Rumor: NVIDIA GTX 680 Faster Than AMD Radeon HD 7970 By Up To 40%

It’s that time again. More graphics card performance charts have been released, this time detailing NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 680 and where it stands compared to AMD’s Radeon HD 7970. While these performance numbers cannot be verified, they do however appear to coincide with what is expected from NVIDIA’s Kepler flagship GPU. As it gets closer to release, the GTX 680’s performance hinted at in the chart, which appears to be based on a previous chart released on the PCINLIFE forums, may not be so far fetched. Looking at the 15 tests presented, based on 7 games/benchmarks, the performance difference varies anywhere from -5% all the way to 40%. The 40% boost is seen in Battlefield 3 with 4XAA (anti-aliasing); this seems a bit to good to be true, however the performance shown with AA off looks more in line with what has been rumored already. With the rumors and leaks hitting their peak and this chart surfacing as well, we can only guess as to the NVIDIA GTX 680’s performance. AMD might even release a performance driver, or could promote overclocked Radeon HD 7970 cards prior to the GTX 680’s launch to help head off NVIDIA and/or close the performance gap. If the rumors surrounding Kepler GK104 do hold true, the NVIDIA GTX 680 may retake the single GPU crown. Only time will tell.