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For those gaming on a single monitor the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 4GB has nothing to offer in the way of extra performance over a 2GB card. Having initially tested at 2560x1600 we found absolutely no difference in performance and this was also the case at the triple-monitor resolution of 5040x1050 which features almost 30% more pixels.
It is not until you go three times greater than 2560x1600 that you start to see the advantages of having the larger frame buffer. Still even at 7680x1600 not all games will show the 4GB GTX 680 to be faster, as other bottlenecks appear first. The games that responded the best to the extra frame buffer included Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor Warfighter, while increases were also seen in DiRT 3 and Alan Wake. From our results it is clear anyone looking to game at the extreme triple-monitor resolution of 7680x1600 will require not one but rather two GeForce GTX 680 4GB graphics cards. Still when spending over $3000 on monitors it’s not hard to imagine dishing out over $1100 on GPUs. That said, we have to wonder why anyone would bother with the GeForce GTX 680 4GB for extreme resolutions when the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition was constantly faster at both 5040x1050 and 7680x1600. In fact at 7680x1600 the 7970 GHz Edition was on average 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 680 4GB in the half dozen games that we tested with. This is the same conclusion that we drew when comparing the previous generation dual-GPU graphics cards on triple-monitor setups, as we found the Radeon HD 6990 to be superior to the GeForce GTX 590. Even if we were to assume that 2-way SLI would scale 100% over a single GeForce GTX 680 4GB configuration, we would still be faced with less than 60fps in all of the games that we tested with at 7680x1600. This makes the 20% performance advantage of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition all the more important. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 4GB costs 17% more than the 2GB version, which equates to an $80 price premium. For 99.9% of gamers this added cost is not going to deliver any additional performance, making 4GB GTX 680 graphics cards a niche product. Still, for those that have their sights set on a 4GB GTX 680, this Gigabyte version is by far the biggest and most impressive we have come across and providing you are happy to sacrifice an extra expansion slot, there is no better GTX 680 available right now. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 11/16/2012 05:41 AM
Finally I have been waiting for a good review on a 4GB card. Pretty much everything I have come across so far only tested at 2560x1600. Nice results. |
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Carl M Bland |
Posted on: 11/28/2012 05:44 AM
Hello, I've been gaming on my three 30' samsungs for quite some time until AMD started using the mini display ports on the 6990's and I have been lost since then. I would greatly appreciate some in depth advice/photo's of how you are getting that resolution off just one 7970. It has been a problem in my gaming life for too long and I am glad I stumbled onto your review. Sincerely, Carl M Bland |
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Steve Posts: 80 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 11/28/2012 10:53 AM
Hi Carl, you need to use a pair of the mini-Display Ports and one of the DVI ports. |
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GregM Posts: 1 Joined: 2013-03-21 |
Posted on: 03/21/2013 12:51 PM
Hi! Looking for some help! I currently max out the 1.5gb on my 2 580's at 2560x1600 very quickly in Skyrim with high res texture mods installed and then the game begins to jerk at times even at high frame rates. I,m assuming I would also pass the 2gb limit easily! So it's not just multi monitor setups I would assume that need more video memory. Would it be that texture memory is just as important depending on what you are running? TIA |