GeForce GTX 680 vs GTX 1080

#ad 
Buy on Amazon
VS

Aggregate performance score

We've compared GeForce GTX 1080 and GeForce GTX 680, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

GTX 1080
2016
8 GB GDDR5X, 180 Watt
40.35
+179%

GTX 1080 outperforms GTX 680 by a whopping 179% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking103361
Place by popularity46not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation19.553.03
Power efficiency15.375.08
ArchitecturePascal (2016−2021)Kepler (2012−2018)
GPU code nameGP104GK104
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date27 May 2016 (8 years ago)22 March 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$599 $499

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

GTX 1080 has 545% better value for money than GTX 680.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores25601536
Core clock speed1607 MHz1006 MHz
Boost clock speed1733 MHz1058 MHz
Number of transistors7,200 million3,540 million
Manufacturing process technology16 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)180 Watt195 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature94 °Cno data
Texture fill rate277.3135.4
Floating-point processing power8.873 TFLOPS3.25 TFLOPS
ROPs6432
TMUs160128

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus supportPCIe 3.0PCI Express 3.0
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x16
Length267 mm254 mm
Height4.376" (11.1 cm)4.376" (11.1 cm)
Width2-slot2-slot
Recommended system power (PSU)500 Wattno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 8-pin2x 6-pin
SLI options++

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeGDDR5XGDDR5
Maximum RAM amount8 GB2048 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit256-bit GDDR5
Memory clock speed10 GB/s1502 MHz
Memory bandwidth320 GB/s192.2 GB/s
Shared memory--

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display ConnectorsDP 1.42, HDMI 2.0b, DL-DVIOne Dual Link DVI-I, One Dual Link DVI-D, One HDMI, One DisplayPort
Multi monitor support+4 displays
HDMI++
HDCP-+
Maximum VGA resolutionno data2048x1536
G-SYNC support+-
Audio input for HDMIno dataInternal

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

GPU Boost3.0no data
VR Ready+no data
Ansel+no data

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 (12_1)12 (11_0)
Shader Model6.45.1
OpenGL4.54.2
OpenCL1.21.2
Vulkan1.2.1311.1.126
CUDA++

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 1080 40.35
+179%
GTX 680 14.45

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

GTX 1080 15548
+179%
GTX 680 5567

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

GTX 1080 29263
+186%
GTX 680 10217

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

GTX 1080 53598
+80.5%
GTX 680 29702

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

GTX 1080 21409
+182%
GTX 680 7587

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

GTX 1080 119971
+155%
GTX 680 47130

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

GTX 1080 55534
+202%
GTX 680 18403

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

GTX 1080 421474
+70.4%
GTX 680 247306

GeekBench 5 Vulkan

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses Vulkan API by AMD & Khronos Group.

GTX 1080 65367
+273%
GTX 680 17527

GeekBench 5 CUDA

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses CUDA API by NVIDIA.

GTX 1080 51531
+289%
GTX 680 13248

Unigine Heaven 4.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.

GTX 1080 3026
+214%
GTX 680 964

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p120−130
+167%
45
−167%
Full HD127
+71.6%
74
−71.6%
1440p76
+181%
27−30
−181%
4K57
+148%
23
−148%

