NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680

Compare NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4 GB vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 4 GB, specs and GPU benchmark score. Which is the better graphics card for the money?

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Specifications
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GPU Comparison

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 369.00

$ 150.99 significantly less expensive

$ 519.99

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

General gaming and workstation score

2262 points

79% significantly better overall score

1261 points

Flux Core frame rate

Volumetric ray casting test, a computationally expensive method of rendering high-quality scenes

47 FPS

18 FPS significantly higher Flux Core frame rate

28 FPS

Electron frame rate

Randomly generated noise sphere test

35 FPS

17 FPS significantly higher Electron frame rate

17 FPS

City frame rate

Procedurally generated city scene with voxel rendering

31 FPS

12 FPS significantly higher City frame rate

19 FPS

Clouds frame rate

Real-time noise calculation and ray marching test

28 FPS

14 FPS significantly higher Clouds frame rate

14 FPS

Free GPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Graphics score

High-end graphics benchmark

3647 points

78% significantly higher 3DMark Graphics score

2038 points

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

289.94 points

49% significantly higher Blender score

194.26 points

Geekbench 5 (CUDA) score

CUDA compute benchmark

25908 points

90% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (CUDA) score

13627 points

Geekbench 5 (Metal) score

Metal compute benchmark

13595 points

69% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (Metal) score

8002 points

Geekbench 5 (OpenCL) score

OpenCL compute benchmark

29153 points

78% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (OpenCL) score

16368 points

Geekbench 5 (Vulkan) score

Vulkan compute benchmark

34107 points

108% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (Vulkan) score

16340 points

Geekbench 6 (Metal) score

Metal compute benchmark

13595 points

76% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (Metal) score

7720 points

Geekbench 6 (OpenCL) score

OpenCL compute benchmark

29277 points

59% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (OpenCL) score

18409 points

Geekbench 6 (Vulkan) score

Vulkan compute benchmark

32348 points

79% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (Vulkan) score

18023 points

Specifications

Core Clock Speed

Nominal chip frequency

1050 MHz

4% slightly higher core clock speed

1006 MHz

Boost Clock Speed

Higher turbo frequency when power conditions are met

1178 MHz

11% slightly higher boost clock speed

1058 MHz

Memory

Onboard memory size for textures and vertices

4 GiB

Identical

4 GiB

Memory Bus Width

Number of parallel lines to the memory chips

256 Bit

Identical

256 Bit

Memory Bandwidth

Data transfer speed between GPU core and memory

224.4 GB/s

16% slightly higher memory bandwidth

192.3 GB/s

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the GPU

145 W

34% slightly lower TDP

195 W

Pixel Rate

Number of pixels that can be rendered per second

65.97 Gigapixels/s

94% significantly higher pixel rate

33.86 Gigapixels/s

Texture Rate

Number of textured pixels that can be rendered per second

122.5 Gigatexels/s

135.4 Gigatexels/s

10% slightly higher texture rate

Floating Point Performance

Raw number of floating point operations per second

3.92 TFLOPS

20% slightly better floating point performance

3.25 TFLOPS

Shading Units

Number of processors dedicated to shader processing

1664

8% slightly more shading units

1536

Texture Mapping Units

Number of processors dedicated to applying textures

104

128

23% slightly more texture mapping units

Render Output Processors

Number of processors dedicated to final pixel rendering

75% significantly more render output processors

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

193rd of 586

246th of 586

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2014 September

2012 March

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

GDDR5

DirectX Support

Maximum version of DirectX supported

12.0

11.0

OpenGL Support

Maximum version of OpenGL supported

4.5

GeForce GTX 970 vs GeForce GTX 680 comparison

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark, the GeForce GTX 970 GPU is faster than the GeForce GTX 680 in gaming.

In our comparison, the GeForce GTX 970 has a slightly higher core clock speed. This is the frequency at which the graphics core is running at. While not necessarily an indicator of overall performance, this metric can be useful when comparing two GPUs based on the same architecture. In addition, the GeForce GTX 970 also has a slightly higher boost clock speed. This is a frequency that can be reached if the GPU is cooled sufficiently and has enough power.

Next up, in terms of GPU memory, they both have the same amount of memory at 4 GiB. Lots of memory is good when playing at high resolutions or with many monitors.

In addition, the GeForce GTX 970 has a slightly lower TDP at 145 W when compared to the GeForce GTX 680 at 195 W. TDP (Thermal Design Power) measures total heat output from the chip.

In conclusion, all specs and GPU benchmarks considered, will recommend the GeForce GTX 970 over the GeForce GTX 680.