Thanks for the comparison, but not enough to convince me not to wait for the GK110.  I run my 480s at 875/2100 and with my old 980X, my Vantage score is almost 45K, now with the 3960X I guess I should be getting a few 1000s more.

bhk1004

naokiura

Nice work and it's coming from a typical user. It shows for older GPU users to just move to the 600 series if they want to upgrade.

I am not exactly sure. im really curious. are you and I looking at completely different benchmarks?

all I see is, if heat and your electricity bill is too high you should move up, if not the 480s majority of the time performs better.

 
You are correct that the SLI GTX 480’s does perform a little better than a single 680. In my opinion most who will upgrade their systems will want some type of future proofing, cost efficiency, along with playing with high settings or Ultra if possible and the possibility of going to multi-monitor. At least that is what I read on the forums in general, not just EVGA by the way.
So if someone wants to go from a GTX 260 to a better card but is thinking about or will be doing SLI, 2 – GTX 480 @ 1.5Gb will be about $500 for the 2 cards right now,  might as well get a GTX 680 2Gb for $500.
Even if you have a single GTX 480 but thinking about going to a Multi-Monitor system, a GTX 680 might be a better option than getting another GTX 480 because of the memory and/or if the person might be thinking of going three way GPU for the Multi-Monitor.
 
According to this article , a single GTX 680 did the same demo that took 3 GTX 580’s to do and you can put on a forth monitor on the GTX 680 at the same time. <-- I don't know how it will affect gaming but you can from what I'm reading.
 
For me personally, the only thing that would make me upgrade is the 4Gb model, but right now even playing BF3 on Ultra doesn’t make sense for me to upgrade, unless a new game comes out that will force me to play on medium setting with my 3 GTX 580's.
 
 

The people aren't arguing over epeen. Trying to silence the people that are saying its a go ahead upgrade to a 680. When in reality it's a slight downgrade in performance so it's spending money to more of a lateral move. If there are plans for future sli then yes go ahead. But many people want better performance when they upgrade. Which is why for me personally want a card that out performs my 480s in sli before breaking down my computer and emptying out my wallet.

atm743

the benchmarks show slightly less performance than the 480's yes, but in reality for games. the 480's in sli were way above 60 fps in every game with max settings at 1080.  if you're not doing 3D and not doing multi monitor gaming. a single 680 is well worth the 100 bucks you put into it.  

it sounds stupid i know, but its worth the upgrade. plus being that its close to summer, im more than happy to pay 100 bucks to have less power and MUCH less heat coming from my computer. 

I mean I guess the sake of also getting rid of SLI might be worth it to some.. and definitely the heat argument is very valid for many folks. I am underwater so makes no point for me. maybe its also making me even more stubborn to upgrading ^_^  completely holding out till the gk110 comes out.

I don't have screenshots, but here are the results...
 
Lost Planet 2:
Test A: GTX 480 SLI: 115.7 fps --- GTX 680: 106.4 fps
Test B: GTX 480 SLI: 77.6 fps -- GTX 680: 79.6 fps
 
Arkham Asylum PhysX High:
GTX 480 SLI: 141 -- GTX 680: 138
 
Mafia II PhysX high:
GTX 480 SLI: 48.4 -- GTX 680: 47.5
 
Just Cause 2:
Dark Tower: GTX 480 SLI 84.97 -- GTX 680 72.32
Desert Sunrise: GTX 480 SLI 101.05 -- GTX 680 118.21
Concrete Jungle: GTX 480 SLI 52.39 -- GTX 680 56.33
 
3dMark11 Extreme Level:
GTX 480 SLI: Graphics score 3094 -- GTX 680 3455
 
Aliens vs Predator DX11:
GTX 480 SLI: 72.2 -- GTX 680 55.6
 
Crysis DX10:
GTX 480 SLI: 55.57 -- GTX 680 55.6
 
Far Cry 2 DX10:
GTX 480 SLI: 150.54 -- GTX 680: 156.26

bhk1004

loveha

Less power and heat for almost the same exact performance, nice trade up.

i mean I guess if thats your thing? i dont understand the idea behind, selling what you have and paying more money for less performance~same performance. meh.

I would tend to agree.  But when you slap another one in there, those bastards are gonna scale really well in SLI.

good work

First I say thanks to the OP for taking the time to get us those numbers.
Second, to all the people calling this move (GTX480SLI to GTX680) a downgrade, you are clearly don't seem to understand what really matters when it comes to 3D graphics performance.
 
Going from Max/Min of say 157.6/13.8 to 146.6/30.4 is NOT a downgrade, that's an UPGRADE. 1) Your monitor can't show you more than 120Hz except in a few RARE cases so anything over 120FPS is a waste of money/power/etc.  2) When playing a real game, if your framerate drops to 13FPS and you've spent ~$500+ on graphics cards, you've either been had, or don't know how to setup your rig. Since the human brain needs at least 30 FPS to perceive motion, you NEVER want to drop below that point. 3) If your monitor can display 60 FPS (60Hz as most LCDs do), you ideally never want to drop much below that.
 
So who cares if you can get 1000FPS in any case, you SHOULD prefer a higher MIN (and ideally AVG as many of these reported) in all cases. Furthermore, for those that didn't know, SLI 1.5GB cards isn't a 3GB setup, it's 1.5GB and that means you can't increase MSAA type features as high as when you have 2GB (even on a single GPU). That matters for those of us running 2560x1600 (even for just one monitor, forget surround gaming).
 
In summary, if the MAX is even close but the MIN goes up (DOUBLES as is the case with many of these tests), then it is an upgrade. In case it wasn't clear, if you're not running a 120Hz monitor, then anything over 60FPS is also a waste and since you should be running VSYNC (to avoid tearing), you'll never see anything over 60 anyway.
 
:)

rjohnson11

bhk1004

lol can someone do the math to see how long it would take for lets pretend, him to see 100 dollars worth of actual savings? im actually really curious.

In this recession every penny saved is worthwhile

 
Thats so true, but here we are talking about saving penny's on an electrical bill and the recession, but he goes out and blows 500.00+ on a video card and he had working cards already...now thats smart!

excellent read ...
 
480 sli almost rapes the 680 ....thats music to my ears .
 
nice thread bro
 

thank you for this now i just wish i knew if it's worth the extra money to buy a i7 3600k or should i save a few bucks and get a amd 8350? my email is agurobe6@yahoo.com thank you my corrent pc setup is a 7200 rpm hdd 12 gigs of 10666 ram gtx480 amd quad core 2.8 ghz penom 2 850 watt power supply  so im just wanting a nice improvement over my corrent cpu :) thank you

my bad dude yeah i have ddr3 12 gigs i have never seen someone with a gtx480 and quad core cpu have ddr2 lol not a shot at you i just have never seen that the ram is so inexpensive and the ddr3 boards the same but any who i can run almost any game on half high half ultra without a problem about 25 to 40 fps average

Thank you.  I was considering upgrading my 3x 470s to a 680 so that I could have a free pcie slot for a hardware raid controller that I have.  I would probably need to get two 680s to have better performance.  I am not sure if it is worth the upgrade yet considering I have an SSD hard drive.