NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition

Power and Cooling — TDP, PSU recommendation, connector requirements

The GeForce GTX 680MX Mac Edition is a 28 nm Kepler part built by TSMC, with a transistor count of 3,540 million on a 294 mm² die. Its thermal design power is rated at 122 W, which places it in a moderate power-consumption tier for a mobile-oriented GPU of its generation. Because this is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) with a slot width of "IGP," it draws power through the motherboard or logic board rather than through dedicated PCIe power connectors — the fact pack lists power connectors as "None." This is a critical distinction for system integrators: there is no 6-pin or 8-pin auxiliary power lead to manage, which simplifies cabling in compact Mac chassis.

The suggested PSU field is not provided in the fact pack, so no specific wattage recommendation can be made. However, given the 122 W TDP and the absence of external power connectors, the power delivery is entirely dependent on the host system's board design. For a user upgrading or servicing a Mac, the practical implication is that the GPU's power draw is already accounted for in the original system's power supply — no aftermarket PSU upgrade is necessary for the graphics card alone. The lack of a dedicated connector also means that thermal management, not power delivery, is the primary constraint in this design. The 122 W figure is modest enough for the integrated form factor, but it still generates heat that must be exhausted by the laptop or iMac's cooling solution. Benchmark data shows a percentile rank of 50 among all GPUs, meaning this part sits exactly at the median of the performance distribution — a reminder that its power efficiency, while reasonable for 2012, is not exceptional by modern standards. The base and boost clocks both run at 719 MHz, which is a fixed clock behavior; there is no dynamic boost headroom, so sustained loads will not see clock increases beyond that figure.

How It Compares

The nearestRivals array in the fact pack is empty, which means there are no direct comparative scores or deltaPct values to cite for this GPU against specific competitors. In the absence of rival data, the primary reference point is the percentileVsAllGpus field, which places the GTX 680MX Mac Edition at the 50th percentile among all GPUs in the database. This indicates that it outperforms roughly half of all GPUs tracked and lags behind the other half — a true midpoint performer. Given the empty rivals list, the analysis must rely on the fact that this GPU's average benchmark score is 0, which suggests that no standardized benchmark results are available for this specific Mac Edition variant, making cross-GPU comparisons inherently limited.

Qualitatively, the GK104 chip is the same silicon used in NVIDIA's desktop Kepler flagship line, but here it is configured with 1,536 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Those counts are notable because they match the full Kepler GK104 configuration, suggesting that the Mac Edition did not cut down the core. However, the clock speed of 719 MHz is conservative, and the resulting pixel rate of 23.01 GPixel/s and texture rate of 92.03 GTexel/s reflect that modest clock. Floating-point performance is 2.209 TFLOPS in FP32, which is respectable for the era but far below what modern midrange cards deliver. Without rival deltas, the best comparative statement is positional: this GPU is a midline performer, not a halo product, and not a budget part. It sits above entry-level mobile GPUs of its generation but below the desktop GTX 680-class parts that ran at higher clocks.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The GTX 680MX Mac Edition is based on the Kepler architecture, which predates dedicated ray tracing hardware. The fact pack lists rtCores as null and tensorCores as null, confirming that this GPU has no RT cores and no tensor cores. Consequently, real-time ray tracing is not supported in hardware; any ray-traced workloads would fall back to compute shaders, which would be extremely slow given the 2.209 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. For DirectX, the API support is listed as "12 (11_0)," meaning the hardware supports DirectX 12 only at the 11_0 feature level — not the full DirectX 12 feature set with mesh shaders, variable rate shading, or other modern capabilities. OpenGL support is 4.6, and Vulkan support is 1.2.175, which are both reasonably current API versions for a GPU released in 2012.

The absence of tensor cores also means no DLSS or any AI-accelerated upscaling. The feature set is therefore limited to traditional rasterization. The 32 ROPs and 128 TMUs provide solid fill rates for their time, but there is no hardware acceleration for the latest graphics features. For users evaluating this GPU for modern games, the API support for Vulkan 1.2.175 and OpenGL 4.6 ensures compatibility with many titles, but the DirectX 12 (11_0) limitation means some newer games that require full DirectX 12 Ultimate features will not run optimally. The fixed 719 MHz clock, with no boost, further limits sustained performance in feature-heavy workloads.

