Zotac GeForce GTX 680 2GB meets Subzero Ivy Bridge 3770K

[siopao1984]

---

IntroductionIt's coming up to two months since the launch of Nvidia's GTX 680. You can check out our launch coverage here. We've also looked at some non reference models. Today we're doing something a bit different. Instead of an orthodox GPU review, we'll run through the traditional overclockers 3D benchmarks using a Zotac GTX 680 with a heavily overclocked cascade cooled 3770K to see how it does.First up, we'll take a look at the GTX 680 Zotac kindly provided for our article.

The Zotac GTX 680 comes with a nice bundle of extras. In addition to common accessories such as DVI-VGA adapter, molex to 6pin PCIe connectors, manual and driver, Zotac have included full versions of three Assassins Creed games, a three day Trackmania pass and additional software utilities.

The card is a standard reference model, with 1536 Shader processors clocked at 1006 Mhz (base) to 1056Mhz (boost). The 2Gb of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 6008 Mhz effective. The full specifications of the card are seen below.

Model
		Model	ZT-60101-10P
Interface
		Interface	PCI Express 3.0* x16 (Compatible with 1.1)
Chipset
		Chipset Manufacturer	NVIDIA®
		GPU	GeForce® GTX 680
		Core clock	1006 MHz (base) - 1058 MHz (boost)
		Stream Processors	1536
		Shader Clock	na
Memory
		Memory Clock	6008 MHz
		Memory Size	2 GB
		Memory Interface	256-bit
		Memory Type	DDR5
3D API
		DirectX	DirectX® 11
		OpenGL	OpenGL® 4.2
Ports
		DVI	2 (DVI-I and DVI-D)
		HDMI-Ports	1
		DisplayPort-Ports	1
		VGA	(With included DVI-to-VGA adapter)
General
		Tuner	None
		RAMDAC	400 MHz
		Max Resolution	2560 x 1600
		RoHS Compliant	Yes
		SLI Supported	Yes (3-way)
		Cooler	With fan (dual-slot)
		Dual-Link DVI Supported	Yes
		Windows® 7 Capability	Certified for Windows® 7 with DirectCompute support
Packaging
		Package Contents	Driver Disk User Manual DVI-to-VGA adapter 2 x Dual MOLEX to 6-pin PCIe power cable TrackMania 2 Canyon 3-Day Game Pass
		Game Bundle	ZOTAC Assassin’s Creed® 3-Game Pack

Read more: Zotac GeForce GTX 680 2GB meets Subzero Ivy Bridge 3770K by VR-Zone.com

[siopao1984]

3770K Overclocking

Now that we've had a look at the Zotac GTX 680, let's turn our attention to the 3770K. There are two generalized groups of overclockers. Those who overclock on air or water, and those who use more exotic cooling methods.

When viewed in a benchmarking context, the first group, the air and water overclockers haven't wholeheartedly embraced the range primarily due to heat constraints that are encountered when pushing into the high 4GHz to low 5GHz range. Pushing above 5GHz has proven difficult for all but the most elaborate water cooled setups. 24/7 overclocking is another matter with 4.5GHz or a bit higher making for a powerful system, if only on par with a bit higher clocked Sandy Bridge.

The other group of overclockers are those who benchmark as a hobby or competitively using everything from chillers to phase change systems and liquid nitrogen. They are the ones who are singing the praises of the new platform. In the weeks since the launch, almost every competitive benchmark has been obliterated with many ln2 cooled processors reaching up to the high 6Ghz range. One or two folks out there certainly have 7Ghz capable chips.

We're going to use a cascade phase change unit. It's capable of running steadily in the -105c range and is well suited to the cold loving Ivy Bridge processors. Our unit was designed from scratch to hold heavy load and uses 2 x 1.5HP rotary compressors to keep temps low even after hours of running.

Rather than push for outright maximum scores, we've opted to use fairly conservative settings that are repeatable. This is important to eliminate bugged and outlier scores and helps to maximise efficiency.

