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When we reviewed a reference cooled GTX680 several weeks ago we were extremely impressed with the latest Nvidia high end card. It would be fair to say that KFA2 have taken the reference design and enhanced it in many key areas.
With a high end discrete graphics card we have learned to expect a certain amount of noise, however the reference cooled GTX680 is surprisingly quiet. We have been saying it for a very long time, but AMD really do need to ditch their huge stockpile of tiny red fans and adopt a similar principle to Nvidia.
The KFA Geforce GTX680 EX OC has improved even further on the excellent Nvidia reference design. The addition of an extra fan means that KFA2 can spin both at a slower rate. We only recorded a shift of 500 rpm between idle and load states, which means that the noise levels only increase slightly.
In reference form, the GTX680 was very closely matched to the MSI R7970 Lightning, but the KFA2 GTX680 EX OC has pushed the performance boundaries into a different stratosphere. This new KFA2 card also managed to outperform the dual GPU GTX590 with the tessellation heavy Unigine Heaven Benchmark.
The reference GTX680 hardware responds exceptionally well to overclocking, and with the 100mhz core boost it manages to outperform the AMD HD6990 in the Direct X 11 based 3DMark 11.
We were expecting this card to cost around £500 inc vat, however we were pleasantly surprised to see a retail price of £479.99 inc vat. Sure, it is a lot of cash for a graphics card, but the price premium is only around £30 more than a reference design. If you are already spending £450 on a graphics card, we doubt that another £30 will really make that much of a difference.
Pros:
- Fastest single GPU card we have tested.
- over 10,000 points in 3Dmark 11, more than the AMD HD6990.
- Even quieter than the reference GTX680.
- efficient power consumption considering the incredible performance.
- Good price point.
Cons:
- None we can mention.
Kitguru says: This card certainly shows that KFA2 mean business. One of the fastest, quietest video cards we have ever tested.
Excellent card, i was planning on buygin a GTX680 but im loooking at the MSI board too
What is their warranty system like in the UK? its important and very few people ever mention it.
Their 4GB version would be better for 3 screens, its around £70 more however.
Its for a small audience and the card looks like it is well made, although that thermal paste screenshot is quite scary. I would love to know how many people (not just KFA2 cards), are running with that amount of thermal paste on their GPU cooler. many people dont realise that too much thermal paste is worse than not enough as it causes massive heat issues for the core and can cause long term failure.
I wonder how KFA2 sales are developing in the UK, there seems to be too much competition for another new starter. are they related to BFG? their artwork styling looks very similar.
KFA2 is a spinoff of Galaxy Tech.