 and 680. The 7970 trade blows with the 680 in some reviews too, others put one way below the other. The problem is that it seems no one is actually trying to find out the why behind how the cards act however they act, so there's no simple way to compare differing reviews accurately.

Regardless of even that, there's still a supply problem to consider. Maybe you'll find one, maybe not. Then there's still the longevity problem with the VRAM (although it's a little less of a problem than the 680 due to them having the same VRAM capacity, but the 670 being a little slower). They are probably so close because of them having the same VRAM bandwidth, despite both having a lot of GPU performance for that amount of bandwidth. A similar phenomenon can be seen by comparing Llano A8s to overclocked A8s. The GPU @ 960MHz is a 60% overclock over the stock 600MHz, yet it only improves frame rates about 15%, less than the jump from 1333MHz to 1600MHz system RAM. Overclocking the 670's VRAM might make it equal to the 680 for overclocking, in which case it can match (maybe slightly beat) the 7950 in overclocked performance and value (the 7950 and 7970 are almost equal when overclocked and both can overclock to roughly the performance of an overclocked GTX 680).

See here? Going into why they act how they act is always more important than going into how they act in different reviews.

 

[wildpluckings]

Go for it , I sold both my Gigabyte Windforce 560ti's and got my 680 with it, i'm really happy with my choice, so the 670 for you would be like a free upgrade.
The Gigabyte Windforce 670 is pretty fast and a good choice.

I saw your post on another 560ti>680 thread and remember you seemed very happy with the upgrade Are you considering a second 680 at any point?

Regarding performance (@blazorthon and any others interested):

I've been reading through more benchmarks and reviews and 670 vs a single 560ti is in fact around a 2x performance improvement in games like BF/Crysis 2. This is greater than the 560ti SLI setup too.

See here:

http://www.techspot.com/review/529-geforce-gtx-670/page5.html

560ti and GTX 670 are both on the chart. 560ti SLI does not double performance over a single 560ti, whilst the GTX 670 does in the games I'm playing. (Crysis 2 2560x1600 14fps --> 28fps).

I agree for the most part though, although I do expect some performance improvement over my old SLI setup. Maybe a smoother experience like you say and also less stress when using "ultra" textures at high resolutions. Since I'm now only on the one 560ti I'll benefit nicely from an upgrade to the 570. And the power/heat seal the deal. I feel quite fortunate to be looking into this just as the GTX 670 arrives on the scene. I do not think I will regret opting for 5-10% less performance with a massive £100 saving (that I can throw towards a second 670 later in the year)

I am close to buying the 670 but I'd like more feedback on the MSI/gainward models (both priced @ £324) I don't want to spend the extra £15 for nothing but I think the "windforce" cooling is a good investment. And the overclock is good too (915->980mhz on the gigabyte model)

Any msi/gainward GPU users out there want to give me more perspective I feel a bit naive going with gigabyte without considering the others :lol:

 

[monsta]

Im definately going to get a second 680, the single 680 over the 560ti SLI is much smoother and a better gaming experience and faster too in most games.
I would reccomend getting the Gigabyte Windforce 670 , we both know how good the cooling is on them from experience and that overclock is quite good.
I don't believe you would make a mistake getting it , but I would also look at the EVGA and the MSI if they are available to you.
Grab one real soon because they will go very quickly.

 

[blazorthon]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200-14.html

This pretty much proves what I said about the 670 versus the 680. The VRAM bottleneck is what keeps the 670 and 680 so close... Unlike the 680, the 670 is also more power hungry than it's competitor, the 7950, although it is more power efficient. The 670 is so close to the 680 in performance because of the VRAM bandwidth bottleneck, but so far from the 680 in power usage because it doesn't waste as much power trying to pump up the GPU when the VRAM bandwidth stops it from even mattering. At stock, the 670 is clearly the most power efficient high end card right now, no doubt about it.

It's kinda funny... AMD underclocked their GPUs (relative to where they should be), but Nvidia did the exact opposite with their GPUs by pushing them beyond what the memory bandwidth can handle. Overclocking the VRAM on the Kepler cards should provide some excellent performance scaling (as far as VRAM bandwidth performance scaling goes), but overclocking the GPU on the GCN card will scale better than overclocking the memory of the GCN cards. It's really an interesting predicament that Nvidia and AMD have set up.

