Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 680 Black Series Accelero Hybrid 4GB Video Card Review

Final Thoughts
When the inno3d iChill GTX 680 first landed on my doorstep, I was giddy with excitement. This is my first inno3d card, and hell did it make a good first impression.

Performance wise, at stock settings, this card performed incredibly well. Everything I threw at it, at maximum, ran well, and at entirely playable settings; even the incredibly demanding Metro 2033. Producing 10.5k 3DMarks the moment I started testing it made my jaw drop.

Overclocking on Kepler is difficult only because you have to factor in the GPU boost, but in reality it’s as simple as overclocking any graphics card; you just have to pretend you’re overclocking the boost clock as opposed to the core clock. The only thing I’ve found disappointing about Kepler on the whole is the locked voltage. It really does limit the cards potential – especially when the card is equipped with an excellent aftermarket cooler like this.

Overclocking results were excellent, bringing an FPS boost in all of our tests and made spending those 5-10 minutes finding your cards sweet spot absolutely worth it. 11000 3DMarks for a single-GPU solution is absolutely astounding.

With regards to the cooler, it is fantastic. Aside from the fact that getting the card installed is slightly – and only slightly – more complex than cards equipped with traditional air coolers, the Accelero Hybrid attached to the card performed incredibly well and was virtually inaudible the whole time.

On the whole, the inno3d iChiLL Black Series GTX 680 is an excellent product. If the core voltage were unlocked and we could push the card harder still, you probably wouldn’t be reading this review because I’d be sitting jaw-on-the-floor in front of my monitor, astounded and unmoving, for all eternity.

Now if you’ll excuse me while I whip this out of the test rig and throw it into my own personal one..

Pricing information is currently unavailable for the US market, but it is announced that it will sell for 5,380 Hong Kong Dollars, which going by todays exchange rate (xe.com) equates to equivalently $706. Ouch. ThinkComputers.org would like to award the inno3d iChiLL Black Series GTX 680 a 9 out of 10 score.

rating9 10 small

Pros:
– Excellent performance
– Relatively easy to install
– Cooler is second only to full water cooling
– Cooler is silent

Cons:
– Locked voltage makes overclocking limited
– Very pricey