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690 vs 780

A

Alai

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 19, 2008
Messages
2,701
I only have room for one card in my gaming machine and I game at 2560 x 1600. What are people's thoughts on the 690 vs the 780? Of course, I will overclock as much as I can so keep that in mind.

From what I can tell, the 690 is the best choice for the most powerful solution, but my main concern is the memory bandwidth at 256-bit vs the 780's 384-bit. Will this bottleneck my GPU performance?
 
its 256 bit x2 so its not an issue at all. that said the 780 makes way more sense. its a whopping 350 bucks cheaper, has more effective vram and no dual card issues to ever worry about. overclocked its basically dead even with a Titan since the Titan will hit its TDP wall sooner. sure the 690 might be the faster overall card if all you want to do is look at fps number. overall the 780 is the winner though if looking at the bigger picture especially at 2560 where 2gb of vram will start to be a limit really soon if not already in some cases.
 
cannondale06 said:
its 256 bit x2 so its not an issue at all. that said the 780 makes way more sense. its a whopping 350 bucks cheaper, has more effective vram and no dual card issues to ever worry about. overclocked its basically dead even with a Titan since the Titan will hit its TDP wall sooner. sure the 690 might be the faster overall card if all you want to do is look at fps number. overall the 780 is the winner though if looking at the bigger picture especially at 2560 where 2gb of vram will start to be a limit really soon if not already in some cases.
Click to expand...

I don't get what you mean by "690 might be faster if all you want to do is look at fps". What else do you look at between specimen within the Nvidia ecosystem? I understand looking at other numbers when comparing AMD to Nvidia cards (especially on dual-GPU cards), but not between Nvidia cards.

So memory bandwidth is no bottleneck at my resolution. The only issue is amount of VRAM and processing power of cores. 690 wins the processing power battle but 780 wins in VRAM capacity. That's what it seems to come down to. Is that correct?
 
Also, I can get a 690 for about $750-$800 in the used market while a $780 will be $650-$700 depending on taxes and shipping. They are fairly similar in cost to me.
 
Dual GPU performance is only fully realized in certain titles, and even then you need to deal with microstuttering / latency / random display issues. My 690 could not handle cloning an output as well as driving an additional monitor (all monitors 120hz). Swapped to a 680 (soon to be Titan) and have none of these issues.

Beefy single GPU > 2 weaker GPUs, always. Losing 1/2 your performance because you want to play a non-SLi compatible title is lame. Also, if you check min framerates in reviews, you will see 780s/Titans absolutely crushing 690s. When SLi works properly it works, when it doesn't it's a price premium for a headache.

Save yourself some grief and go with a single 780. Especially for 1600p gaming.
 
Zomoa said:
Dual GPU performance is only fully realized in certain titles, and even then you need to deal with microstuttering / latency / random display issues. My 690 could not handle cloning an output as well as driving an additional monitor (all monitors 120hz). Swapped to a 680 (soon to be Titan) and have none of these issues.

Beefy single GPU > 2 weaker GPUs, always. Losing 1/2 your performance because you want to play a non-SLi compatible title is lame. Also, if you check min framerates in reviews, you will see 780s/Titans absolutely crushing 690s. When SLi works properly it works, when it doesn't it's a price premium for a headache.

Save yourself some grief and go with a single 780. Especially for 1600p gaming.
Click to expand...

Ok... good points... But how come your 690 couldn't handle extra monitors? I thought the whole point of the 690 was to have a single card that can handle the extra load of multi-monitors within the 6XX generation.
 
Alai said:
What? I don't get usable power vs raw power. And Googling that or Xbox vs PS gives me a lot of bullshit.
Click to expand...

What I mean is that after a few driver updates, (or when games start using more than 2 GB of RAM on a regular basis) you will be unlikely to achieve higher performance with a GTX 690 than you will with a GTX 780, despite the GTX 690's on-paper advantage. Remember, there is overhead when using SLI; it never scales perfectly.

What I specifically meant regarding the Xbox 360 compared to the PS3 is that in the PS3's CPU, you have seven SPEs that are 128-bit SIMD cores, and one PPE, which is a more traditional RISC core that is easier to program for, but far weaker than the SPEs on paper.
On the other hand, in the Xbox 360, you have three cores that are very similar to the PS3's PPE. On paper, the PS3's CPU is far more powerful, but in practice, developers have had a hard time extracting this power, as it is difficult (and sometimes impossible) to split up all of the tasks the CPU must perform to all of the SPEs, which are where most of the PS3's processing power comes from.

Regarding the question in your last post, remember that the amount of usable VRAM in a SLI setup is never more than each card has to itself. In this case, we're only talking 2 GB, which isn't enough for the most extreme multi-monitor setups anymore.
 
Alai said:
Also, I can get a 690 for about $750-$800 in the used market while a $780 will be $650-$700 depending on taxes and shipping. They are fairly similar in cost to me.
Click to expand...

You might keep your eye out for a used Titan also, if you're willing to put down the cash for a used 690. But seems like a new 780 is the easy choice.
 
The 690 is going to be faster the majority of the time, the question is, do you want to pay more for it and are you worried about dual GPU's?
 
Why not a Titan? More VRAM for higher resoultions and it's a true "single card" solution.
 
I've owned a GTX690 since they were released and haven't run into any SLI related issues. I also game at 1600p.

nVidia is good about releasing drivers before major releases that include SLI profiles.
 
Skillz said:
Why not a Titan? More VRAM for higher resoultions and it's a true "single card" solution.
Click to expand...

