Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream 2GB Review

[siopao1984]

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The Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream 2GB takes up two slots (means 4-way SLi is achievable) and uses a triple fan cooler (8cm at the sides, 9cm in the middle) for maximum airflow to eliminate any hotspots. The black and gold colour scheme is not too gawdy and should not look out of place in most setups.

Stacked 8+6 pin PCIe power connectors (as opposed to 6+6 pin on reference designs) allow pushing the power limit up to a theoretical 300W.

No change at the I/O panel, with Palit sticking with full-sized HDMI/DP ports and dual DVI (one of them single link only, meaning up to 1920x1200 @ 60 Hz). 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 scenarios or higher resolutions by the puny 2GB of framebuffer.

As expected from non-reference designs, the Palit card comes factory overclocked by 80-100MHz on the core and 75MHz on the memory base clock.

Box accessories wise we get dual 6-pin to 8-pin PCIe splitter, a HDMI to DVI-D converter, and a DVI to analog VGA dongle (no idea why anybody would need this anymore in 2012).

Read more: Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream 2GB Review by VR-Zone.com

[siopao1984]

When we pop off the cooler, we find that the Palit card is largely similar to the reference design, save for the reworked VRM area which we will talk about further down.



The 28nm GK104-400-A2 die (markings indicate that it was made in 2012, Week 06 at TSMC Taiwan).





Hynix 256MB GDDR5 memory chips - these are used on the AMD Radeon HD 7970 also and have been known to clock up to 1.9GHz if you get a good batch.





ON Semiconductor NCP4200r power control IC with an I2C interface.





Palit has opted for a 6-phase DrMOS PWM (4-phase on the reference cards), touting better efficiencies and current output.







A large heatsink block is used, covering almost the entire area of the PCB.





Four 8mm copper heatpipes are used for heat transfer, soldered to the aluminium base.





Powerlogic 8cm (PLA08015s12HH) and 9cm (PLA09215s12H) fans mounted on a plastic frame.

[siopao1984]

Software

The included ThunderMaster OC utility is similar in layout and functionality to MSI's Afterburner and EVGA's Precision X, offering clock/voltage monitoring and adjustments and the ability to load/save profiles. Despite the use of a i2C capable VRM, the utility still interfaces with the Nvidia driver API which does not allow voltage adjustments (the Core Voltage setting in the illustration below only locks the 3D voltage at 1.175v, which hinders any meaningful overclocking).







Thermals / Overclocking

Methodology: We set the fans to 100% 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.



Default Clocks: 56 degrees celsius





Overclocked (1228/1749MHz): 60 degree celsius





Frankly the maximum core overclock is a disappointment (ASIC quality lottery?), as we were able to get much higher (between 1280MHz and 1350MHz) frequencies on our other reference and non-reference GTX 680. We will check with Palit if they can send us another card to prove that it is just a poor quality die and not a problem with their board design.

[siopao1984]

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
Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream 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


Benchmarks

[siopao1984]

Conclusion



Price: (To be updated, probably more than the reference MSRP of $499)

Pros
Factory Overclocked (~80-100MHz more)
Good acoustics (relative to the reference blower)
Blue LED lighting
6-phase PWMs
8+6 pin PCIe power connectors, higher TDP limit by default
4-way SLi capable


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

[haxors]

wow ngiga noh....