Hey guys, I'm sorta posting again because I can't decided!!! :)

I have an R4 with GTX 580 and it kicks a55. It's an EVGA and it's within 90 days, with only a few days left to upgrade at significant savings. I just pay the difference what I paid plus shipping and receiving. I can't cross ship, so I have to send my card back in advance. The difference between what I paid and a new card is $30 plus s & h.

So my 580 kicks butt but for only possibly a benjamin more, I can have a 680 vs $500 more. Now I wouldn't do it if I had to pay that much. So what do I do?

Is it worth it for the upgrade and hassle because it's new. You know what they say about new technology, don't jump on it. However, sometimes there isn't a problem with jumping on new technology. Is it not worth the $100 for this upgrade? Am I better off saving the $100 and sticking with my stable card? Or should I do it and play at even higher settings and frame rates. Or will the difference not be that noticeable to justify the $100 cost.

Sometimes I say yay because of the cheap upgrade and sometimes I say nay because it's new and not matured yet and I have a stable machine now.

What do i do!? :)

OC your 580 and it will be nearly as good as the 680 :P so i would say hell no :)

Dannyboy1238 said: OC your 580 and it will be nearly as good as the 680 :P so i would say hell no :)

Em... sorry, but I do not believe that is the case.
The GTX 680, in benchmarks, has been reported to out-perform the GTX 590, which is just under two SLI'd GTX 580s in performance. So, in essence, you could compare the performance of the GTX 680 to two GTX 580s in SLI, and they would be within 10 fps of each other. And that's not even with overclocking. The GTX 680 is a beast of a card, and if it only costs $30 to upgrade, then definitely, do it!

I say keep what you have. Since you have to send the 580 back before you get the 680, you would be stuck with on board video (if your mobo has it) for several days.
However, if you can tolerate not gaming for several days then I say get the upgrade. Can't beat that price.

wilbymilstone said: I say keep what you have. Since you have to send the 580 back before you get the 680, you would be stuck with on board video (if your mobo has it) for several days.
However, if you can tolerate not gaming for several days then I say get the upgrade. Can't beat that price.

Well, if he is running a Core i7 with a compatible motherboard, the Intel HD 3000 graphics built into the i7 are not terrible; it could handle Skyrim on medium-high settings... but yeah, I'd hate to be without a discrete GPU for even a few days!
But to me it's worth it. Most places I'm going for benchmarks are saying as much as a 30% performance increase, which is pretty significant.
But it's up to the OP.

is their a cap on how good games can perform no matter what you throw at it??

I'm no expert, in fact I have only recently gotten into building computers, but I would imagine so. I think that is the only reason why you only see a 30% increase in performance for modern games, because there is a cap.

However, this 680 has 3x thee amount of cores and runs at higher clocks then the 580, so I would imagine that it would vastly outperform the 580.

Especially because of that demo that was released by Nvidia a while ago that needed 3 580's to run, but only a single 680.

I read that there is really good increase in BF3. I think it will allow me to go on Ultra on everything rather than just texture and high on the other settings and hbao enabled and one of the AA settings enabled.

I have socket 2011 so no integrated graphics. I do have a gtx 555 which I could use in the mean time, but I think i can go for a couple of days w/o it, hence why i'm going to probably pay next day shipping and receiving :) which still should keep me under $100.

However, my biggest worry is possible issues being it so new and only one set of WHQL drivers and 1 beta driver?

MisterNivek said: I read that there is really good increase in BF3. I think it will allow me to go on Ultra on everything rather than just texture and high on the other settings and hbao enabled and one of the AA settings enabled.

I have socket 2011 so no integrated graphics. I do have a gtx 555 which I could use in the mean time, but I think i can go for a couple of days w/o it, hence why i'm going to probably pay next day shipping and receiving :) which still should keep me under $100.

However, my biggest worry is possible issues being it so new and only one set of WHQL drivers and 1 beta driver?

Well, that is a valid concern, but it will be sorted out quickly, that I can guarantee; Nvidia's always been good with their drivers, so if you do at any point run into some kind of driver-related issue, it will probably be fixed soon after. But I know quite a few people who are running 680s (even one guy who is running two of them in SLI in his Aurora) and I have not heard a single gripe about drivers.

@JesseMKV: There is a cap, kind of; there is a point when the human eye can no longer distinguish between individual frames, which is at around 25 or 30 fps (I think), after that it is all numbers, because your eyes won't see any difference. Some people (who I like to call performance junkies) live to see their rigs capping over 100 fps on everything, just to say that they can, haha!

Eirreann said:

MisterNivek said: I read that there is really good increase in BF3. I think it will allow me to go on Ultra on everything rather than just texture and high on the other settings and hbao enabled and one of the AA settings enabled.

I have socket 2011 so no integrated graphics. I do have a gtx 555 which I could use in the mean time, but I think i can go for a couple of days w/o it, hence why i'm going to probably pay next day shipping and receiving :) which still should keep me under $100.