 

[wildpluckings]

Im definately going to get a second 680, the single 680 over the 560ti SLI is much smoother and a better gaming experience and faster too in most games.
I would reccomend getting the Gigabyte Windforce 670 , we both know how good the cooling is on them from experience and that overclock is quite good.
I don't believe you would make a mistake getting it , but I would also look at the EVGA and the MSI if they are available to you.
Grab one real soon because they will go very quickly.

Do you regret not waiting for the 670 yourself? After spending much of the afternoon researching, the GTX 670 is comfortably ahead in terms of price/performance. I honestly don't see why nvidia priced it as they have because it makes the GTX 680 seem like a very very difficult purchase to justify now. On the other hand you've been able to appreciate the performance since it was released, if that is of much value to you then added to the 10% extra performance I suppose it isn't too bad. At this point you might want to sell your 680 and get a 670, since you plan on SLI and you'll be forking out another £100 for your second 680! It's just a thought though.

I'm still undecided whether to get the gigabyte one or one of the cheaper models. The gigabyte model might be clocked a few % higher, but the triple windforce fan is reportedly a bit louder than the others, which is something to consider because the 680/670 appears to have excellent cooling regardless. The extra £15 for gigabyte's cooling might be overkill and unnecessary. Should we expect to see "brand" comparison reviews popping up soon? That might be useful.

This is the full range available to me:

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?store=2&cat=215&subcat=3757

I can't find many other vendors with them in stock (for preorder or immediate dispatch). The gigabyte GTX 670 is still my #1 pick and it will be available from early next week

 

[blazorthon]

Do you regret not waiting for the 670 yourself? After spending much of the afternoon researching, the GTX 670 is comfortably ahead in terms of price/performance. I honestly don't see why nvidia priced it as they have because it makes the GTX 680 seem like a very very difficult purchase to justify now. On the other hand you've been able to appreciate the performance since it was released, if that is of much value to you then added to the 10% extra performance I suppose it isn't too bad. At this point you might want to sell your 680 and get a 670, since you plan on SLI and you'll be forking out another £100 for your second 680! It's just a thought though.

I'm still undecided whether to get the gigabyte one or one of the cheaper models. The gigabyte model might be clocked a few % higher, but the triple windforce fan is reportedly a bit louder than the others, which is something to consider because the 680/670 appears to have excellent cooling regardless. The extra £15 for gigabyte's cooling might be overkill and unnecessary. Should we expect to see "brand" comparison reviews popping up soon? That might be useful.

This is the full range available to me:

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?store=2&cat=215&subcat=3757

I can't find many other vendors with them in stock (for preorder or immediate dispatch). The gigabyte GTX 670 is still my #1 pick and it will be available from early next week

Actually, according to the Tom's benchmarks, a stock reference 670 is less than 7% slower than the stock reference 680 (depending on the game, the greatest difference seen is 7.1% and most of them are below 5%). The 680 is less than 10% faster.

non-reference cooling is almost always considerably better than reference cooling. It's usually worth it.

 

[monsta]

Do you regret not waiting for the 670 yourself? After spending much of the afternoon researching, the GTX 670 is comfortably ahead in terms of price/performance. I honestly don't see why nvidia priced it as they have because it makes the GTX 680 seem like a very very difficult purchase to justify now. On the other hand you've been able to appreciate the performance since it was released, if that is of much value to you then added to the 10% extra performance I suppose it isn't too bad. At this point you might want to sell your 680 and get a 670, since you plan on SLI and you'll be forking out another £100 for your second 680! It's just a thought though.

I'm still undecided whether to get the gigabyte one or one of the cheaper models. The gigabyte model might be clocked a few % higher, but the triple windforce fan is reportedly a bit louder than the others, which is something to consider because the 680/670 appears to have excellent cooling regardless. The extra £15 for gigabyte's cooling might be overkill and unnecessary. Should we expect to see "brand" comparison reviews popping up soon? That might be useful.

This is the full range available to me:

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?store=2&cat=215&subcat=3757

I can't find many other vendors with them in stock (for preorder or immediate dispatch). The gigabyte GTX 670 is still my #1 pick and it will be available from early next week

I have no regrets getting the 680, I'm really happy with it, the 670 is better in terms of price and performance , but I'm not fussed about it as I got the card I really wanted in the first place.
I'll be using the 680 at Cebit here to show off its potential on a 3D gaming system I built thats being demonstrated, so its not just for my gaming use but to demonstrate 3D gaming to the public. That pc currently has a 580 in it, so using the 680 will be better to showcase it there.

If the Gigabytes fans are too loud for you , might be better to get an EVGA card, the SC version looks pretty good for its price on that link.