Palit GeForce GTX 680 4GB Jetstream review [Guru3D.com]

[Guru3D News]

We review the Palit GeForce GTX 680 4GB Jetstream edition. Why 4 GB Well some of you like to game at extremely high resolutions or have 8xAA as a bare minimum. If a graphics card runs out of graphics...

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[Spets]

Nice review Hilbert
Looks like the extra ram doesn't bring much to the table.

[Fusion_XT]

Aww i was hoping for some triple monitor setup benchmarks!

[Hilbert Hagedoorn]

Originally Posted by Fusion_XT

Aww i was hoping for some triple monitor setup benchmarks!

Have a good peek at 2560x1600 as it's already 4 Mpixels being rendered (5760x1080 = 6 MPixels).

[Fusion_XT]

Originally Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Have a good peek at 2560x1600 as it's already 4 Mpixels being rendered (5760x1080 = 6 MPixels).

Yeah i know m8!, but im somewhat a skeptic.. i just need to see some real numbers @ that particular resolution before i make my decision!.

But like always nice review!

[mezball]

Originally Posted by Guru3D News

We review the Palit GeForce GTX 680 4GB Jetstream edition. Why 4 GB Well some of you like to game at extremely high resolutions or have 8xAA as a bare minimum. If a graphics card runs out of graphics...

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Thanks for the review...especially for the below statement:


"The 4GB -- Realistically there was not one game that we tested that could benefit from the two extra GB's of graphics memory. Even at 2560x1600 (which is a massive 4 Mpixels resolution) there was just no measurable difference."


There comes a point when having more doesn't always mean better or makes a difference. I will be sitting on these 580's for a long time until they fail or a game I play demands it.

[COD4000]

I always check the noise section of the reviews first and noticed in every 680 review you've put "The Idle results are brilliant, the fan will even turn itself off when the GPU idles."

I'm pretty sure the 680 fans don't turn off in idle, isn't that just the AMD 7 series ?

My 680 definitely doesn't turn off the fan in idle.

[Hilbert Hagedoorn]

Originally Posted by COD4000

I always check the noise section of the reviews first and noticed in every 680 review you've put "The Idle results are brilliant, the fan will even turn itself off when the GPU idles."

I'm pretty sure the 680 fans don't turn off in idle, isn't that just the AMD 7 series ?

My 680 definitely doesn't turn off the fan in idle.

Ah I've overseen that. Totally right, they stick at low RPM mode. I'll take that out.

[Frohman0905]

Good review! Pretty funny people actually believed 4GB cards would make a difference at those resolutions.

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by Frohman0905

Good review! Pretty funny people actually believed 4GB cards would make a difference at those resolutions.

The extra memory would undoubtedly prove useful for triple monitor gaming with maxed settings and AA which is the one area this review didn't cover. Seems pointless to me to review a 4 GB card and not cover the one area where the extra memory could (should?) be useful.

Skyrim with only the HD texture pack at 1920x1200, Ultra, 8xMSAA/16xAF/FXAA can hit 2,015 MB on my system as can Alien vs. Predator with 4xMSAA at 1920x1200, though fortunately both games still manage to run smoothly with no tell-tale stutter. I do have v-sync enabled and triple buffering forced via D3DOverrider, which increases the amount of memory used due to the use of an extra frame buffer. (Triple buffering is another feature that graphic card reviews don't cover)

If I was intending playing at 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 though then I'd certainly consider buying a card with more memory. For now though, 2 GB is absolutely fine for me but only because I'm still gaming on a single 24" 1920x1200 display.

[Frohman0905]

Originally Posted by Darren Hodgson

The extra memory would undoubtedly prove useful for triple monitor gaming with maxed settings and AA which is the one area this review didn't cover. Seems pointless to me to review a 4 GB card and not cover the one area where the extra memory could (should?) be useful.

Skyrim with only the HD texture pack at 1920x1200, Ultra, 8xMSAA/16xAF/FXAA can hit 2,015 MB on my system as can Alien vs. Predator with 4xMSAA at 1920x1200, though fortunately both games still manage to run smoothly with no tell-tale stutter. I do have v-sync enabled and triple buffering forced via D3DOverrider, which increases the amount of memory used due to the use of an extra frame buffer. (Triple buffering is another feature that graphic card reviews don't cover)

If I was intending playing at 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 though then I'd certainly consider buying a card with more memory. For now though, 2 GB is absolutely fine for me but only because I'm still gaming on a single 24" 1920x1200 display.

Like Hilbert said, 2560x1600 already renders 4MegaPixels which is a lot. Multiple reviews have already proven that the 2GB frame buffer of the GTX680 doesn't get taxed at 2560x1600 and even not on triple display solutions in most games. Hardocp actually did a nice review on that matter when the GTX680 came out. It still matches and sometimes beats a stock HD7970 at those resolutions which has more ram.

What is interesting is the 3-way sli vs trifire review they did. Results showed indeed that the GTX680 is limited at 5760x1200 in BF3 SP (GTX680 3-sli actually allowed higher settings at that resolution in multiplayer than HD7970 tri-fi). And that's it... Ok I know, Hardocp doesn't test a lot of games but they do test the most popular ones.

[Year]

glad i didn't wait for it, that's for sure

[RoadKillNL]

Still wait for other brands to get their 4GB Models out.

Both the Palit and Gainward Models arn't compatible with the Arctic Accelero XTREME III sadly enough.