However, my biggest worry is possible issues being it so new and only one set of WHQL drivers and 1 beta driver?

Well, that is a valid concern, but it will be sorted out quickly, that I can guarantee; Nvidia's always been good with their drivers, so if you do at any point run into some kind of driver-related issue, it will probably be fixed soon after. But I know quite a few people who are running 680s (even one guy who is running two of them in SLI in his Aurora) and I have not heard a single gripe about drivers.

I agree the Nvidia drivers have been more stable I think over the last couple years I think. I am also worried about issues with Command center and Themes. I just remember having issues on my AW M17x once I updated my drivers and command center. Can't remember what I had done first. I am tempted though and I think too its possibly a good idea for the upgrade at such a small cost. :)

I have to go with the more agressive group. If you can get that new card which IS a beast for that price and savings, do it. Living without high-performing vid games for a week is nothing compared to what you will get in the long run.
As far as themes for command center go, it depends on if you mean theme-syncing games. It has been my experience that it is rather glitchy with Windows 7, which Dell themselves admit to and recommend just disabling it in Fusion settings. *Start- Programs-Services-AlienFusion-Disable*
But you may have better luck with it than I did. However, Dell also mentions it is a resource hog and can actually really effect performance in gaming. Just an FYI.

upgrade to the 680

if you have the money then go for it

SkiRascal said: I have to go with the more agressive group. If you can get that new card which IS a beast for that price and savings, do it. Living without high-performing vid games for a week is nothing compared to what you will get in the long run.
As far as themes for command center go, it depends on if you mean theme-syncing games. It has been my experience that it is rather glitchy with Windows 7, which Dell themselves admit to and recommend just disabling it in Fusion settings. *Start- Programs-Services-AlienFusion-Disable*
But you may have better luck with it than I did. However, Dell also mentions it is a resource hog and can actually really effect performance in gaming. Just an FYI.

I agree, i can go without a week with it.
No, I don't use it with command center. I just use command center for the lighting themes. Apparently the lastest BF3 update enabled it because when I loaded bf 3 after the update, my lights did all flashing and stuff. I immediately turned it off. Thanks for the info and I can see that possiblity. Normally I like a clean machine but I like the extra tools they offer. I had problems before on my old M17x after I updated it. I wish you can do lighting w/o the themese. You used to be able to change it in the bios of my dell xps 720, not sure on the r4.

I just want to get a 680 and not have issues :) it seems like that is the general consesous. I think I'm pretty much set for it because honestly, $30 + S & H to get a $500 card???? I mean even if it comes out to $100, that's a darn good deal, right?

MisterNivek said:

SkiRascal said: I have to go with the more agressive group. If you can get that new card which IS a beast for that price and savings, do it. Living without high-performing vid games for a week is nothing compared to what you will get in the long run.
As far as themes for command center go, it depends on if you mean theme-syncing games. It has been my experience that it is rather glitchy with Windows 7, which Dell themselves admit to and recommend just disabling it in Fusion settings. *Start- Programs-Services-AlienFusion-Disable*
But you may have better luck with it than I did. However, Dell also mentions it is a resource hog and can actually really effect performance in gaming. Just an FYI.

I agree, i can go without a week with it.
No, I don't use it with command center. I just use command center for the lighting themes. Apparently the lastest BF3 update enabled it because when I loaded bf 3 after the update, my lights did all flashing and stuff. I immediately turned it off. Thanks for the info and I can see that possiblity. Normally I like a clean machine but I like the extra tools they offer. I had problems before on my old M17x after I updated it. I wish you can do lighting w/o the themese. You used to be able to change it in the bios of my dell xps 720, not sure on the r4.

I just want to get a 680 and not have issues :) it seems like that is the general consesous. I think I'm pretty much set for it because honestly, $30 + S & H to get a $500 card???? I mean even if it comes out to $100, that's a darn good deal, right?

I would say yes...that's a good deal. The GTX 680 is so much faster than the 580 that I would still say it was worth it if it costed you $200 to make the upgrade.

Eirreann said:

Dannyboy1238 said: OC your 580 and it will be nearly as good as the 680 :P so i would say hell no :)

Em... sorry, but I do not believe that is the case.
The GTX 680, in benchmarks, has been reported to out-perform the GTX 590, which is just under two SLI'd GTX 580s in performance. So, in essence, you could compare the performance of the GTX 680 to two GTX 580s in SLI, and they would be within 10 fps of each other. And that's not even with overclocking. The GTX 680 is a beast of a card, and if it only costs $30 to upgrade, then definitely, do it!

no no what i meant by this was that you will most likely see no visual difference and it is not worth it unless it's very cheap because the 580 is extremely good as is the 680 the only reason i said that is to make him realize that you will most likely not see a huge visual difference so there is not point especially if it is OC'd sorry for not being clear on that i typed it in music class on my phone lmao