680GTX a big step up from 5970 ???????

[Terbinator]

I'd ditch HBAO and FXAA personally and roll with MSAA instead. HBAO is a performance killer for little aesthetic appeal (IMO) - not to mention on the darker maps its impossible to see someone if they have spec-ops camo on.

[Bugbait]

This thread covers exactly what I've been considering lately. I really want to upgrade my 2.5+ year old 5970 but there's nothing that is clearly better on the market at the moment (for single card solutions). I've been seriously considering a pair of 7970's or 680's but water cooling two separate cards is just that little bit more work than I could be bothered with at the moment. The estimated price of the 690 doesn't seem to make it particularly worth waiting for either, over 2 separate cards that is.

[shaithis]

I'd ditch HBAO and FXAA personally and roll with MSAA instead. HBAO is a performance killer for little aesthetic appeal (IMO) - not to mention on the darker maps its impossible to see someone if they have spec-ops camo on.

Couldn't agree more.

Ambient occlusion kills framerate, yet I cannot see any differences.

Post-AA is just photoshop blur filter - I hate it.

[Syd]

Thank you both I've taken that advice - much smoother frame rate now, however I'd like to get back to ultra if possible (greedy b'stard I am !!) the 690 is serious money - would a 4gb 680 improve much at 30" resolution over a 2gb model ??

[shaithis]

Unfortunately not. It isn't the amount of VRAM that is killing the 680 @ 2560x1600.....it is lack of bandwidth and pure grunt.

[dfour]

Also turning tessalation from amd optimised to default settings can free up some more frame rate.

See what happens with the 7990 as AMD are realeasing it after the 690 so they should be able to make it faster than it but it still going to be horendously priced.

[Syd]

Unfortunately not. It isn't the amount of VRAM that is killing the 680 @ 2560x1600.....it is lack of bandwidth and pure grunt.

Drat.

So in a nutshell, the only way to get loveleyness is to go SLI in one form or another.
And its all bloody expensive

I suppose that a pair of 670's will be pretty good - or I just wait

And see what comes at end of year like I have been advised, I just wish I had some patience......................

[shaithis]

I just turned the settings down until something tickled my fancy (which was a second 580 @ £200).

At the moment, you can buy 2 second-hand 580s for £400....or one 680....the dual 580s give around 50% extra framerate over the single 680 @ 2560x1600 (as long as you make sure you do not go over the 1.5GB VRAM......which means either no AA or no/reduced ambient occlusion...and no AA @ 2560x1600 isn't really an issue IMO).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Meh. It seems the GTX670 will be £300+ and latest news indicates the GTX660 1.5GB will be over £200 too.

[Syd]

Hmmmmmmm I guess I'll wait until the 690 price gets released, cry and then keep my setings turned down......

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I know some people don't like OBR but here is some interesting news about the GK110:

http://www.obr-hardware.com/2012/05/...ed-in-two.html

[Syd]

I know some people don't like OBR but here is some interesting news about the GK110:

http://www.obr-hardware.com/2012/05/...ed-in-two.html

Ambiguos

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It looks like big Kepler will be using a 384 bit memory controller:

http://www.olcf.ornl.gov/computing-resources/titan/

[shaithis]

What a surprise lol

Now perhaps the last nay-sayers may admit to the 680 being an overpriced 660Ti

So, I am guessing there may be one or two 320bit models released under the "big kepler" tag.....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It does say 2013 for the Kepler based Tesla cards.

So maybe,big Kepler, if released to retail might end up appearing towards the of the year??

[DLUK]

What a surprise lol

Now perhaps the last nay-sayers may admit to the 680 being an overpriced 660Ti

So, I am guessing there may be one or two 320bit models released under the "big kepler" tag.....

I think it states that big kepler is for Pro use for compute Tesla-Quadro and current Kelper is for games and can't be adjusted to be for pro use unlike before. So nvidia have split the families. AMD have not done so (yet) and we may or may not find big kepler converges domestic can be upgraded to pro.

680 isn't 660 it's 680 can't be made quadro. To think otherwise is to say AMD's best ever GPU 7970 was a pile of junk vs a mid range attempt by Nvidia.

To understand how hard Nvidia have divorced the Families just view some IB video transcode benchmarks vs GTX 680 (but not 7970). Compute was not included by Nvidia this time around.

OT: The reason to jump 7970-680 from 5970 is power use-heat reductions, no CF_Sli issues and smoother FPS and better image quality due to improved shaders-core and VRAM for 1050p+. Cost is your choice because FPS wise 5970 is still pretty darn good in a massive array of titles but if you want say Blueray or games 3d, better surround and less hassle for visably smoother FPS and image quality, the top end 28nm offer that right now BUT for a price tag*

*What you also find syd' is 7970 and 680 benefit most from being hosted in 4.5-5Ghz SB-IB boards and for compute tasks PCIE 3 at that (Z77-X79) so to get the best all round you may also want to jump from G1 I7 (and Core 2, Althon-Phenom etc) to 2500k or better for best results in some 'compute' app's or games. So your 'benefit' may increase if you upgrade CPU_Mobo later.