- Nov 16, 2011
- 294
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I'm going for a 680 instead of a 670 because a few of them are on sale. Initially, I was going for the EVGA GeForce TX 680 FTW LE 1006MHZ 2GB however have stumbled upon the Zotac GeForce GTX 680 AMP 1.1GHZ 2GB 6.6GHZ which is on sale for $500 (490 after rebate). This thing is 10% faster than stock 680 (which is 5% faster than stock 670) making it on average roughly 15% faster than stock 670, which is great, especially since this thing is on for $500.
It's much faster than the EVGA card, in fact is one of the fastest 680's and is compared to the ASUS GeForce GTX 680 Direct CU II 2 GB (in fact it even outperforms it in some games due to it's superior memory clock).
Before I get it, I'm concerned about a few things:
#1: Zotac? This appears to be a fairly new company, I have no idea if it's reliable or not, or if their customer service is decent. I'm not too worried about this, considering all companies have horror stories, I'm more cornered about their driver support and updates/fixes etc.
#2: "The card is too thick to be used in a 2-way SLI configuration if there’s only one other slot between the graphics PCI Express slots on the mainboard." source
What does this mean... I will be getting a ASUS Sabertooth Z77 and I most likely WILL be SLI'ing in the future, would this be a problem? Would this card fit in my HAF912?
#3: "We had some doubts about these results, though, so we replaced the default thermal interface with Arctic MX-4.... The GPU temperature lowered by as much as 13°C in the automatic regulation mode, so the GPU was only 65°C hot and the fans slowed down from 2220 to 1950 RPM." source
What is this Arctic MX-4, it appears to be "Thermal Compound" (is that the same as thermal paste?) and how would I go about applying this to my expensive GPU without ruining it. Or should I not worry about the 78°C temps when the fans are at 46% their full speed.
#4: this confuses me greatly, it said on the previous page it was hitting 78°C temps when the fans were at 2220 RPM and now it's saying the GPU is only 69°C hot and the fans rotate at 2040 RPM AFTER overclocking it to the max? What??
edit, this is also extreme interesting.
It's much faster than the EVGA card, in fact is one of the fastest 680's and is compared to the ASUS GeForce GTX 680 Direct CU II 2 GB (in fact it even outperforms it in some games due to it's superior memory clock).
Before I get it, I'm concerned about a few things:
#1: Zotac? This appears to be a fairly new company, I have no idea if it's reliable or not, or if their customer service is decent. I'm not too worried about this, considering all companies have horror stories, I'm more cornered about their driver support and updates/fixes etc.
#2: "The card is too thick to be used in a 2-way SLI configuration if there’s only one other slot between the graphics PCI Express slots on the mainboard." source
What does this mean... I will be getting a ASUS Sabertooth Z77 and I most likely WILL be SLI'ing in the future, would this be a problem? Would this card fit in my HAF912?
#3: "We had some doubts about these results, though, so we replaced the default thermal interface with Arctic MX-4.... The GPU temperature lowered by as much as 13°C in the automatic regulation mode, so the GPU was only 65°C hot and the fans slowed down from 2220 to 1950 RPM." source
What is this Arctic MX-4, it appears to be "Thermal Compound" (is that the same as thermal paste?) and how would I go about applying this to my expensive GPU without ruining it. Or should I not worry about the 78°C temps when the fans are at 46% their full speed.
#4: this confuses me greatly, it said on the previous page it was hitting 78°C temps when the fans were at 2220 RPM and now it's saying the GPU is only 69°C hot and the fans rotate at 2040 RPM AFTER overclocking it to the max? What??
edit, this is also extreme interesting.
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