NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Dual GPU Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Dual GPU Video Card Review - Is the GeForce GTX 690 the best dual-GPU video card ever built? We'll compare performance to GeForce GTX 680 SLI and Radeon HD 7970 CFX to see where the new beast from NVIDIA stands. We overclock the dual GPUs and push these as far as we can. Surely this is the best performance ever experienced from a single video card.
 
Fantastic review! Looks like a great card!! Hopefully they will keep up with drivers as this is probably their best dual gpu card.
 
nice review :) so the 690 is slower than 2x680 from what we can see,it also costs less to produce but asks the same price as 2x680....still a pretty fast card,but obviously 2x680 are better :)
 
nice review :) so the 690 is slower than 2x680 from what we can see,it also costs less to produce but asks the same price as 2x680....still a pretty fast card,but obviously 2x680 are better :)

Good trolling attempt with your smiley faces. Please RTFA before commenting.
 
While its disappointing that it couldn't reach the OC levels Nvidia was claiming those power numbers are impressive. Good temps too, though I'd love to see what good waterblocks will do to the temps and overclocking ability. Still $1000...Yikes. Amazing performance, but way way way out of what I'd be willing to pay for a video card unless I win the lottery or something.
 
So... any idea who currently has the 690 for sale or when we can expect the store fronts to get them besides the "May 3rd/May 7th" time frame?
 
Wow! I didn't expect the power utilization to be THAT low! Looks like you definitely get your money's worth if you get this card.

Still way out of my price range, but damn that's pretty awesome.
 
So... any idea who currently has the 690 for sale or when we can expect the store fronts to get them besides the "May 3rd/May 7th" time frame?


Question is in now with NVIDIA, waiting for an updated reply.
 
[+Duracell-];1038682057 said:
Wow! I didn't expect the power utilization to be THAT low! Looks like you definitely get your money's worth if you get this card.

Still way out of my price range, but damn that's pretty awesome.

Agreed on the power usage. I wonder what usage they have in Quad SLI...
 
Now I'm curious to hear about some actual game playing experience. I want to know if there's any noticeable stuttering and/or input lag or if they have worked out those problems that have been traditionally seen with dual GPU cards.
 
While its disappointing that it couldn't reach the OC levels Nvidia was claiming those power numbers are impressive. Good temps too, though I'd love to see what good waterblocks will do to the temps and overclocking ability. Still $1000...Yikes. Amazing performance, but way way way out of what I'd be willing to pay for a video card unless I win the lottery or something.

I may be wrong here, but I get the feeling that water cooling is not going to do a lot for long-term stable clocks on either the 690 or 680. If it produced anything north of 1350MHz STABLE, I would be surprised.

I have saw a 680 early production board bounce around 1300MHz with stock air cooling, but ti was not close to stable. I just got the overall feeling that we were seeing the upper end of headroom without exotic cooling.

Again, just my guess.
 
Nice review, always love the fact that you test at triple monitor resolutions rather than 1080p and comparing 150fps to 200fps.

Would be interesting to see 690 OC vs 7970 CF OC in the overclocking section.
 
Now I'm curious to hear about some actual game playing experience. I want to know if there's any noticeable stuttering and/or input lag or if they have worked out those problems that have been traditionally seen with dual GPU cards.

Good question. We only address real world gameplay only on pages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9, sorry you missed it. Buttery smoothness all the way through.
 
nice review. tempted to nab one. any comments on AFR? love to play some BF3 multi. last dual gpu experience was xfire 5850's and there was a noticeable lag compared to my 6970 at the time.

love my 7970, hate to make that big of a purchase without seeing a huge increase. minimum frames and micro stutter being the big worry.
 
Thanks for the review!

Love the fact that its power consumption is actually lower than two GTX 680s, and that the total system power draw is less than 500W!

This means, that even with a combination of 5 HDD/SSDs, a discreet Sound Card and 5-6 case fans users shouldn't need anything above a 750-850W PSU.
That includes taking into account capacitor aging and the likes..


Fixed, thanks. - Kyle
 
Nice review Brent, even get a few hours sleep in before it's published.

As for me, time to retire the 5870, just waiting to see a 690 pop up for sale. As long as there isn't a huge price premium over 2 680's I'll be right on that bandwagon. Will be my first Nvidia card since an 8800 Ultra so it's great to see them back in the game.

Thanks, fixed. - Kyle
 
. It is nice to see a dual-GPU video card that isn't overpriced for a change. The GTX 690 has a solid value in today’s market.

I understand the cost associated with the cooling, design, etc.
but, NOT overpriced?
really?

Awesome review, and if it wasn't so overpriced I just migth cosider selling a kidney to get one.

Maybe I'm just jealous...
 
Would love to have TWO of these! :D

I have to admit that I am overly impressed. To come with in 8%-10% of what two cards can do on one card is an amazing feat.

I don't see how people don't think its worth the 1k price tag. There is a lot more tech in these cards than a normal 680.

+1 for Nvidia.
 
Impressive! I don't think there's been a single card dual GPU thats come this close to their 2 card counterpart.
 
I understand the cost associated with the cooling, design, etc.
but, NOT overpriced?
really?

Awesome review, and if it wasn't so overpriced I just migth cosider selling a kidney to get one.

Maybe I'm just jealous...


If the 690 is overpriced, then so is the 680, and so are the 7970s. And fair deal, maybe you do consider this to be true. Surely you are entitled to your opinion. Here is a link that may be more up your alley.

