Wow, does this thing suck at compute. Now we know where Nvidia cheated. Should AMD follow suit in the future with a gaming only GPU?
Also, the way boost works, it's clear Nvidia's cherry picked review samples now actually effect default benchmarks. Nvidia themselves state the average 680 boost is to 1056 mhz, yet the sample they gave Ananadtech boosts up to 1110 mhz. Yet the regular end user who buys a card off newegg is not going to see the same GTX680 performance Anand benchmarks does (and which they likely based their purchasing decision on), they will see lower. Quite devious really.
At first I thought 680 might be another case where Nvidia racks up wins in games well over 100 FPS, in other words where performance doesnt matter, while AMD had the edge in the demanding games like the Crysis's and Metros where performance actually matters to me. However while it seems still somewhat true, 680 does win in a couple somewhat demanding games, BF3 and Arkam City.
Overall looks like AMD closed the gap more than I thought though. At 1920X1200 by TPU's ever helpful charts, 580 was 13 percentage points ahead of 6970 (doesn't mean 13% faster, but close enough) while 680 only beats 7970 by 7 points.
The pricing should definitely force AMD's hand down, which is great. It probably wont affect Pitcairn though, that thing is still a beast.
But I'm wondering when Nvidia's Pitcairn alternative lies, that's where the real action will be. Anybody know when that might be due?
Interesting to also see if AMD will have any answer for GK110, if it exists and whenever it finally lands. Maybe Nvidia will stop producing big chips after this since they seem to cause so many delays, and you can get most of the same effect from crossfire/SLI on a stick.
Also as we see AMD's market share rise inexorably over Nvidia recently, you have to wonder at Nvidia's long term place. Everybody seems to agree Fusion type parts are the future and eating up more and more of the discrete market, so this discrete stuff feels more marginalized and almost a bit irrelevant now.