March 22, 2012

Nvidia GTX 680 - The world's fastest GPU

Nvidia GTX 680 is now the fastest GPU on the earth. It has surpassed its main rival 7970. It is also the most power efficient GPU.

GeForce GTX 680

These are the features given by Nvidia for the GTX 680
Kepler GPU Architecture
Kepler GPU Architecture
NVIDIA's Kepler GPU architecture has been designed from the ground up not just for maximum performance in the latest DirectX 11 games, but optimal performance per watt. The new SMX streaming multiprocessor is twice as efficient as the prior generation and the new geometry engine draws triangles twice as fast. The result is world class performance and the highest image quality in an elegant and power efficient graphics card.

NVIDIA GPU Boost
NVIDIA GPU Boost 
Up until now, GPUs have operated at a fixed clock speed when playing 3D games, even if they have the potential to run faster. GPU Boost intelligently monitors graphics work load and increases the clock speed whenever possible. The result is that the GPU always performs at its peak and you get the highest framerate possible. 

NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical
NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync
Nothing is more distracting than framerate stuttering and screen tearing. The first tends to occur when framerates are low, the second when framerates are high. Adaptive V-Sync is a smarter way to render frames. At high framerates, V-sync is enabled to eliminate tearing, at low frame rates, it's disabled to minimize stuttering. It gets rid of distractions so you can get on with gaming.


NVIDIA Surround with Up To Four Monitors
NVIDIA Surround with Up To Four Monitors1 
Nothing is as breathtaking as playing your favorite games across three monitors. At 5760 x 1080, the expanded field of view fully engages human peripheral vision and provides for the most immersive experience in racing and flight simulators. Add in a fourth display to keep tabs on chat, email or web while you are gaming.

Two New Anti-aliasing Modes: FXAA and TXAA
Two New Anti-aliasing Modes: FXAA and TXAA
Anti-aliasing smoothes out jagged edges but can be demanding on framerates. FXAA is a new antialiasing technology that produces beautiful smooth lines with minimal performance impact. And with Kepler based GPUs, you'll be able to enable FXAA in hundreds of game titles through the NVIDIA Control Panel.

The second mode, TXAA, is an in-game option that combines MSAA, temporal filtering, and post processing for even higher visual fidelity.

NVIDIA 3D Vision<sup>®</sup> Ready
NVIDIA 3D Vision® Ready2
NVIDIA 3D Vision brings a fully immersive, stereoscopic 3D experience to the PC. A combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software, 3D Vision transforms hundreds of PC games into full stereoscopic 3D. Get up to 2x monitor and keyboard brightness with NVIDIA 3D LightBoost technology4. In addition, you can enjoy 3D movies and 3D digital photographs from 3DVisionLive.com in eye popping, crystal-clear quality.

NVIDIA SLI Technology
NVIDIA SLI® Technology3
Used by the most demanding gamers worldwide, SLI lets you link up to three GeForce GTX 680s together for astounding performance. And with NVIDIA’s track record for fast and frequent software updates, you’ll not only get the best performance in existing games, but future games too.

NVIDIA PhysX Technology
NVIDIA PhysX® Technology 
Full support for NVIDIA PhysX technology, enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce.




Specifications:

GTX 680 GPU Engine Specs:
1536CUDA Cores
1006Base Clock (MHz)
1058Boost Clock (MHz)
128.8Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)
GTX 680 Memory Specs:
6008Memory Speed (Gbps)
2048MBStandard Memory Config
256-bit GDDR5Memory Interface Width
192.2Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)
GTX 680 Support:
4.2OpenGL
PCI Express 3.0*Bus Support
YesCertified for Windows 7
3D Vision, 3D Vision Surround, CUDA, DirectX 11, PhysX, SLISupported Technologies1
3-waySLI Options2
Display Support:
4 displaysMulti Monitor
2560x1600Maximum Digital Resolution
2048x1536Maximum VGA Resolution
YesHDCP
YesHDMI3
One Dual Link DVI-I, One Dual Link DVI-D, One HDMI, One DisplayPortStandard Display Connectors
InternalAudio Input for HDMI
GTX 680 Graphics Card Dimensions:
10.0 inchesLength
4.376 inchesHeight
Dual-slotWidth
Thermal and Power Specs:
98 CMaximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
195 WMaximum Graphics Card Power (W)
550 WMinimum System Power Requirement (W)4
Two 6-pinSupplementary Power Connectors


Here are the Nvidia Geforce Technologies that the 680 has.

Nvidia GTX 680 specifications and benchmarks

GTX 680 is now the fastest GPU in the world, after months of waiting the official results are out. Below are the specifications of the much awaited GPU.
GTX 680GTX 580GTX 560 TiGTX 480
Stream Processors1536512384480
Texture Units128646460
ROPs32483248
Core Clock1006MHz772MHz822MHz700MHz
Shader ClockN/A1544MHz1644MHz1401MHz
Boost Clock1058MHzN/AN/AN/A
Memory Clock6.008GHz GDDR54.008GHz GDDR54.008GHz GDDR53.696GHz GDDR5
Memory Bus Width256-bit384-bit256-bit384-bit
Frame Buffer2GB1.5GB1GB1.5GB
FP641/24 FP321/8 FP321/12 FP321/12 FP32
TDP195W244W170W250W
Transistor Count3.5B3B1.95B3B
Manufacturing ProcessTSMC 28nmTSMC 40nmTSMC 40nmTSMC 40nm
Launch Price$499$499$249$499


Thanks to anandtech for their testings, in the Crysis test we saw 7970 a bit faster than the 680.
The 680 was way faster than the 7970 in Battlefield 3 tests.