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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition: A Retrospective and Relevance in 2025

Overview of an Obsolete GPU for Enthusiasts and Specific Tasks

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition is a graphics card released in 2012 for Apple computers. Despite its age, it remains of interest to users of older macOS systems and collectors. In 2025, its relevance is limited, but we will examine its features through the lens of modern requirements.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Kepler Architecture: A Nod to the Past

The GTX 680MX is based on the Kepler architecture (2012), built on a 28nm process technology. It was a revolution in its time, but today it falls behind even budget GPUs.

Lack of Modern Technologies

The card does not support RTX (ray tracing), DLSS (AI upscaling), or FidelityFX. Its functionality is limited to basic graphical tasks. The only "feature" is optimization for macOS, including support for OpenGL 4.2 and partial Metal 1.0 support.

2. Memory: Modest Specifications

GDDR5 and 2GB Capacity

The GTX 680MX is equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 memory (sometimes 4GB in modified versions) with a bandwidth of 160 GB/s. For modern games and applications, this is insufficient: high-resolution textures and complex scenes will cause lag.

Example: Running Adobe Premiere Pro 2025 with 4K footage will lead to frequent rendering errors due to insufficient VRAM.

3. Gaming Performance: Nostalgia for the Past

1080p at Low Settings

In 2025, the card can only handle undemanding titles:

- CS2: 40–50 FPS at medium settings.

- Fortnite: 25–30 FPS at low settings (with no shadows or anti-aliasing).

- The Witcher 3: 15–20 FPS at minimum settings.

4K and 1440p? Impossible even for indie games. Ray tracing is absent.

4. Professional Tasks: Limited Applicability

CUDA and OpenCL: Obsolete Versions

The card supports CUDA 3.0 and OpenCL 1.2, rendering it useless for modern editing software (Blender 4.0+, DaVinci Resolve 19).

Where Is It Useful?

- Retro editing in Final Cut Pro X (older versions).

- Simple 3D modeling in Autodesk Maya 2015.

- Office tasks and web surfing.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP 100W: Not the Most Power-Hungry

It requires a 450W power supply (with a margin). The card heats up to 80°C under load, so a system with good ventilation is necessary.

Recommendations:

- Use a case with 2–3 fans.

- Replace the thermal paste if the card has been used for a long time.

6. Comparison with Competitors

Against AMD Radeon RX 6400 and NVIDIA RTX 2050

Even the budget RTX 2050 (2021) outperforms the GTX 680MX by 3–4 times in performance. The RX 6400 (2022) offers 4GB of GDDR6 and FSR support.

Prices in 2025:

- New GTX 680MX cards are no longer produced. Used ones — $50–80.

- RTX 2050 — $180–200 (new).

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply and Compatibility

- Minimum of 450W with an 80+ Bronze certification.

- Only compatible with older Mac Pro models (2010–2012) and some PCs through modifications.

Drivers:

- macOS: Official support was discontinued in 2020 (only third-party patches).

- Windows: Drivers available up to 2021.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price on the secondhand market.

- Support for older Macs.

- Quiet operation in basic scenarios.

Cons:

- Outdated architecture.

- Insufficient memory for modern tasks.

- No support for new technologies.

9. Final Conclusion: Who Is It For?

In 2025, the GTX 680MX Mac Edition is relevant only for:

- Collectors and enthusiasts of retro hardware.

- Owners of old Mac Pros who want to extend the life of their device.

- Users working with software from the 2010s.

For gaming and professional tasks, it is better to choose budget modern GPUs — even the NVIDIA RTX 3050 or AMD RX 6600 will be exponentially more effective. The GTX 680MX is a relic of the past, not a tool for 2025.

Conclusion

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition is an example of how quickly technology becomes obsolete. It should be regarded only as a temporary solution or a part of history. However, if you're a fan of Apple and want to preserve the "hardware" of the Steve Jobs era, this card deserves a spot on your shelf.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

October 2012

Model Name

GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition

Generation

GeForce 600M

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

3,540 million

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

128

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

Kepler

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

2GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

1250MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

160.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

23.01 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

92.03 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

92.03 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

2.253 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1536

L1 Cache

16 KB (per SMX)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

122W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.1

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_0)

CUDA

3.0

Shader Model

5.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.253 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

FirePro S7000

2.383 +5.8%

GRID K520Q

2.335 +3.6%

GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition

2.253

Radeon HD 6950

2.208 -2%

Tesla M4

2.151 -4.5%