Overclocking
Overclocking used to be easy. You'd add some voltage, increase the speeds until failure set in, and then pull it back a little. Now, with GTX 680, one needs to factor in 'offset' overclocking and the card's Power Target. Each manufacturer's BIOS sets this Power Target - which defines the amount of power the board can consume - to whatever they feel comfortable with, ranging from 105 per cent to 140 per cent, according to what we've seen first-hand. Gigabyte plays it safe, offering a Power Target of 110 per cent.
We increased the core voltage to 1.15V and the Power Target to maximum, and here's what we got to.
The elevated clocks are better than reference but not quite as good as those obtained on the ASUS TOP, which managed to hit 1,205MHz on the core. Of course, your mileage will vary, considerably, depending on the quality of the underlying GPU and chassis cooling.
The uptick in performance makes it the second-best card in our line-up. The memory-speed increase helps a great deal in this title.
