Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 – The Nitty Gritty

So here it is, the long awaited GTX 680. For weeks now we have been seeing information flying about on the web as to what the card is about and then more on the finer points of its specifications, technologies, what has changed over the GTX 580 and more critically its performance. What we can say right now is that most of this was only rumours and in fact after we met up with Nvidia last week, they confirmed that the vast majority of whats been going about is either factually incorrect or false in its entirety.

So why an article on the ‘Nitty Gritty’? Well there are two reasons for this, firstly we need to make the facts about the new card clear as I can imagine that some people are going to get very confused and wondering who is right when all the information conflicts. Secondly and most importantly, the GTX 680 is not just another line of cards, oh no, we were told in person that what we know about Nvidia GeForce graphics is about to change radically and that things were really about to get ramped up a notch, and Tom from Nvidia was not lying. Nvidia have not just upgraded individual aspects of the card to bring them into line with the competition, they’ve gone right back to the drawing board and built this card ground up changing everything along the way.

This is where this article comes into play. With all the new technologies and the way the card operates and performs, to quite a number of users it may seem too complex and I’ll be honest some parts of it are a little complex, it took me a bit of time to grips with it all at the meeting with Nvidia and understand it the way I needed to. Along each step of the way I aim to explain it as easily as I can, so its time to quickly put the kettle on and get a cuppa, as this could be a long one…