Looking at the entire GPU market, I think the 680 and 690 are currently priced appropriately. High end GPUs are not and have never been commodity items. These are luxury items, plain and simple.
 
I have to say I'm very impressed by the 690. Although its not the first time a x2 card performs pretty much the same as 2 cards on SLI, its the first time I've seen it using less power and producing less heat. Even more impressive when you consider a single 680 is already cool and power efficient.

About the only nitpick (other than price) is that it doesn't reach the magic 1300mhz OC. The highest I've seen is 1250mhz on Guru3d.
Maybe with a little bit more of tweaking.
 
Why does Evga's website list it at 4gb RAM? I thought the 690 had 2x2gb ram. Are they just adding them together? Still on 2gb effective though right?
 
Why does Evga's website list it at 4gb RAM? I thought the 690 had 2x2gb ram. Are they just adding them together? Still on 2gb effective though right?

They always add it together for dual-GPU cards. It's a marketing trick to make you think that it really is 4GB versus 2x2GB.
 
They always add it together for dual-GPU cards. It's a marketing trick to make you think that it really is 4GB versus 2x2GB.

"marketing trick," not really. It technically *is* a 4GB card, just a 2x2GB "effective" card. So they are not technically lying and I don't honestly see it as a marketing trick.
 
Wow, looks like you're having a bad day :eek: Anyway, this looks like the best dual GPU card in several years......I just question availability, nvidia can't keep up with 680s so this will surely be hard to get...
 
Do you think Evga will release special backplates for this? I thought they would of course, so I pre-ordered the sig but so far, it only comes with a shirt/poster/mouse pad. Wondering if a sig+ will bother to appear, or if we can just order a backplate seperately. I don't want to be the guy who says "for $1050 you should get a backplate" but....... well... :p
 
They are overpriced IMO.
Every now and then AMD/nvidia (more so nvidia) try to position their high end cards into higher prices.

There are several examples like the 8800GTX ultra, most expensive single gpu card to date IIRC.

I would extend but I'm already off-topic. I'll make a new thread later.

Well, there are 2 arguments to this: that every previous dual GPU card was cheaper than their x2 counterpart. However, those cards were much more "cut down" than the GTX 690.

Personally, I would have preferred an 899$ price point. When 899$ was mentioned as a rumor, that certainly got me exited... But, I can see why it is priced the way it is....it is close to 680x2...
 
Do you think Evga will release special backplates for this? I thought they would of course, so I pre-ordered the sig but so far, it only comes with a shirt/poster/mouse pad. Wondering if a sig+ will bother to appear, or if we can just order a backplate seperately. I don't want to be the guy who says "for $1050 you should get a backplate" but....... well... :p

Unless it's needed backplates are nothing more then things that trap heat between the plate and the back of the card.
 
Right, but maybe they will release a newly engineered backplate to match the magic of the card's engineering prowess itself!

Otherwise, yeah. Don't need one.
 
Excellent review, Brent.

Folks have been spoiled by the downward pressure on component prices. This is a tremendous value.
 
2GB of useable VRAM is a deal-breaker. You're going to blow $1k on a card that can't be future-proof at all.
 
Out of curiosity what happens if you set the 690 and 680 SLI to the same clock speed manually, say both to 1100MHz, is the performance gap still there or as wide? Just wondering if the boost mechanism sometimes throttles the 690 back a bit too far toward the base clock. Also I'm assuming for the non OC tests you didn't adjust the power target to equalize out the GPUs, how much would only raising power target go toward narrowing the gap between SLI?
 
They are overpriced IMO.
Every now and then AMD/nvidia (more so nvidia) try to position their high end cards into higher prices.

There are several examples like the 8800GTX ultra, most expensive single gpu card to date IIRC.

I would extend but I'm already off-topic. I'll make a new thread later.

Yep, heard that the first time you said it, but thanks for making it more clear. :rolleyes:

I am not sure why you think you need to post this again.
 
I don't really see the price as all that unreasonable. Its within a fraction of the performance of GTX 680 SLI. Close enough that I don't think you'd ever see a real world difference. It does this while drawing less power, making less heat, taking up less space, and leaving the option to add another card if you really wanted.

This card is obviously not for everyone, but if you are someone who would drop $1,000 on a 680 SLI system up-front, I see no benefit to doing that over purchasing this single-card solution for the same price. Last generation, the GTX 590 didn't cost double the 580, because it didn't offer double the performance, two 580's would still outdo it. Asus rolled out their own true dual 580 GPU card, and that cost $1,500, well beyond the cost just getting two 580's. By comparison, the GTX 690 is right where it should be. I'll never own one, but it's a damn impressive card none-the-less.
 
I don't really see the price as all that unreasonable. Its within a fraction of the performance of GTX 680 SLI. Close enough that I don't think you'd ever see a real world difference. It does this while drawing less power, making less heat, taking up less space, and leaving the option to add another card if you really wanted.

This card is obviously not for everyone, but if you are someone who would drop $1,000 on a 680 SLI system up-front, I see no benefit to doing that over purchasing this single-card solution for the same price. Last generation, the GTX 590 didn't cost double the 580, because it didn't offer double the performance, two 580's would still outdo it. Asus rolled out their own true dual 580 GPU card, and that cost $1,500, well beyond the cost just getting two 580's. By comparison, the GTX 690 is right where it should be. I'll never own one, but it's a damn impressive card none-the-less.

Agreed. The card will be in short supply anyway by all indications, so the price point will surely find eager buyers.
 
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