Nvidia launches GTX 680, promises new features for older GPU’s

PC gaming enthusiasts will have noticed that the new NVidia GTX 680 card has just launched. This highly desirable slab of silicon is available now, and there are plenty of reviews around the internet, so just check your favorite tech site or do a search with your favorite search engine. Sadly, Nvidia seem to have neglected to send me a review copy, so I’ll have to leave the analysis up to the many other gaming sites on the net. If your pockets aren’t deep enough to stretch to a new cutting edge GPU, you might be interested to know that the FXAA and Adaptive VSYNC technologies that are currently GTX 680 specific are due to be made available on older Nvidia cards pending a driver update sometime in April. The new adaptive VSYNC technology is particularly interesting, by turning off and on VSYNC on the fly the system reduces tearing without the sudden snaps in frame rate. I can see this being particularly useful on games like Dirt 3, for instance, where sudden drops in FPS while you are driving would be disastrous, but screen tearing is equally off putting.

It’s good to see the PC GPU market keep going from strength to strength. While we can all be excited over the prospect of a new Xbox, Playstation and Wii, the cutting edge of gaming is likely to stay on the PC for the foreseeable future.