Shall I get the GTX 680 or not?

[ArjenVdv 190]

Overall the 680 performs better than my 580. FPS are almost similar but the 680 appears to run smoother and without any stutters.

 

Overall the 680 is an improvement over the 580, while a small improvement it is still a better performing card.

 

Thanks John! This was the info I was looking for, I will go with the 680 then.

 

Do you have the default EVGA version or the superclocked version? Just wondering if I should go with the SC version or not.

[JohnFromCO 15]

I have the vanilla (02G-P4-2680-KR) 680. It was the only EVGA 680 listed on Newegg when I ordered in March.

 

Mine boosts around the same as the SC card my friend has but I had to do more tweaking initially. The SC's cooler looks identical to my ref cooler.

 

The only model I might have purchased instead of my vanilla would be the signature edition.

[WebMaximus 372]

 

 

Overall the 680 performs better than my 580. FPS are almost similar but the 680 appears to run smoother and without any stutters.

 

Overall the 680 is an improvement over the 580, while a small improvement it is still a better performing card.

 

Thanks John for this input, this made me too decide to return my 580 and replace it with a 680 instead. Figured I don't upgrade my hardware that often so now when I'm doing it why don't go all the way. For the very same reason I also bought 2 new Intel 520 series SSDs today to replace my old first generation X25-M SSDs, I'm using SSDs for my system disk and my FSX disk.

 

This new rig where I from start planned to only get a new CPU and motherboard is now starting to get expensive so I do hope FSX will literally fly on it

[AlphaInfinity 13]

You will really like the cherryville intel drives. I have one and it is awesome.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

My reference design Asus 680 is currently overclocked to 1275MHz core and 7000MHz mem :D scoring just under 14,000 3dmark 11 P (CPU back at stock after O.S. reload, will re-OC and re-test soon)

[Iceman2 110]

Quote from my other post

 

 

Hi guys for what its worth.

 

I just put a 680 4g in and ditched my 590 (2x 580s).

 

I run 3 X 30in screens in NV surround and I have not changed any settings since doing Costa's tweak.

 

Surprisingly the 680 has produced a lot of stutters and dropped the FPS down a bit. It maybe because the drivers are a little premature for the 680. I have only tried the 301.24 drivers for both cards so I might try the original 680 drivers.

 

I tried the new card because I've read that the SLI side of the 590 can impair FSX.

 

At this stage the 680 compared to the 590 is a step down

 

 

found this quote from the NVIDIA forum today:

 

The VSYNC minor stutter bug in the Geforce GTX 600 series GPUs is a known issue and will be fixed in a future driver.

 

IM

Edited May 22, 2012 by Iceman2

[ArjenVdv 190]

Quote from my other post

 

 

Hi guys for what its worth.

 

I just put a 680 4g in and ditched my 590 (2x 580s).

 

I run 3 X 30in screens in NV surround and I have not changed any settings since doing Costa's tweak.

 

Surprisingly the 680 has produced a lot of stutters and dropped the FPS down a bit. It maybe because the drivers are a little premature for the 680. I have only tried the 301.24 drivers for both cards so I might try the original 680 drivers.

 

I tried the new card because I've read that the SLI side of the 590 can impair FSX.

 

At this stage the 680 compared to the 590 is a step down

 

 

found this quote from the NVIDIA forum today:

 

The VSYNC minor stutter bug in the Geforce GTX 600 series GPUs is a known issue and will be fixed in a future driver.

 

IM

 

This is so annoying, cuz I'm only getting conflicting information. John says taht a GTX 680 is slightly smoother, and you say that it creates more stuttering. So as I understand correctly, you applied Word Not Allowed's adaptive VSync tweak, which should reduce stuttering, and it actually increased it? So what happens when you turn VSync off? What's your other pc specs? Maybe it's because you're using multiple monitors?

[Iceman2 110]

Very annoying, I found that with the 590 it was handling the 3 screens well and keeping the fps locked at 30 until I was at high demanding airports like FSDT KLAX in the NGX, then the rates would drop which is not good for stutters using Word Not Allowed's tweak. Any other setting other than 1/2 VS is worse. With the 590 Word Not Allowed's tweak was a dream come true as it removed all stutters when in the air and most airports other than the biggies. The 680 gives me stutters even when the frames at stuck on 30.

 

I'm lead to believe its the drivers from whats being said over at the nvidia forum. They have released today a new driver 301.42 & 302.59 beta which I will try now and report back.

 

Asus P8Z68-V Pro

2600K @ 4.8 GHz

16g 1600 RAM

2 X SSD

 

IM

[ArjenVdv 190]

Very annoying, I found that with the 590 it was handling the 3 screens well and keeping the fps locked at 30 until I was at high demanding airports like FSDT KLAX in the NGX, then the rates would drop which is not good for stutters using Word Not Allowed's tweak. Any other setting other than 1/2 VS is worse. With the 590 Word Not Allowed's tweak was a dream come true as it removed all stutters when in the air and most airports other than the biggies. The 680 gives me stutters even when the frames at stuck on 30.

