We tested the GK104: GeForce GTX 680 and high-end guns
Measurements
We will start with the test programs that synthesize and examine various special abilities (tessellation, DirectCompute, video coding) according to its order and method!
With 3DMark 11, the measurement mechanism doesn’t need to be brushed at length, and the scores speak for themselves. The GTX 680 must have been toasted seriously, beating the GTX 580 by about 43%, and the HD 7970 couldn't keep up. The grip of the GTX 590 was a hair's breadth away, but the great Antilles, the Radeon HD 6990, could also feel in danger. At the tuned clocks, then, the GTX 680 already treats everyone, behind the HD 6990 alone by a hair's breadth in the Extreme measurement.
We’ve switched from the Unigine Heaven Benchmark to the latest version, which can challenge riders even more. The measurement program actively uses tessellation, and my learned colleague did not rattle the sparrows when describing the technology when talking about Kepler’s increased tessellation capabilities. Performance jumped significantly compared to the GTX 580, but the HD 7970 also had to succumb to the will of the GK104. The tuned GTX 680 also compromised the primacy of the two GPU cards.
It was also stated in the technology briefing that the change in design philosophy has resulted in GK104 becoming a less percussive cGPU, the first signs of which can be seen in ComputeMark, although the situation is far from worrying. The GTX 580 still managed to outperform, if not much, but it looks like the HD 7970 is well prepared in this area as well, winning this race high. The program presumably does not use the second GPU, so the performance of dual cards is weaker.
LuxMark uses OpenCL, where the lower performance of the GK104 could certainly be expected, and the fears proved legitimate. The GTX 680 even lagged behind its predecessor, and the rival Tahiti-XT was able to deliver almost three times as much performance as it was virtually destructive. Another question is how saddened this is for most buyers.
TessMark is a test program for tessellating skills only. We knew Kepler had come a long way, yet the scores were shocking. Kepler managed to put together a score three times higher than the GTX 580 and almost double that of the HD 7970, not to mention the dual cards. Tuning the performance showed another nice leap, this production is certainly a significant weapon for the future.
We also had the opportunity to try NVENC at MediaEspresso. Well, we don’t know how prepared the software is at the moment to take advantage of Kepler’s capabilities, but in any case, things worked properly, the GTX 680 was the fastest coding card in the field. H.264 has a significant advantage over Radeons, but it was also able to deliver 580 seconds on the GTX 6. WMV edge the advantage continued to grow, here the difference is already 28 seconds compared to the second-placed GTX 580. The only format where Kepler snatched out against Fermi was m2ts (Blu-ray - AVCHD).
The measurement program section is closed with the Mars PhysX benchmark, which includes only GeForce cards. Apparently, the second GPU of the GTX 590 had no effect on the result, while the GTX 680 forged a significant advantage over its predecessor in terms of average FPS.