Also seems KFA2 isn't gonna come to Holland as i mailed a couple of shops about it. So options are getting limited there. Perhaps Gigabyte will roll out a 4GB Soon based on their current Windforce OC PCB Design.

If not i wont be getting a 680 at all.

I'm very demanding, i know. It MUST have Arctic XTREME III compatibility. It's the only cooler i'm known with that's inaudible at 40% fan speed.

[kzinti1]

This is a very good looking card with an excellent review by Hilbert.
I'm still not the least bit impressed with this or any other GTX 680 videocard.
As long as the voltage is locked I never will be happy with this series.
I suggest everybody stick with the GTX 580's until we can see what else Nvidia has for us a little later on.
I wish I'd never bought into this series. I really need to sell both of my cards asap and wait on the GTX 7xx series. It would be well worth it to me to lose 20% of the total cost to be bought out of these things. I even have an uninstalled pair of waterblocks that aren't necessary since these cards don't run fast enough or heat up enough to need them.
I should've heeded my 1st instinct to buy a new 30" IPS monitor and waited on the next generation of videocards.
I am depressed.

[Darren Hodgson]

Also I've noticed that these 4 GB GTX 680 cards are selling at £550-£600 here in the UK, which is £130+ more than the price I paid for my 2 GB Point of View GTX 680 at £420. Does an extra 2 GB of memory really justify that price hike?

[RoadKillNL]

Originally Posted by Darren Hodgson

Also I've noticed that these 4 GB GTX 680 cards are selling at £550-£600 here in the UK, which is £130+ more than the price I paid for my 2 GB Point of View GTX 680 at £420. Does an extra 2 GB of memory really justify that price hike?

That's pretty overpriced.

Here in Holland they go for a lot cheaper.

Palit Jetstream GTX 680 4GB - €575 ---> £464
Gainward GTX 680 Phantom 4GB - €612 ---> £494

[Mufflore]

I was about to post the same as you Darren.
The 4GB card needs memory using beyond 2GB to expose the performance difference/penalty.
Not doing this misses the point of the card.

The review did expose that the 4GB cards memory is running a little slower and that its performance is as expected.

[VultureX]

Originally Posted by Mufflore

I was about to post the same as you Darren.
The 4GB card needs memory using beyond 2GB to expose the performance difference/penalty.
Not doing this misses the point of the card.

The review did expose that the 4GB cards memory is running a little slower and that its performance is as expected.

This^

Why 4 GB ? Well some of you like to game at extremely high resolutions or have 8xAA as a bare minimum.

What does this review do? Disable MSAA in Metro2033 and test almost all games with 4xAA :\ No wonder the extra 2GB doesn't make a difference.

Hell, I'm playing most games on my setup at those settings. It's once the texture mods, 16xAA and other modifications come in when vRAM starts to matter.

[Mufflore]

What is the sales tax in Holland?

[RoadKillNL]

Originally Posted by Mufflore

What is the sales tax in Holland?

Believe you mean what's called BTW for us. Which is 19% and the prices i shown have that included 19% already.

[Neo Cyrus]

I don't suppose if there any rumours of AMD coming up with their own adaptive vsync or new AA to match nVidia? Their current MLAA implementation is just no good, I use FXAA injection over it.

[TechFreaK]

Originally Posted by Neo Cyrus

I don't suppose if there any rumours of AMD coming up with their own adaptive vsync or new AA to match nVidia? Their current MLAA implementation is just no good, I use FXAA injection over it.

Well default build In FXAA aint much better either >> blur fest. I rather use traditional AA or SMAA injector.

[Neo Cyrus]

Originally Posted by TechFreaK

Well default build In FXAA aint much better either >> blur fest. I rather use traditional AA or SMAA injector.

For at least half the cases FXAA actually ended up being the better solution than SMAA (out of the things I've tried it on). But I know what you mean, SMAA for some edges is the ultimate solution, too bad there is only a 1x injector for it.

For example Street Fighter X Tekken, SMAA is pretty crappy in that. Between AMD's MLAA 2.0, FXAA (with its new tool) and SMAA it was clear that FXAA stood above the rest. In that case I also actually NEED blur as the shadow textures are atrocious, true console quality, just blobs of pixels. Blurring it by setting FXAA to maximum blur is the best I can do to make the shadows look tolerable.

I would use SSAA and inject FXAA over it for the best result I can get but like most things these days I can't force SSAA, the AMD drivers have not been updated to support it and there is no CAP out for it either.

[dchalf10]

Originally Posted by TechFreaK

Well default build In FXAA aint much better either >> blur fest. I rather use traditional AA or SMAA injector.

There are plenty of games that have terrible in game AA where MSAA override does not work, or in games like Mass Effect 2 where there are a lot of transparent textures and MSAA does not get rid of the jaggies.

The Witcher 2 and Dead Space/Dead Space 2 for example, FXAA looks a lot better than the in game AA.

The fact that FXAA also eliminates aliasing on transparent textures makes it superior to MSAA in some games where transparency aliasing is high ( Bioshock 2 ).

Also many game engines cannot have both ambient occlusion forced and AA. FXAA means you can have AA and AO.

Open them in separate tabs, geralts armour is notiveably less blurred with FXAA as is the whole scene

In game AA ( MLAA? )
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/3...gameaamlaa.png
FXAA through NVCP
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5...hroughnvcp.png

[TechFreaK]

ok..


And my point was FXAA ain't nothing better compared to MLAA, yes it is less blurred but still not good enough.

That's why i rather use 3rd party post AA injectors or MSAA where i can. But yeah each has its own preferences..


Greets,