10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

The GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition is a very low performing piece of gaming hardware and can probably only run indie system requirements.

Capable of running games with up to a DirectX 11 requirement.

Here is a performance review on how capable the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition is at running the more popular games of 2023. Specifically looking at this PC hardware’s ability to get suitable frames per second to play on Ultra game settings and what FPS it might get on 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen res. This card runs recommended graphics requirements of 223 games from the top 1000 most demanding games being played today.

Now onto the frame rates achieved at 1080p. We are seeing Dying Light 2 getting 0 FPS with the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition, Resident Evil 8 getting 2 FPS and Back 4 Blood getting 33 frames per second. All run on Ultra at 1920x1080 screen res.

People are turning their increasingly more powerful graphics cards to the popular 1440p screen size so we tested the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition to see how it performs on 1440p. First off we have looked at Dying Light 2 where it was weak. The frame rates it scored for the game presets were - Low: 0 FPS, Medium: 0 FPS, High: 0 FPS and Ultra: 0 FPS. We added Resident Evil 8 to our tests and saw it was weak with a 1 FPS at Ultra 1440p. And then tested Back 4 Blood which got 25 FPS at Ultra 1440p. After a look at the popular games running at 1440p with the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition, this is unable to perform adequately across modern games at this increased resolution.

How many years will the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition in your PC? Our current calculations suggest a graphics card upgrade will be required in around 12-18 months

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Edition? Upgrading this graphics card would have us consider the RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB which is 56% more powerful. This upgrade choice can also run 716 games from the most demanding games today. Alternatively we would suggest getting a RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5300, as it can run 300 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today with 25% increased graphics performance.