 

I'm lead to believe its the drivers from whats being said over at the nvidia forum. They have released today a new driver 301.42 & 302.59 beta which I will try now and report back.

 

Asus P8Z68-V Pro

2600K @ 4.8 GHz

16g 1600 RAM

2 X SSD

 

IM

 

Thanks! I hope you can report back soon. I'm starting to doubt about the GTX 680 again. However, I read on the internet that NVIDIA admitted that there's a stutter problem with their 600 cards and 300 drivers. Question is, will the newer drivers also fix this in FSX? I wouldn't be so sure...

[WebMaximus 372]

Haven't had the time to install FSX yet and try my new rig out including the 680 but will report back as soon as I have.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Single monitor running FSXMark 11 w/GTX 680 PCI-e 3.0 x16 on an Ivy Bridge Z77 platform and 301.24 driver (not the latest .42) is stutter-free. The stutters reported by iceman are due to either a Vsync issue or multi-monitor, not strictly the driver. Or rather, the condition which may be caused by the driver is not apparent when testing FSXMark 11. I'll post results of the 680 in multi-monitor once I get my other two 1440P monitors. Will of course try out the new drivers as well.

[Iceman2 110]

Ok.. no change with the new drivers .42 but Nvidia have said on their website that they wont have a fix for 680 stutters until June. What I'm seeing is smooth flying even when FPS drop well below 30 in straight and level flying until I turn including on the ground then the stutters are shocken. It makes no difference if I'm in a default or NGX AC. For some reason the FPS go up and down dramatically when turning left or right.

 

Having said all that the 680 so far has fixed my main issue that I had with the 590 on multiscreens, which was an FSX freeze and CTD when approaching a major airport (50mi) like FSDT KLAX in the NGX. I like the eye candy stuff so I have my LOD radius at 5.5 & max airline traffic using UT2. Often I would get exited and make it past the 50mi point with the airport detail loading & about 100 odd AI aircraft at the gates but if I pan away for a few seconds then back to the airport ahead I get the dreaded freeze as the scenery reloads, I have to CTL ALT DEL to get out of it & start again. The 680 loads all this scenery instantly with just an ever so slight pause. Not sure if thats because of the 4g mem on the card helping out.

 

 

So l'm going to have to put up with the slightly lower FPS and stutters if I want a successful approach and land at these major demanding airports.

 

Noticable differences from the 590 are the graphic load times are really fast, colors brighter and distance detail clearer. I have not tried the original drivers nor the 301.40 with the inf tweak that they're talking about over on the nvidia forums to reduce stutters.

 

 

 

Hi Techguy

 

I believe you are right about the VS thing, somthing is going wrong there on the 680. I have noticed that I have less stutters when I set in NI settings to adaptive not standard, all other settings as per Word Not Allowed's tweak.

 

IM

[Iceman2 110]

For what its worth,

 

I have managed to get the 680 to work without or with very few stutters. Of cause may not work with other setups.

 

Firstly: I've set everything up as per Word Not Allowed's tweak.

 

Secondly: I had to change the VSync to application controlled and insert the fullscreen VS tweak into the FSX CFG. Using adaptive not standard also helped removing stutters.

 

 

Obviously this setup is no longer Word Not Allowed's tweak but its a bit of a work around and gives me the highest FPS and almost no stutters until the VS problem is solved with the new drivers sometime in June. Also as stated above in my previous post, with the 680 vs 590 I now have no graphic/FSX freezes.

 

 

IM

 

 

IM

[JohnFromCO 15]

I found running adaptive works the best on my 680.

 

We will see what happens in June.

[RaptyrOne 1,403]

I have just upgraded from a GTX480 to the GTX680. Not a mind blowing FPS improvement but an improvement nevertheless. The GTX680 runs cooler and quiter but of course that is not the issue. The GTX680 will have a lot of extra head room to tolerate certain tweaks. The rest of your system is a good spec, don't bottle neck it with the GPU and remember, yes, FSX is CPU intensive but it is fast becoming very GPU intensive with some of the more recent tweaks/mods (such as BP=0) that have made the sim's graphical perform better for many.

 

Out of interest, originally using a mix of ******* and Word Not Allowed's tweaks in the fsx.cfg, was getting worse performance than the GTX480 but when starting with a clean cfg and running Kostas tweaks to the tee, this card is the business! Zero stutters, crystal clear scenery, no flashing and rock solid after several 9 hour real time flights in PMDG 744X into and out of dense airports. Still using drivers 301.10 - waiting for some positive feedback from FSX community before installing the ones released yesterday. One happy camper here.