The GTX 680 is a beast. It's more powerful than a Radeon 7970 while being quiet and energy efficient. It's also cheaper than a 7970. It seems like nVidia has been waiting until they had something revolutionary to bring to market, while AMD kept releasing incremental upgrades over the 5900 series. It will be interesting to see what the GTX 660 brings to the table, because its' the $200 performance mainstream version that most people end up buying.
I think the GTX580 will be the new short term value card. The price will probably drop to $300ish when the GTX680 comes out. But I also don’t expect the 680 price to stick at $499. Demand will push it over $500. The 660 will be the killer card if the price is right. It would have to be under $300 to make a big impact.
Yes, recent video cards are so far beyond the consoles it's insane, and most games these days are multiplatform. A GTX 680 is massive overkill for most people. You would have to be running at a crazy resolution to "need" a card like that. I'm having a tough time even finding games that stress my 1GB/256-bit GTX 460 all that much at 1680x1050, and that card is nearly two years old. It runs pretty much everything at 60 FPS or higher. And beyond 60FPS, it's just about bragging rights. At this point, I'd probably only get anything out of a video card upgrade if I also bought a higher resolution monitor.
I may have to switch back to the green team. It would be nice to not have to worry about so many CF issues. I'll see what EVGA puts together down the road.
This is the first Nvidia card I have liked for a long time, performance with reasonable power use! I'm still not sure about "only" 2GB of memory being future proof enough since I'm eying off a 2560x1440 monitor and top end games already push right up to 2GB use at that res (or over with texture packs).
I was wondering the same thing. Nvidia supports 3 monitors on a single card now. 2GB seems kind of small for that purpose.
@AKS nVidia really seems to be more organized as far as drivers go. I remember you had some issues with Skyrim and a few other games at launch that weren't resolved for some time, whereas nVidia users had no major issues. As far as the 2GB, I'm wondering if that was a cost control measure so they could beat AMD on price.
EVGA are advertising a 4GB FTW edition. It will probably cost at least $600 if not $650 for such a beast. My 5870 is still doing alright, it's only games with higher res textures and the such that I have to turn down settings on. I might see if there is a price war or further revisions in a few months (most likely from AMD at this point).
Not surprisingly, GTX 680 SLI beats 7970 CF in performance and power consumption, and for $100 cheaper to boot. AMD will need to drop the price of their cards. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/28/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_sli_video_card_review/1
I sense a tinge of sarcasm perhapse? AMD's business plan has never been about the enthusiast crown. It is surprising that it doesn't cost less though...
I was going to add "Exist to please pdraggy? " But I figured you'd chime in without that anyhow.. which I was right.
Well all 680s are long gone at Newegg, some VERY rich ppl may have to 'settle' for the older, slightly more expensive technology. I'm sure demand is high, and when it gets lower I'm sure prices will fall.
Not much. AMD's strategy is typically to undercut their competitors on price, but the 680 is faster and cheaper.
Not here, 7970's start at $560 and 680's start at $640. Price gouging FTL. I'd definitely go for a 7970 at these prices, the extra VRAM makes up for the higher power use/heat IMO.
You're in Australia right? nVidia is an American company, so I think we tend to get some of the best pricing on their stuff.
Yep, we pay goods and services tax so everything is at least 10% more, but new products that are well received like this and in short supply are always price gouged. The 7970 was too, it was over $640 for a couple of months and started coming down this month, and has dropped $40 with the 680 launch for some brands anyway. FYI, AMD are an American company too, so whatever "better" (well, you just get the actual RRP unlike the rest of the world) pricing you get from NV you would get from AMD too.