Test System

Processor i7 3770K @ 5.7-5.95Ghz
Motherboard Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
Graphics Card Zotac GTX 680 2GB
Memory 2 x 2GB Kingston Hyper X
Power Supply Antec HCP-1200
OS Windows XP w/ SP3
Driver Forceware 301.24
Cooling Cascade phase change cooler (~105c) built by Kayl



We'd need 20 pages to even begin to detail a general methodology for 3D benchmarking. For simplicity purposes and time constraints, we ran the benchmarks using Windows XP with SP3. Other OSes like Windows 7 and even Vista can be useful depending on the benchmark, card, and driver.

Our GTX 680 sample proved to be an average overclocker. The best we could get was around 1170/1800 which is generally below what some other reference cards and particularly some non reference cards are able to achieve. We backed off a little to 1150Mhz which was stable throughout all benchmark tests.

[siopao1984]

Benchmarks

Aquamark 3 is an old benchmark that's very heavily CPU limited. It scales with every Mhz of CPU you can give it.



3DMark 2001 SE remains one of the most popular benchmarks of all time despite it being over a decade old. It scales with CPU clocks as expected but there's much more to 01 than that. It is by far the most tweakable 3D benchmark. Many of the top overclockers in the world name 3DMark 2001 as their all time favorite benchmark.

We've only applied a few basic tweaks here. Applying LOD, messing about with run orders and CPU/GPU clocks for each individual test will generate better results, but be warned, it will also deprive you of sleep once you get into it!



3DMark 03 is the only example of the tested benchmarks that responds fairly well to increases in GPU clocks. The limited overclocking capabilities of our sample prevent achieving a good score. Overall it is the weakest of the old school benchmarks for the GTX 680. It remains to be seen whether the driver will improve or there is an architectural limitation. Understandably, an old benchmark like this on XP is not a priority for the Nvidia driver team. A Radeon 78x0 card will be able to acheive this sort of score.



3DMark 05 is a personal favorite. It loves CPU clocks above all else by far, but also reponds to bandwidth improvements and GPU clocks in the canyon flight test. It doesn't require the heavy CPU tests of the later 3D Marks to generate a score.



3DMark 06 is one that everyone reading this has probably run at some stage. It is a little less CPU limited than 05 and will scale a little with GPU clocks, especially with a high clocked CPU powering it.

The 44-45k region was the domain of very good LN2 cooled 980/990X CPU's not too long ago. Now the Ivy Bridge generation (and cherry Sandy's) can get there with its quad cores and an air cooled GPU. Take note of the CPU score. 12297 from a quad core? Thats because Nvidia GPU's generally get a very nice boost in CPU score when run on XP



Why no 3DMark Vantage and 11? They are GPU limited benchmarks and run best with hex core processors. A Sandy Bridge-E CPU has zero chance of running on a cascade due to cold bugs. Some samples even cold bug at higher than 0c! Even if we ran a 5.5Ghz+ 3960X, the relatively low GPU clocks here would not score particularly well.

[siopao1984]

Conclusion

We're not revealing much when we say that benchmarking modern powerful graphics cards with a sub zero cooled processor gives a huge boost to traditional competitive benchmarks.

GTX 680 benchmarking performance 8/10

With the right choice of operating system, the GTX 680 can be strong in most benchmarks with 3DMark 03 being the exception. The competing HD 7970 is much stronger in 03 and generally overclocks better on air cooling which gives it an edge under the right conditions. It also has the advantage (if you want to call it that, but thats another story) of being able to disable tessellation in DX11 benchmarks which significantly boosts scores (Hello Nvidia? Feel free to add it too.)



Overclocking of this GTX 680 sample 7/10

This sample is a poor overclocker compared to most GTX680 reference cards and particularly the OC friendlier non reference cards with custom voltage controllers and PWM. This isn't a reflection on Zotac here as the card is a reference model identical to many others. It has a good bundle and will perform strongly as a gaming card like all other GTX 680's.



Fun factor 10/10

The superior efficiency, tolerance of, and scaling under extreme cooling, voltage scaling, memory overclocking performance and the absence of the unusual clock walls with Ivy Bridge has reinvigorated the overclocking scene. Ivy Bridge-E and Haswell will need to clock well to usurp it. After the struggles with cold with Sandy Bridge, it is frankly, bloody awesome to have some fun with the Cascade and LN2 again.

[Boy.Tuko(BT)]

available na ni dire sa cebu>?