Though they say lifetime, it seems like it's lifetime of the product on last check; basically, if they're not producing them anymore, the life of the product is finish and thus the warranty is done.
Which means EVGA's 3-year warranty is better than PNY's "Lifetime" since EVGA will repair or replace your defective card with a product of equal or greater performance during those 3 years.
The PNY GTX 680 cards won't be available after 1.5 years at best, after which their "Lifetime" warranty is of no use anymore.
Also, if you go to EVGA's forums, you can see why their warranty is legendary. They almost always change cards to better models. 260 -> 480 -> 580, etc. upgrades are common.
Look at the warranty for the XLR8 line of cards. WHERE DO YOU SEE the stipulation that the warranty ends at the product line's end? YOU DON'T.
You are correct in your limited 'lifetime' defiinition in their regular line of cards but, NOT WITH THE XLR8 cards (which are the only GTX680s you can get).
Here is a reply from PNY support:
"Thank you for contacting PNY Technical Support. In reviewing your message, I understand that you want some clarification about the Lifetime warranty of the GTX680 graphics card. I can understand that this can cause confusion or misunderstanding. While we had a limited lifetime warranty as you have described on some of our older generation of card. The warranty on the XLR8 GTX cards (GTX400, GTX500, GTX600 series) is described here http://www3.pny.com/support/media/Files/e91160d2-8... as
*One year (will be extended for the lifetime of the original purchaser upon completion of a registration form on PNY's website)
which pretty much is your lifetime. The card would need to be registered within 90 days from the date of original purchase. Once the registration is completed you will receive a confirmation number at the end of the registration process as well as an email with said number. I would advise to hang onto the receipt as well as the confirmation number should the card would need to be warrantied after the 1 year period."
How many of you warranty hounds keep your card for three years or more in your main rig? Slim to none if I had to guess, like me. I've got a Rubbermaid tote full of old PCI, AGP, and PCIe GPU cards that still work but have long outlived their usefulness (the latest put out to pasture from a backup gaming rig was a two year old MSI HD 5770). My other guess is probably spot on too: you guys have old spare video cards laying around that still work.
Having running warranty on my 2 year old card I'm selling will drive the price up some 5 to 15€ usually. I just sold an MSI Hawk HD5770 without warranty for 60€, could have gotten 70€ if it had a bit of warranty left, which wasn't the case due to 2 years warranty. I'm not rich enough (yet) to let perfectly fine 50 to 100€ cards rot in my cupboard. :-)
GTX680 still wins in most benchmarks, and esp. screams in 1080P and in latest popular games such as BF3, Batman AC, SKYRIM. Lower memory bandwidth is not an issue since HD7970 still cannot outperform it even in 3x1080P gaming.
Also, recall GTX560Ti vs. GTX285. Memory bandwidth cannot be accurately compared across different videocards to imply better performance. That's because memory bandwidth is just 1 factor in determining performance.
EVGA will replace, so long as you're a good little boy or girl and register within 90 days of buying the product. Why register anything with a lifetime warranty, you ask? Good question! The answer is "Because if you don't, you're f__ked."
Manufacturers may not have standardised on measurements, but I'm glad you settled on "Inches" and "Metric" as your template for describing their metrics.
Ha, that's actually not a mistake - most people using metric standardize on mm, but some people actually use cm instead. Glad you appreciate the conversions, though. :-)
You didn't mention EVGA's step-up program to exchange a card if they come out with a better one in 90 days. As long as you are mentioning differentiation, you should include that.
I have been waiting for going on 8 months to build a new gaming rig, and all I have left to wait for is Ivy Bridge, so I can get my hands on one of those i7-3770K beauties, and the full release of high-end Z77-chipset Motherboards from the likes of ASUS (Maximus-series), Gigabyte, etc... I was pretty set on getting a 7970, but with this GTX680 outperforming it 75% of the time while costing $150 LESS, it is hard to justify the ATI/AMD card... The only thing that has me "tripped up" is that I intend to be watercooling this rig within 4-6mo of having up and running (although I will probably just start with a Corsair H100 during the build as it should fit a Xigmatek Elysium case no problem... would love a Lian-Li but can't justify $500+ for a case that will do what the $175 Xig does already), and I will obviously be overclocking... I have seen how well the 7970 overclocks on AIR, and I can only imagine that a custom water-loop with a 360mm radiator (6 fans for push-pull), combined with a very nice waterblock, would allow core speeds in excess of 1400mhz... That, and the 3GB of GDDR5 seems a MUCH better choice in terms of CrossFire/SLI setups due to only the main card's memory being available for use...
