ZOTAC GeForce GTX 680 Pro Reviews

The nVidia GTX 680 doesn't totally outclass AMD's latest 7970, but it is faster in typical games titles. It's also less power hungry and has a lower asking price. It's unlikely to be the last word in single-GPU technology for this architecture, and we can certainly imagine nVidia bringing out a heavier-weight version that smashes everything AMD out of the water. For now though, and until Compute capabilities become more significant, this is the best high-end graphics card on the market.

So what's our bottom line for the two ZOTAC GTX 680s in an SLI configuration? If you are a gaming enthusiast and you need the best eye candy the game offers, along with the best possible gaming experience, there is no question about buying two GTX 680s for your next gaming system. Keep in mind that some of the games we have tested were not maxed out in graphics. This was done to perform a fair comparison against AMD's graphics cards. We have intentionally disabled PhysX and lowered the AA settings to 8x max, because AMD's cards do not support advanced PhysX options, and also won't support high anti-aliasing settings. Because Nvidia provides their users with even higher graphics settings than the games come with, there is a possibility to use two GTX 680s with 32x or even 64x AA configuration. Also, if you are a gamer thinking about a 3D Vision Surround setup, remember that the gaming performance will drop drastically in such setup. For example, Battlefield 3 scored an average FPS of 120.6 at 1920 x 1080 resolution on Ultra settings. With 3D Vision enabled, the frame rates could likely drop to about 60FPS average. This means that in graphics intensive parts of the game, the game is likely to dip in frame rates causing a slightly laggy feel. Also keep in mind that for perfectly smooth gameplay, you are looking at staying around 60+ FPS so you could enable VSync and get a constant 60FPS during gameplay.

Most people today and by most I mean the gamer crowd only want to know how fast it plays games and the rest of the technology is just added goodness they may or may not ever use. Well good news for that crowd, the new GTX 680 is the fastest single GPU in the world as of its release. The big plus beyond that I feel though is the way games looked, BF3 at 1920X1080 with the setting at their utmost Ultra DX11 capabilities looked incredible, the ground you walk in on, the sky, your weapon and all the lighting effects make gaming a more realistic experience. I am not an engineer, I am a gamer/enthusiast and many of the technologies used in getting the visuals onto the screen I don't totally understand, but I know what I see on my screen and how well things are working from a real life viewpoint and the experiences I have. Everything I have seen so far dictates that the new GTX 680 is going to be a big win for NVIDIA as it takes then in the right direction for future cards and in the now it has just enough power to best AMD on the playing field. I have to for the sake of integrity mention though that these cards run hot running between 78C to 80C under full load, but that also I have not seen any performance degradation when using the card in its factory setting either so it's important to note if you have a case with poor air circulation. That to me is the only drawback I see with the reference based cards, and most likely or more assuredly others will be making cards with their custom coolers for the enthusiasts and overclockers market place. The GTX 680 if well cooled has the potential headroom for great overclocking, but as of now I would recommend being very careful of how far you push your card. Beyond that the new GTX 680 has many great things going for it regardless of naysayer hoopla, Impressive game play both visually and with very high framerates in all the latest games, and for the home movie buff excellent video transfer and video encoding times.