KFA2 GTX 680 EX OC 2GB Graphics Card Review

For the most part, a lot of our readers most likely haven’t heard of KFA2, but for those who haven’t, we’re sure you’ve heard of Galaxy. They are the same brand, just with a slightly different view on marketing depending on the country, and with that in mind, KFA2 appeals to a UK and European perspective, and so far, they have managed to do a fine job in getting products to market.

KFA2 are certainly unique in the way that things are done, and that can be said about the branding, as well as the products themselves, which we don’t exactly see being sold here, there and everywhere. You also won’t find a standard reference design card from them if they can help it, as they’d much rather show off their own talents, and do so in such a way that makes their brand and products stand out, by being aimed at a niche market of those wanting the best quality, with the best results, while not being afraid to spend a little extra to get those results.

Enough about the company, let’s talk about the card, and the first thing we want to comment on is the design. The twin fan cooler looks simple enough and does an effective job of keeping acoustics to a minimum, though it didn’t seem to help temperatures to much, which is a real shame, as we did hold high hopes for this card in that department. The cooler design as a whole looks very aesthetically pleasing, and has an industrial/professional feel to it with fantastic build quality to match. Our favourite feature had to be the 600 series writing towards the end of the card, that omitted a blue glow when in use, as it’s something so simple, yet effective and simply put; it works.

Performance wise, the card clearly takes the crown, although other cards weren’t a million miles behind, it does go to show that the modest overclock has managed to edge this card ahead of the competition, and that was shown in almost every benchmark and game that we test our graphics cards on.

With an overclock like we see, straight out of the factory, we do believe that the card can be pushed slightly further, but temperatures will have to be monitored, and we wouldn’t advise adjusting any voltages, as this will make the temperatures soar, and at a fairly high 78 degrees on load, we wouldn’t like to see the temperatures increase much more above that, as 80 can start to be the beginning of the spiral.

Power output wise, the results were below where we expected, and the card remained inaudible throughout our testing phase, and that ticks a massive box in our eyes, as we simply hate noise and for a card that can offer amazing, ground-stomping performance while being quiet as a mouse, definitely gets our seal of approval.

Priced around £470 on pre-order, it is a bit on the steep side of things, and the 4GB model comes in at a whopping £550, which is a big jump still. At its current price point, we can’t help but wonder why it’s so expensive, as it’s a good £60-£80 more expensive than similar competitor based products and while the overclock is nice to have, their are plenty of applications and software out there that can allow you to do the job yourself. With that in mind, you’d immediately look at the cooling performance, but this wasn’t as great as we’d hoped for, as mention earlier, so we can’t fuly justify the spend behind this particular model, though the performance does truly speak for itself which shows it’s a tough decision and will depend on the individual and what they are hoping to get from the card and their system in its entirety.

With the purchase clearly being left with the individual, we will have to award this with our own thoughts and feelings in mind, as if we were in the market for a product much like this, and while the card has an issue with temperatures at load, and the price is on the slightly more expensive side to where we’d like it to be, we simply can’t ignore the performance. When looking at it face value, it’s the most powerful single GPU card we’ve had in our test labs, and has clearly shown that the GTX 680 is a force not to be reckoned with and with that in mind, we’re happy to give out our Extreme Performance Award.