Cost per frame, $

1080p4.726.74
1440p7.8818.48
4K10.5121.70

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 70−75
+223%
21−24
−223%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 92
+179%
30−35
−179%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 65−70
+200%
21−24
−200%
Battlefield 5 145
+209%
45−50
−209%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 105
+262%
27−30
−262%
Cyberpunk 2077 70−75
+223%
21−24
−223%
Far Cry 5 123
+262%
30−35
−262%
Far Cry New Dawn 135
+246%
35−40
−246%
Forza Horizon 4 320
+240%
90−95
−240%
Hitman 3 85−90
+219%
27−30
−219%
Horizon Zero Dawn 160−170
+126%
70−75
−126%
Metro Exodus 144
+194%
45−50
−194%
Red Dead Redemption 2 114
+185%
40−45
−185%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 186
+296%
45−50
−296%
Watch Dogs: Legion 130−140
+71.1%
75−80
−71.1%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 137
+315%
30−35
−315%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 65−70
+200%
21−24
−200%
Battlefield 5 128
+172%
45−50
−172%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 95
+228%
27−30
−228%
Cyberpunk 2077 70−75
+223%
21−24
−223%
Far Cry 5 98
+188%
30−35
−188%
Far Cry New Dawn 105
+169%
35−40
−169%
Forza Horizon 4 291
+210%
90−95
−210%
Hitman 3 85−90
+219%
27−30
−219%
Horizon Zero Dawn 160−170
+126%
70−75
−126%
Metro Exodus 131
+167%
45−50
−167%
Red Dead Redemption 2 109
+173%
40−45
−173%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 140−150
+215%
45−50
−215%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 152
+61.7%
94
−61.7%
Watch Dogs: Legion 130−140
+71.1%
75−80
−71.1%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 63
+90.9%
30−35
−90.9%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 65−70
+200%
21−24
−200%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 71
+145%
27−30
−145%
Cyberpunk 2077 70−75
+223%
21−24
−223%
Far Cry 5 75
+121%
30−35
−121%
Forza Horizon 4 112
+19.1%
90−95
−19.1%
Hitman 3 85−90
+219%
27−30
−219%
Horizon Zero Dawn 121
+63.5%
70−75
−63.5%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 140−150
+215%
45−50
−215%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 81
+268%
22
−268%
Watch Dogs: Legion 130−140
+71.1%
75−80
−71.1%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 105
+163%
40−45
−163%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 89
+218%
27−30
−218%
Far Cry New Dawn 74
+236%
21−24
−236%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 49
+250%
14−16
−250%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 45−50
+309%
10−12
−309%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 51
+240%
14−16
−240%
Cyberpunk 2077 30−35
+357%
7−8
−357%
Far Cry 5 53
+212%
16−18
−212%
Forza Horizon 4 282
+281%
70−75
−281%
Hitman 3 50−55
+206%
16−18
−206%
Horizon Zero Dawn 92
+217%
27−30
−217%
Metro Exodus 82
+228%
24−27
−228%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 95−100
+292%
24−27
−292%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 55−60
+293%
14−16
−293%
Watch Dogs: Legion 190−200
+119%
85−90
−119%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 81
+238%
24−27
−238%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5 43
+207%
14−16
−207%
Far Cry New Dawn 39
+255%
10−12
−255%
Hitman 3 30−35
+230%
10−11
−230%
Horizon Zero Dawn 180−190
+161%
70−75
−161%
Metro Exodus 47
+236%
14−16
−236%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 56
+250%
16
−250%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 33
+313%
8−9
−313%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
+257%
7−8
−257%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 29
+314%
7−8
−314%
Cyberpunk 2077 14−16
+600%
2−3
−600%
Far Cry 5 27
+238%
8−9
−238%
Forza Horizon 4 65
+242%
18−20
−242%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 55−60
+293%
14−16
−293%
Watch Dogs: Legion 21−24
+250%
6−7
−250%

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 42
+223%
12−14
−223%

This is how GTX 1080 and GTX 680 compete in popular games:

  • GTX 1080 is 167% faster in 900p
  • GTX 1080 is 72% faster in 1080p
  • GTX 1080 is 181% faster in 1440p
  • GTX 1080 is 148% faster in 4K

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

  • in Cyberpunk 2077, with 4K resolution and the Ultra Preset, the GTX 1080 is 600% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, GTX 1080 surpassed GTX 680 in all 72 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 40.35 14.45
Recency 27 May 2016 22 March 2012
Maximum RAM amount 8 GB 2048 MB
Chip lithography 16 nm 28 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 180 Watt 195 Watt

GTX 1080 has a 179.2% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 4 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 75% more advanced lithography process, and 8.3% lower power consumption.

The GeForce GTX 1080 is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce GTX 680 in performance tests.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
GeForce GTX 1080
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
GeForce GTX 680

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


4.3 5394 votes

Rate GeForce GTX 1080 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
3.8 583 votes

Rate GeForce GTX 680 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.