So, I am kind of lost as to which way to go... Initially, my system will be a single-GPU machine, but within 8mo or so there will be a second video card of the same make/model allowing me to finally be able to use BOTH 30" displays I have... NVidia has put out a SOLID showing here, but I can't help from feeling that the AMD/A TI 7970 might be better in terms of a card to "grow with"?
I do not know any reliable pirce-comparison site for the US market, but is the "costing $150 LESS" actual reality for the 680 vs the 7970 over there? In Germany, the 680 goes for 470€ to 510€, while the 7970 is sold for 440€ to 510€. As you can see, the shops are summarily ignoring AMDs pricing suggestion. Also, I am not sure about the 680 wining 75% of the races. Anandtechs own review may offer a nice spread of games, but it does not include a Bioware title, and those usually see AMD in the lead. But if you are serious about gaming on two 30'', then I assume the 2GB card might run full in some high quality texture / strong AA situations. Specifically since the AMD also has the higher memory bandwidth (384bit @ 1425 MHz vs nVidias 256bit@1500 MHz)
I wouldn't say default as much as I would say that the 7970 has a 1375MHz reference memory frequency. Technically, if a 7970 had 1425MHz strait from the factory (a factory overclock) instead of 1375MHz it could still be said to be that particular model's default memory frequency. However, you are still right in that the 7970 has a 1375MHz reference memory frequency.
That depends on the game(s) resolution, quality settings, and AA. A typical $200-300 (USD) card would include the GTX 560 TI, Radeon 6950, GTX 560 TI 448 core, and several others. Sure, they're good enough for 1080p in the most intensive games, but that's it. If I want to play at 2560x1440/2560x1600 or an eyefinity resolution or on a 3D monitor (or more than one), well then it will take a lot more performance. You would need at least two 6950s or GTX 570s to play at 2560x1440, if not two 6970s, with maxed out quality settings and AA in popular games like Metro 2033 or BF3. Want a 5760x1080 Eyefinity setup in those games? Well, that may need at least three 6970s or GTX 580s.
Wait, what about a 3D 5760x1080 setup? Well, there you need something like three or four 7970s. Same for a 7680x1600 Eyefinity setup. If someone can afford it, why should they not get it just because you think it's more than necessary? A Ferrari is a lot more than necessary to drive to work, but people buy them nonetheless.
Besides that, the 680 actually isn't overpriced. The 7970 is the overpriced card here. The GTX 680 has very good performance for it's price and has similar performance for it's price to the $200-300 cards. It's not quite as god, but the fact that it has similar or even lower power usage than most of those $200-300 cards, you can save up the rest of the difference over two to thee years. Also, if I game at 1080p, I'd rather buy a $500 card that can last me five to six years instead of a $200-300 card every year and a half or two to keep playing at 1080p.
That time frame is a call back to the Radeon 4870X2 and GTX 295 which are very old cards, but can still play today's games (albeit in DX9) at 1080p and could be bought for around $500 several years ago. In fact, they could probably play 1080p in several future games too since the 6950 can do it now and they are roughly equal to a 6970 or GTX 570 or GTX 480 or Radeon 7850.
Well I think he meant by ''does the job'' that it will run everything in 1080p with 90% of the options enabled(the remaining 10% not being much noticed unless you really take a ''sunday walk'' in everygame you play). And that concerns about 99% of the people in the world. You know that the extreme gamers tend to be 1% of the pooulation and even less. The cards that sells the most are worth 100$ and below...
