Extreme overclockers at EVGA push NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 beyond 1.8GHz

NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 680 has high overclocking potential, as even under standard conditions we were able to increase the GPU clock speed to nearly 1300MHz. So imagine what could be possible if the VRM was modified for high voltage AND the core was chilled to -150°C. This is exactly what a team of overclockers from EVGA did.

The team was led by the "Kingp|n" himself, renowned in the enthusiast circle for his overclocking abilities. To achieve the highest clocks possible, the team used an add-on PWM board with additional power connectors and chilled the core using LN2. The end result was a GTX 680 running at an astonishing 1842MHz.

At 1842MHz, the system was capable of scoring 14912 points in the 3DMark 11 performance test. This is over 4000 marks higher than what we achieved in our own labs. However, the real kicker is the 14912 score was achieved with tessellation set to the maximum level. Taking this into account, the actual score in comparison to our results would have been between 5000 and 6000 marks.

Along with the modified GTX 680, the test system utilized an Intel Core i7-3930K processor overclocked to 5.5GHz and memory running at 2400MHz.