KFA2 Geforce GTX680 EX OC review

Nvidia’s GTX680 uses a system of ‘dynamic’ overclocking, otherwise known as ‘Boost clocks’.

This Boost clock mode uses a variety of factors to determine whether it is a good idea to run at higher speeds, or not as the case may be. It analyses power consumption, GPU load, temperature and memory load, among other factors.

The driver is coded to make on the fly decisions about what clock speed is safe in comparison with heat output and power use. The automatic overclocking algorithms need to be coded with a variety of safety parameters.

Above, the GPUz screenshot of the KFA2 Geforce GTX680 EX OC. We can see that the boost speed is set to 1,176mhz (from a default of 1,059mhz). This is the ‘average’ clock speed that the core will run under during typical gaming load. The clock speed may actually exceed this speed depending on the given situation.

For overclocking today we used the latest beta of MSI’s Afterburner software. We spent a long time playing with the card and analysing how far we could push it without encountering instability.

Our overclocking results weren't quite as impressive as I had hoped. We tried a mixture of increasing the core voltage and other settings, but the core maxed out at 1,189mhz. Still the card is extremely powerful out of the box so it isn't really that big a deal.

Become a Patron!