NVIDIA reclaimed the performance throne with GeForce GTX 680, and will soon start releasing cards in the lower price price segments. The company is expected to take it in steps down from GTX 680 and next in line is GeForce GTX 670 Ti.
The graphics card market got a lot more interesting when NVIDIA finally released the new Kepler architecture and once again started competing with AMD. Besides workring on a GTX 690 that will be based on two GK104 circuits it also has cheaper versions coming. GeFotce GTX 670 Ti will share base with big brother, but lack some internal bits and be clocked lower.
192 CUDA cores and 12 texture units removed in GeForce GTX 670 Ti
GeForce GTX 670 Ti has one SMX units deactivated, which results in a total of 1344 CUDA cores and 112 texture units. Other than that specfications are identical to GeForce GTX 680, and what is not yet decided is the frequencies. They are always the last to be set, and it is not unusual for this to wait until just weeks before launch.
| Model | GeForce GTX 670 Ti | GeForce GTX 680 |
| Ciruit | GK104 | GK104 |
| CUDA cores |
1344 | 1536 |
| SMX units |
7 | 8 |
| Clock frequencies | ~900 MHz | 1006 MHz |
| GFLOPS | ~2419 | 3090 |
| Texture units |
112 | 128 |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| Memory bus |
256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory buffer |
2048 MB GDDR5 | 2048 MB GDDR5 |
| Memory frequency |
~1250 MHz (~5000 MHz effectively) | 1502 MHz (6008 MHz effectively) |
| Memory bandwidth |
~160 GB/s | 192 GB/s |
| Max TDP | ~160W | 195W |
3DCenter estimates performance on the same level as Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce GTX 580. The same source says that GeForce GTX 670 Ti will reach the market in May and cost around 350€. There is also a GeForce GTX 670 coming, also built on GK104, but there are no specifics to share at this time.
After that GK106 will arrive with GeForce GTX 660/600 Ti, whiel GK107 that is currently being used in notebooks will appear as GeForce GTX 650 and GT 640. The graphics cards in these segments are not expected to appear before the Summer, when we hope everyone is still sitting comfortably in front of their computers.
In my opinion gtx 680 is not superior to 7970 since it is slower than 7970 in opencl. Also in most games it is slower than 7970, and it cosumes much more power in sleep mode. In my opinion it would be fine in the previous generation but not now.
Your opinion is 100% incorrect.
GTX680 is superior in modern games by 10-20%, consumes less power, costs less.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680/12/#abschnitt_leistung_mit_aaaf
And notably, it has massive performance lead at the most common gaming resolution of 1080P, as well as huge performance leads in popular games such as SKYRIM, BF3, Batman AC, etc.:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-680-oc-edition-review/21
If you run some OpenCL programs, you are 0.1% of the high-end GPU market.
People who want a card for professional applications (financial services, automotive engineers, universities/research, etc.) purchase Quadro/Tesla cards in the first place where software support is vital.
Gaming cards are first and foremost created for games.
Also, consuming power consumption in ”sleep mode” is meaningless. People who want to conserve power turn off their computer altogether.
In idle states, there is about a 2-3W difference between a 680 and a 7970:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680/17/#abschnitt_leistungsaufnahme
Overall, 680 is faster, quieter, consumes less power, costs less in North America and has more features.