


We had a couple of folks request benchmarks with the new 64-bit World of Warcraft client, which was released with patch 4.3.3. So, today’s charts represent the latest 64-bit build.
Nvidia tends to do better in WoW—a trend we first observed in World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm--Tom's Performance Guide. This continues more than a year later after many game patches and driver revisions. The GeForce GTX 590 takes first place, followed closely by the GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 580.
Did you notice the Radeon HD 6990 sitting at the bottom of the charts in our first two resolutions? Although its performance without anti-aliasing lands it in last place, two Cayman GPUs give up very little when you apply 8x MSAA. WoW depends heavily on host processor performance. Meanwhile, CrossFire is known to exact more CPU overhead than SLI. Put those two observations together, and AMD’s dual-GPU card lags behind the crowd, but then enjoys the addition of anti-aliasing at very little performance cost.
Of course, once we throttle up to 2560x1600, the graphics load is such that the 6990 springs up behind Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680 for third place.
- GeForce GTX 680: The Card And Cooling
- GK104: The Chip And Architecture
- GPU Boost: Graphics Afterburners
- Overclocking: I Want More Than GPU Boost
- PCI Express 3.0 And Adaptive V-Sync
- Hardware Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: Crysis 2 (DX 9/DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (DX 9)
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 3 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: Sandra 2012
- Benchmark Results: Compute Performance In LuxMark 2.0
- Benchmark Results: NVEnc And MediaEspresso 6.5
- Temperature And Noise
- Power Consumption
- Performance Per Watt: The Index
- GeForce GTX 680: The Hunter Scores A Kill
Now we just need prices to start dropping, although significant drops will probably not come until the GK110 is released
Now we just need prices to start dropping, although significant drops will probably not come until the GK110 is released
Good going Nvidia...
Sigh...
WoW has had DX11 for quite a long time now. Also, go play in a 25 man raid with every detail setting on ultra with 8xAA and 16x AAF and tell me WoW is not taxing on a PC.
...oh, wait.
For everyone suggesting that nVidia will release another true "flagship" beyond the 680, I think you are spot on, IF AMD gives them a reason to. There's no reason to push it at the moment as they already hold the crown. If, on the other hand, AMD goes out and makes a 7980, or 79070 SE card with higher clocks (more like what the 7970 can achieve when properly overclocked), I definitely see nVidia stepping their game up a bit.
Either way, it's awesome to see both AMD and now nVidia taking power consumption into consideration. I'm tired of my computer room feeling like a toaster after an all nighter.
He means waiting for the GK110, that will be a more of a compute card while this GK104 is more equiped towards gaming.