GIGABYTE GTX 680 OC WindForce 3X 2GB Review

[siopao1984]

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GIGABYTE needs no introduction - they are one of the largest motherboard and component makers in the industry and pride themselves in engineering excellence. The WindForce brand is their line of non-reference graphics cards from both AMD/ATi and Nvidia, decked out with a custom cooler and trademark blue PCB design to improve overclocking mileage and durability. Today we have their GTX 680 version in our labs, which is factory overclocked at 1071 MHz (base)/1124 MHz (boost), 50MHz more than regular cards.

One obvious improvement is the doing away of the vertically stacked 6+6pin PCIe connector design from the reference card, with GIGABYTE instead opting for a more generous 8+6 pin layout, which means the card can theoretically take 300W of peak power instead of an underwhelming 225W, allowing for more ambitious overclocks.

GIGABYTE didn't change the I/O Panel on their GTX 680 WindForce, sticking with full-sized HDMI/DP ports and dual DVI (one of them single link only, which we think is redundant and spoils the prospect of single slot water-cooling). The obvious improvement from the previous generation GTX 580 flagship is that we can now run triple-display 3D Vision Surround from a single card (previously only possible on SLi setups), although it might be hampered on graphically intensive games by the 2GB of framebuffer.

Read more: GIGABYTE GTX 680 OC WindForce 3X 2GB Review by VR-Zone.com

[siopao1984]

In this section we will explore the changes that GIGABYTE have made at the PCB and cooling department of the GTX 680.



Here we have the standard Kepler GK104 die flanked by eight Hynix GDDR5 memory modules in a 256-bit configuration. Like its CPU and GPU counterparts, the overclocking headroom and even core/shader count is determined by the ASIC quality of the chip, and on the GTX 680 the integrated GPU Boost ceiling (read: dynamic TDP throttle) is especially tied closely to it.





Over at the VRM area we are pleased to report that the card has all the 5 power phases soldered (instead of 4 on reference cards), which is a 25% increase in potential. GIGABYTE reused the Richtek RT8802A PWM which was on the original design.









To take care of the rated 195W of TDP, GIGABYTE has employed their "WindForce 3X" direct touch copper heatpipe cooler, which is actually similar in design to the ASUS's DirectCU II (they share the same heatsink OEM, Cooler Master). Each of the three 80mm PWM capable fans are rated up to 0.35A at 12V. There is also a dedicated heatsink for the MOSFETs and the whole cooler is secured to the card by only four screws.

[siopao1984]

Software (Gigabyte's OC Guru tool)

Although similar in functionality to other brand's overclocking utilities, we don't agree on the wasteful (touch screen-ish) layout or lack of manual keyboard input (mouse only) for the adjustable values. The TDP/board power limit on this 5-phase board is restricted to a meagre 111% (which brings it to 250W from 225W programmed in the VGA BIOS), marginally higher than 4-phase reference designs. Core voltage, which is currently done through a driver interface rather than hardware control, cannot be adjusted by software means either.





Automated VGA Bios and driver update facilities are also available.





Thermals / Overclocking



Methodology: We set the fans to 100% (strangely the sliders will only let us apply 85%) and looped Unigine Heaven 3.0 on extreme settings for 10 minutes and took the maximum temperature from the ondie sensor. Ambient temperature was 18 degrees.


To prevent GPU Boost (NVIDIA's adaptive throttling mechanism to cheat in benchmarks) from interfering with the clocks, we need to change this setting in the Nvidia Control Panel.





Default settings: 57 degree celsius





Overclocked (1288/1552MHz): 60 degree celsius







Test Setup



CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4817MHz 1.52v
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (Bios 1103)
Memory: G.Skills ARES 2133Mhz DDR3 16GB Kit
Power Supply: Antec True Quattro Pro 1200W
Storage: Intel 520 series 250GB SSD

Graphics Cards / Drivers:
301.25
GIGABYTE GTX 680 OC WindForce 3X 2GB

300.99 drivers:
NVIDIA Reference GTX680

296.10 WHQL drivers:
ASUS GTX580 DirectCU II 1.5GB

8.960 beta drivers:
MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB
AMD Reference Radeon HD 7970 3GB
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC Edition
AMD Reference Radeon HD 7870 2GB
ASUS HD6970 DirectCU II 2GB

[siopao1984]

Benchmarks










Conclusion

Price: Unknown, probably more than the reference cards MSRP of $499 .

Pros
Faster than the competition
Factory Overclocked (~80MHz more)
Good acoustics (relative to the reference blower)
8+6 pin PCIe power connectors, higher TDP limit by default

Cons
Average overclocking ability (doesn't do 1337MHz like our reference card)
Only 2GB of Memory
Blue PCB eyesore

[yoyski101]

very informative