Asus GeForce GTX 680 4 GB DirectCU II (actual review)

[skullbringer]

Hey guys, I finally wrote the full written review about the card which's name is in the title, I guess... bare with me, please, my English is not the best...

Review: Asus GeForce GTX 680 4 GB DirectCU II

Introduction

After the release of Nvidia's new GTX 680 graphics card in march 2012, pretty soon some manufacturers announced upcoming 4 GB versions of this card. According to benchmarks the reference GK104 cards with only 2 GB of GDDR5 memory were disadvantaged compared to cards like the Radeon HD 7970 or the older GTX 580 with 3 GB in 3D or high resolution tasks. Finally Asus released their first GTX 680 card with 4 GB a few weeks ago.

This card was bought by me and is now in use as my personal video card. Before that I owned a Radeon HD 7970 from Powercolor with an Accelero Xtreme 7970 aftermarket cooler form ArcticCooling, that I will compare the Asus card with.

Comparing the price points the two come to market, the GTX 680 with an average retail price of 500 € (about 670 $) costs almost 100 € (about 120 $) more than the 7970 with an average price - reminding the custom cooler - of about 410 € (about 550 $), however latest AMD graphics cards are known for their very competitive price per performance ratio.

While older GTX 680 cards from Asus used their DirectCU II triple slot design and were offered in three different versions, with different clock speeds, a reference clock (1006 MHz standard, 1058 MHz boost), an “OC†version (1019 MHz standard, 1084 MHz boost) and the “TOP†model (1137 MHz standard, 1201 MHz boost), the 4 GB version is designed as a new DirectCU II dual slot card and uses the reference clock. Also all these cards have a memory clock of 6008 MHz (effective 1502 MHz).

Inside the box we find the Asus Speed Setup guide, the driver disc (including Asus GPU Tweak) and a dual-molex to 6-pin PCI-E power adapter.

Impressions

The new designed DC2 cooler reminds us of the one used with the GTX 670 model, while only using two slots, smaller fans than on the 2 GB versions but also with reflecting Asus stickers and an open dark grey aluminum shroud with red accents. On the side facing the motherboard when installed we can see two copper heatpipes directly contacting the GPU, heading to the back of the card and going into the heatsink. Furthermore a “DirectCU II†writing is edged in a corner of the shroud and an “Asus†logo embellishes the end of the PCI-express interface.

On the back of the card we find one Display Port, one HDMI, a DVI-I dual-link and a DVI-D dual-link outputs. The PCI bracket is extended to the top of the card to cover clearance between the I/O and the cooler.

On the side facing the user when installed, three more copper heatpipes heading to the end of the card go into the heatsink.

The black braiding helps to cover the colored fan cables beneath, helping to keep the card looking slick and clean.

On the bottom a full brushed aluminum backplate with hexagon holes and a gpu cutout is installed.

Onwards two SLI fingers are featured, supporting up to Quad-SLI with this particular card.

Grey “Asus†and “GeForce GTX 680†writings and a white sticker show us the nomenclature.

The card uses two PCI-E 6-pin power connectors like reference 680s. Right next to them on the PCB two leds light up green when powered on.

On the end of the heatsink the extended backplate helps to cover up the clearance.

Sorry for the bad lighting and picture quality (S3 camera).

More pictures can be found at retailers’ websites.

Testsystem

CPU Intel core i7 3770k @ 4.4 GHz

Mainboard AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional

RAM G.Skill RipjawsZ 4 x 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz @ 1866 MHz

Boot drive Corsair Force GT 120 GB

PSU Corsair TX750 V2 enthusiast edition

OS Windows 8 Pro 64-bit

GPU(s) Asus GeForce GTX 680 4 GB DirectCU II

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 (aftermarket cooler)

Drivers

Nvidia GeForce 310.70 WHQL

AMD Catalyst 12.11

Both cards were tested at their maximum 24/7 stable overclock with Asus GPU Tweak. On the AMD side core clock was 1200 MHz, memory 1750 MHz with a core voltage of 1150 mV.

On the Nvidia card, it is quite difficult to really determine the speeds, due to the variable boost clock of the new GTX 6xx series cards. However, with good case cooling, the card boosts in GPU demanding applications up to 1201 MHz core, which is btw “TOP†level, and 1725 MHz memory, leaving the core volts at standard 987 mV.