FAQ

Q: Does the GTX 680MX Mac Edition support hardware ray tracing?

A: No. The fact pack lists rtCores as null, indicating the absence of dedicated ray tracing cores. Ray tracing would have to be done via compute shaders, which is not practical for real-time use given the 2.209 TFLOPS FP32 performance.

Q: What is the DirectX version support?

A: The GPU supports DirectX 12 at the 11_0 feature level. This means it is compatible with DirectX 12 APIs but only up to the feature set of DirectX 11.0, not the full DirectX 12 Ultimate specification.

Q: How much VRAM does it have, and what type?

A: It has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a memory bandwidth of 160.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1250 MHz, which translates to 5 Gbps effective.

Q: Is this GPU suitable for modern high-resolution gaming?

A: At the 50th percentile of all GPUs, it is a midrange performer. For modern titles at 1080p, it may run older or less demanding games, but the 2 GB VRAM and 160.0 GB/s bandwidth will be limiting for high-resolution textures and 4K workloads.

Q: What power connector does it require?

A: None. The fact pack lists power connectors as "None," and the slot width is "IGP," meaning it draws power from the motherboard rather than external PCIe power cables. The TDP is 122 W.

Q: What is the production status?

A: The production status is "End-of-life." It was released on 2012-10-22, with the predecessor being GeForce 500M and the successor being GeForce 700M.

Who Should Consider It

The GTX 680MX Mac Edition is a 50th-percentile GPU, meaning it delivers average performance relative to the entire GPU landscape. For users with a Mac from the 2012-2013 era, this GPU is appropriate for 1080p gaming at medium settings for titles released around that time. The 2.209 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 23.01 GPixel/s pixel rate are adequate for older DirectX 11 games and for productivity tasks like photo editing or video playback. However, the lack of tensor cores and RT cores means no modern AI upscaling or ray tracing, so users should not expect to run bleeding-edge games at high settings. For 1440p resolution, the 2 GB VRAM and 160.0 GB/s bandwidth will be a bottleneck in texture-heavy scenes; the 256-bit bus helps, but 2 GB is insufficient for modern game assets at that resolution. At 4K, this GPU is not recommended — the pixel rate is too low, and the memory capacity is too small.

Given its end-of-life status and integrated form factor, this is a part for legacy system owners, not for new builds. Users who already have a Mac with this GPU can extend its usefulness by sticking to older titles, e-sports games, or non-gaming workloads. Those seeking to play recent AAA games should look at modern alternatives, as the 50th-percentile ranking indicates a true midpoint — not a high-end part. The lack of any benchmark scores in the fact pack (average benchmark score of 0) reinforces that this is a niche product without a broad testing footprint, so real-world performance may vary more than for mainstream GPUs.

Memory Subsystem

The memory configuration consists of 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, organized across a 256-bit bus. The memory clock is 1250 MHz, which yields an effective data rate of 5 Gbps and a total bandwidth of 160.0 GB/s. This bandwidth figure is a direct result of the 256-bit bus width and the 5 Gbps effective speed: 256 bits / 8 = 32 bytes per transfer, multiplied by 5 billion transfers per second equals 160.0 GB/s. For a GPU from 2012, this is a solid memory subsystem — the 256-bit bus was typical for mid-to-high-end parts of that generation, and GDDR5 was the standard high-performance memory type.

The 2 GB capacity is the more limiting factor for modern use. At 1080p, many contemporary games can exceed 2 GB of VRAM usage with high-resolution textures, causing the GPU to fall back to system memory over the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, which drastically reduces performance. At 1440p and above, 2 GB is simply inadequate for most modern titles. The 160.0 GB/s bandwidth is also a constraint: while it was competitive in 2012, modern midrange GPUs often exceed 300 GB/s or more. For the GTX 680MX Mac Edition, the memory subsystem is well-matched to the GPU's compute capabilities — 2.209 TFLOPS and 160.0 GB/s are balanced enough to avoid severe bottlenecks in older games, but the capacity wall will be hit first in modern workloads. The memory clock of 1250 MHz is not overclocked out of the box, and the fixed 719 MHz core clock means there is no dynamic boost to compensate for memory-bound scenarios.