Considering now that most games(if not all of them) are console ports, video card performance over time is a changing factor. Before that, a 500$ card offered you performance over time worth the upgrade. But now... a 120$ card(like the radeon 6850 I have) just handles everything in 1080p at high/very high/ultra details without a hitch... Which wasn't possible 5 years ago... 8800 gt and 4870 changed things but before, to get premium fps you had to pay big bucks... Everything worth 120$ couldn't ever perform like a 6850. Hence the console port period we live in.
I asked about Dirt 3 for the PC at the mall last week . The probably early 20 something clerk said we don't carry PC games anymore. He was also looking at me probably thinking 'here's one of those old 30 to 40 something people who still uses a PC to play games'. That was my feeling. The other store like it in the mall had 3 small shelves about a meter in length for PC games. The whole rest of the store was for consoles. That makes me wonder why manufacturers are still making cards like this.
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hieuhef - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
Though they say lifetime, it seems like it's lifetime of the product on last check; basically, if they're not producing them anymore, the life of the product is finish and thus the warranty is done.PDF of their warranty:
www3.pny.com/support/media/Files%5Cc7ec3913-f113-4c21-bae0-e0a276b6b9f0/Lifetime%20Warrenty_v1.pdf
overzealot - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
The same is true of every lifetime warranty I've ever seen.GrafxMan - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
Which means EVGA's 3-year warranty is better than PNY's "Lifetime" since EVGA will repair or replace your defective card with a product of equal or greater performance during those 3 years.The PNY GTX 680 cards won't be available after 1.5 years at best, after which their "Lifetime" warranty is of no use anymore.
Ref: http://www.evga.com/support/warranty/
GrafxMan.
zsero - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
Also, if you go to EVGA's forums, you can see why their warranty is legendary. They almost always change cards to better models. 260 -> 480 -> 580, etc. upgrades are common.COALESCENT - Monday, April 2, 2012 - link
DUDE. THIS IS NOT TRUE.Look at the warranty for the XLR8 line of cards. WHERE DO YOU SEE the stipulation that the warranty ends at the product line's end? YOU DON'T.
You are correct in your limited 'lifetime' defiinition in their regular line of cards but, NOT WITH THE XLR8 cards (which are the only GTX680s you can get).
Here is a reply from PNY support:
"Thank you for contacting PNY Technical Support.
In reviewing your message, I understand that you want some clarification about the Lifetime warranty of the GTX680 graphics card.
I can understand that this can cause confusion or misunderstanding. While we had a limited lifetime warranty as you have described on some of our older generation of card. The warranty on the XLR8 GTX cards (GTX400, GTX500, GTX600 series) is described here http://www3.pny.com/support/media/Files/e91160d2-8... as
*One year (will be extended for the lifetime of the original purchaser upon completion of a registration form on PNY's website)
which pretty much is your lifetime. The card would need to be registered within 90 days from the date of original purchase. Once the registration is completed you will receive a confirmation number at the end of the registration process as well as an email with said number. I would advise to hang onto the receipt as well as the confirmation number should the card would need to be warrantied after the 1 year period."
Nfarce - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
How many of you warranty hounds keep your card for three years or more in your main rig? Slim to none if I had to guess, like me. I've got a Rubbermaid tote full of old PCI, AGP, and PCIe GPU cards that still work but have long outlived their usefulness (the latest put out to pasture from a backup gaming rig was a two year old MSI HD 5770). My other guess is probably spot on too: you guys have old spare video cards laying around that still work.Death666Angel - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
Having running warranty on my 2 year old card I'm selling will drive the price up some 5 to 15€ usually.I just sold an MSI Hawk HD5770 without warranty for 60€, could have gotten 70€ if it had a bit of warranty left, which wasn't the case due to 2 years warranty.
I'm not rich enough (yet) to let perfectly fine 50 to 100€ cards rot in my cupboard. :-)
Cobra Commander - Monday, April 30, 2012 - link
Me.ol1bit - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Mine die all the time anymore... in recent times 2 8800gt's, and a 7950GX2.Just had to split my SLI 460's and one went to my wife.