Asus GeForce GTX 680 4 GB

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 3 GB

Benchmarks used:

Futuremark 3DMark 11 (DX11):

- Performance

- Extreme

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage (DX11):

- Performance

- Extreme

Heaven Benchmark (DX11):

- standard settings

Battlefield 3 (DX11):

- 2560x1440 @ 120 Hz, ultra preset

- 1920x1080 @ 120 Hz, ultra preset

Counterstrike: Global Offensive (DX11):

- 2560x1440 @ 120 Hz, max. settings

- 1920x1080 @ 120 Hz, max settings

FarCry 3 (DX11):

- 2560x1440 @ 120 Hz, max. settings

- 1920x1080 @ 120 Hz, max. settings

Metro 2033 (DX10):

- 2560x1440 @ 120 Hz, max. settings

- 1920x1080 @ 120 Hz, max. settings

Temperature and loudness

Now, I can’t really show you any graphs, because I don’t have really much to compare them with, so I will do it in text form. Baring in mind my system is really quiet, the loudest part is my PSU, and has pretty good airflow.

With the described overclock on the 7970 GPU Tweak showed about 40°-45°C in idle and at about 70°C under load, with the 680 30°-35°C idle and also about 70° load.

Sound wise, both cards were not loud at all, both coolers did their job very good, under load, they were both quiet, not silent, but really quiet. And in idle both were inaudible.

Benchmarking

3DMark 11 Performance

Asus GeForce GTX 680 4GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1594[/ATTACH]

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 3 GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1596[/ATTACH]

3DMark 11 Extreme

Asus GeForce GTX 680 4GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1595[/ATTACH]

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 3GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1597[/ATTACH]

3DMark Vantage Performance

Asus GeForce GTX 680 4GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1588[/ATTACH]

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 3GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1586[/ATTACH]

3DMark Vantage Extreme

Asus GeForce GTX 680 4GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1589[/ATTACH]

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 3GB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1587[/ATTACH]

In both Vantage benchmarks the CPU score on the Nvidia card is slightly higher. This might be because of CUDA, which relieves the CPU a bit.

Heaven Benchmark

Asus GeForce GTX 680 4GB

Powercolor Radeon HD 7970 3GB

For some reason the 7970 was not detected as the current GPU.

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Conclusion

Asus reengineered their previous GeForce GTX 680 design by shrinking the card with its once huge triple slot cooler down to a two slot card with regular dimensions for a video card at this point in time. To compensate the smaller critical mass the clock speeds were set back to reference – but therefore equipped with double the amount of memory.

Back in the days where the Radeon HD 7xxx and the GeForce GTX 6xx series graphics card were launched, a 7970 and a 680 scored pretty much the same in almost every benchmark, especially when overclocked. 680s cost more, but delivered the same performance as a 7970. But this was only due to the fact that reference 680s were held back by their smaller amount on memory.

Of course this model is slightly disadvantaged in clock speed compared to the 2 GB “TOP†version. Referring to reliable sources, in some applications 4 GB cards score even lower than 2 GB versions with the same clock speeds, due to the administrative workload for the extra memory. Even though Asus did not increase the core clock slightly to compensate that, this card outdoes any other video card at this price point.

This may be because of this particular GPU was lucky in the silicon lottery, but also because Asus maintained all their established features like DIGI+ Super Alloy Power components for cooler, quieter and more stable overclocking and put a whole amount of effort into redesigning and essentializing their DirectCU II cooling technology by reducing its’ size, but retaining its’ enormous cooling potential, which is very important for a high boost clock on the Kepler cards.

Combining the very quiet and highly effective cooler, the incredible overclocking potential and now 4 GB of memory. All this makes the new Asus GeForce GTX 680 4 GB DirectCU II not only one of the most powerful single GPU gaming graphics cards, but also, especially for high resolution gaming and video editing or rendering, probably the high-end gaming video card with best price per performance ratio on the market at this present moment in time.

[Dr3nz4r]

Fix screenshots please.. otherwise great review!

[skullbringer]

still some problems with pic uploads and stuff... vBulletin alpha ^^ fixed screenshot issues... you now have to click on them...

THX

[Dr3nz4r]

still some problems with pic uploads and stuff... vBulletin alpha ^^ fixed screenshot issues... you now have to click on them...

THX

Dont work.. upload them at any exterlan uplaoder and just link them.. dont embeed the image.. thats what i emant with fix it :D

[skullbringer]

if you reall wanna see the screenshots you will click on them, really putting pictures into forums makes me soo mad...