So now saving up for a new video card, not this one though too much money! LOL
blanarahul - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - link
HD 7970 Memory Bandwidth = 264 GB/secGTX 580 Memory Bandwidth = 192.4 GB/sec
GTX 680 Memory Bandwidth = 192.2 GB/sec
RussianSensation - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
GTX680 still wins in most benchmarks, and esp. screams in 1080P and in latest popular games such as BF3, Batman AC, SKYRIM. Lower memory bandwidth is not an issue since HD7970 still cannot outperform it even in 3x1080P gaming.Also, recall GTX560Ti vs. GTX285. Memory bandwidth cannot be accurately compared across different videocards to imply better performance. That's because memory bandwidth is just 1 factor in determining performance.
COALESCENT - Saturday, March 31, 2012 - link
Actually, this is NOT true.Only non-XLR8 cards have the 'lifetime' warranty that ends with the product's life cycle.
http://www3.pny.com/support/media/Files/1c00f9fc-8...
Notice that the part you are referencing does not exist on that warranty document.
Stop spreading fud.
Cobra Commander - Monday, April 30, 2012 - link
EVGA will replace, so long as you're a good little boy or girl and register within 90 days of buying the product. Why register anything with a lifetime warranty, you ask? Good question! The answer is "Because if you don't, you're f__ked."overzealot - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
Manufacturers may not have standardised on measurements, but I'm glad you settled on "Inches" and "Metric" as your template for describing their metrics.overzealot - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
Note, I only meant this as a friendly jibe.Thanks for including both inches and mm in your measurements - it's a nice touch.
Andrew.a.cunningham - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
Ha, that's actually not a mistake - most people using metric standardize on mm, but some people actually use cm instead. Glad you appreciate the conversions, though. :-)Andrew.a.cunningham - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
And I guess I should point out that by "people" I mean "graphics card manufacturers".silverblue - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
One thing I learned from D&T class was that drawings always use mm measurements; it'd feel wrong seeing card dimensions in cm.danjw - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
You didn't mention EVGA's step-up program to exchange a card if they come out with a better one in 90 days. As long as you are mentioning differentiation, you should include that.nleksan - Sunday, March 25, 2012 - link
I have been waiting for going on 8 months to build a new gaming rig, and all I have left to wait for is Ivy Bridge, so I can get my hands on one of those i7-3770K beauties, and the full release of high-end Z77-chipset Motherboards from the likes of ASUS (Maximus-series), Gigabyte, etc...I was pretty set on getting a 7970, but with this GTX680 outperforming it 75% of the time while costing $150 LESS, it is hard to justify the ATI/AMD card... The only thing that has me "tripped up" is that I intend to be watercooling this rig within 4-6mo of having up and running (although I will probably just start with a Corsair H100 during the build as it should fit a Xigmatek Elysium case no problem... would love a Lian-Li but can't justify $500+ for a case that will do what the $175 Xig does already), and I will obviously be overclocking...
I have seen how well the 7970 overclocks on AIR, and I can only imagine that a custom water-loop with a 360mm radiator (6 fans for push-pull), combined with a very nice waterblock, would allow core speeds in excess of 1400mhz... That, and the 3GB of GDDR5 seems a MUCH better choice in terms of CrossFire/SLI setups due to only the main card's memory being available for use...
So, I am kind of lost as to which way to go... Initially, my system will be a single-GPU machine, but within 8mo or so there will be a second video card of the same make/model allowing me to finally be able to use BOTH 30" displays I have...
NVidia has put out a SOLID showing here, but I can't help from feeling that the AMD/A TI 7970 might be better in terms of a card to "grow with"?
Iketh - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
Where did you get your $150 price difference?ShieTar - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
I do not know any reliable pirce-comparison site for the US market, but is the "costing $150 LESS" actual reality for the 680 vs the 7970 over there? In Germany, the 680 goes for 470€ to 510€, while the 7970 is sold for 440€ to 510€. As you can see, the shops are summarily ignoring AMDs pricing suggestion.Also, I am not sure about the 680 wining 75% of the races. Anandtechs own review may offer a nice spread of games, but it does not include a Bioware title, and those usually see AMD in the lead.
But if you are serious about gaming on two 30'', then I assume the 2GB card might run full in some high quality texture / strong AA situations. Specifically since the AMD also has the higher memory bandwidth (384bit @ 1425 MHz vs nVidias 256bit@1500 MHz)
Death666Angel - Monday, March 26, 2012 - link
Agreed mostly. Just one thing: AMD 7970 has 1375MHz default memory. :-)Blazorthon - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
I wouldn't say default as much as I would say that the 7970 has a 1375MHz reference memory frequency. Technically, if a 7970 had 1425MHz strait from the factory (a factory overclock) instead of 1375MHz it could still be said to be that particular model's default memory frequency. However, you are still right in that the 7970 has a 1375MHz reference memory frequency.Valis - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
Who the hell dishes out €500/$500 on a Nvidia gfx card, now and then. A 200-300 card usually does the job.:-/ overpriced s*it.
Blazorthon - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
That depends on the game(s) resolution, quality settings, and AA. A typical $200-300 (USD) card would include the GTX 560 TI, Radeon 6950, GTX 560 TI 448 core, and several others. Sure, they're good enough for 1080p in the most intensive games, but that's it. If I want to play at 2560x1440/2560x1600 or an eyefinity resolution or on a 3D monitor (or more than one), well then it will take a lot more performance. You would need at least two 6950s or GTX 570s to play at 2560x1440, if not two 6970s, with maxed out quality settings and AA in popular games like Metro 2033 or BF3. Want a 5760x1080 Eyefinity setup in those games? Well, that may need at least three 6970s or GTX 580s.Wait, what about a 3D 5760x1080 setup? Well, there you need something like three or four 7970s. Same for a 7680x1600 Eyefinity setup. If someone can afford it, why should they not get it just because you think it's more than necessary? A Ferrari is a lot more than necessary to drive to work, but people buy them nonetheless.
Besides that, the 680 actually isn't overpriced. The 7970 is the overpriced card here. The GTX 680 has very good performance for it's price and has similar performance for it's price to the $200-300 cards. It's not quite as god, but the fact that it has similar or even lower power usage than most of those $200-300 cards, you can save up the rest of the difference over two to thee years. Also, if I game at 1080p, I'd rather buy a $500 card that can last me five to six years instead of a $200-300 card every year and a half or two to keep playing at 1080p.
That time frame is a call back to the Radeon 4870X2 and GTX 295 which are very old cards, but can still play today's games (albeit in DX9) at 1080p and could be bought for around $500 several years ago. In fact, they could probably play 1080p in several future games too since the 6950 can do it now and they are roughly equal to a 6970 or GTX 570 or GTX 480 or Radeon 7850.
Galidou - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Well I think he meant by ''does the job'' that it will run everything in 1080p with 90% of the options enabled(the remaining 10% not being much noticed unless you really take a ''sunday walk'' in everygame you play). And that concerns about 99% of the people in the world. You know that the extreme gamers tend to be 1% of the pooulation and even less. The cards that sells the most are worth 100$ and below...Considering now that most games(if not all of them) are console ports, video card performance over time is a changing factor. Before that, a 500$ card offered you performance over time worth the upgrade. But now... a 120$ card(like the radeon 6850 I have) just handles everything in 1080p at high/very high/ultra details without a hitch... Which wasn't possible 5 years ago... 8800 gt and 4870 changed things but before, to get premium fps you had to pay big bucks... Everything worth 120$ couldn't ever perform like a 6850. Hence the console port period we live in.
AdamK47 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Launch Recap: Not enough cards released at launch.stimudent - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I asked about Dirt 3 for the PC at the mall last week . The probably early 20 something clerk said we don't carry PC games anymore. He was also looking at me probably thinking 'here's one of those old 30 to 40 something people who still uses a PC to play games'.That was my feeling.
The other store like it in the mall had 3 small shelves about a meter in length for PC games. The whole rest of the store was for consoles.
That makes me wonder why manufacturers are still making cards like this.