Because its slower, its just a matter of whether or not you want a single GPU vs dual GPU. The TItan is such a terrible value it shouldn't even be considered. I would only consider a 690 vs 780, and that's if I wanted to save some money with the 780. The 690 is just faster period.
 
Ok, thank you guys. You've confirmed most of my main cost benefit analysis thoughts on this...
 
I know its not the same, but I ordered a 780 today to replace the nightmare that is 660 SLI. Fellow LAN friend of mine did the same thing. I got crap GPU usage in BF3 and GRID 2.
 
Considering that 690 is essentially SLI on one card, I'd go for the 780.
 
I game at 2560 x 1440 and had a 690. I could use some cash at the time I sold it so I traded it for a 7970 lightning plus cash. Let me tell you, I miss that 690 bad and wish I never did that. I'm now looking to sell my 7970 and buy a 780, mainly because I just like to try new stuff.

I know there are a lot of votes in here for the 780 but if you can find a good deal on a 690 you will not be disappointed. That thing tore through games at 1440p and I didn't have any issues with SLI. Battlefield 3 was especially amazing on the 690. I was only at 2x aa but everything else maxed. I held a steady and buttery smooth 60fps and each gpu was at about 65-70% load and also stayed super cool. Only the most ridiculously demanding games like Metro at all max will get those gpu's to 100% load.

Good luck with the search!
 
w35t said:
...690...I didn't have any issues with SLI. Battlefield 3 was especially amazing on the 690...each gpu was at about 65-70% load...
Click to expand...

THAT'S "NO ISSUES?!" THAT is exactly why I'm getting rid of 660 SLI. 65% usage is a major issue to me.
 
w35t said:
I held a steady and buttery smooth 60fps and each gpu was at about 65-70% load and also stayed super cool.
Click to expand...

Did you have v-sync enabled? Do you know what your CPU usage was? If v-sync was off, GPU is 65-70%, and CPU is 70-80% like my SLI 660's and 4.5ghz 2500k were, you have a problem.
 
shadyqwerty said:
THAT'S "NO ISSUES?!" THAT is exactly why I'm getting rid of 660 SLI. 65% usage is a major issue to me.
Click to expand...

With v-sync on that's an issue? I don't get it.

tlbig10 said:
Did you have v-sync enabled? Do you know what your CPU usage was? If v-sync was off, GPU is 65-70%, and CPU is 70-80% like my SLI 660's and 4.5ghz 2500k were, you have a problem.
Click to expand...

Yes v-sync is on. Why have it off when I have a 60hz monitor? That's what I liked about the 690 so much. It has so much processing power that it rarely needed to be at 100% usage. Therefore, quiet as a church mouse and super cool.
 
That's just it. I did NOT have vsync on. And I would never use it in BF3 as it lags the mouse.
 
Oh, well I can't really comment on SLI with 660's. It was fantastic with two 680 gpu's. With the price of the 770's now I'd probably consider those in SLI. Plus the 770 lightning is out? Hmmmmm....
 
When the Titan vs. 690 discussions started just prior to Titan's release, I ultimately went with the 690. Why? If you're running a single Titan, you are not going to get the framerates you would get with the 690, not to mention a 780. Period. I've heard folks complain about smoothness with SLI, stutters, problems, etc., etc. So far, I've not had one peep of an issue. No, I don't play B3.

I'm perfectly happy with my 690. I won't be complaining down the road quite as fast as the single 7XX or Titan users about my framerates. To be fair though, we all need to face the truth...obsolescence is built in to all of these cards. 690 might be the fastest card from nVidia but 2 gigs of ram? And the Titan may have 6 gigs of ram but dang, why couldn't it be as fast as or faster than a 690? With either card, you sacrifice something that you'd want from the other.
 
I don't think 2GB of VRAM is a big problem yet on 1600p, is it?
 
I'd compare the framerates on the games you play here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/583

As for SLI issues, smoothness, stutters, problems blah blah with dual gpu EVGA cards its a non-issue and those words are carelessly tossed out with surprising frequency.

I think at this point for you to actually benefit from the 780 over the 690 you would have to go with SLI on them which isn't a bad thing but its just my opinion, if I had the 690 I would skip the 700 series.

Of course if you have the money and you want to tinker and you enjoy it then by all means do what you enjoy.
 
Blkout said:
Because its slower, its just a matter of whether or not you want a single GPU vs dual GPU. The TItan is such a terrible value it shouldn't even be considered. I would only consider a 690 vs 780, and that's if I wanted to save some money with the 780. The 690 is just faster period.
Click to expand...

The Titan is now "slower" than the 780? C'mon. I understand what you're saying - an overclocked 780 will "crush" a Titan...but even with the TDP wall the Titan has some OC headroom - nevermind the add'l Cuda cores and VRAM.

I understand the anti-value statement, but I think you're pushing it a bit by saying the Titan is slower than the 780.

shadyqwerty said:
THAT'S "NO ISSUES?!" THAT is exactly why I'm getting rid of 660 SLI. 65% usage is a major issue to me.
Click to expand...

I posted this in the other thread - this is no longer an issue so I suggest you give it a try!

~90% utilization: http://1pcent.com/?p=316
 
polydiol said:
I'd compare the framerates on the games you play here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/583

As for SLI issues, smoothness, stutters, problems blah blah with dual gpu EVGA cards its a non-issue and those words are carelessly tossed out with surprising frequency.

I think at this point for you to actually benefit from the 780 over the 690 you would have to go with SLI on them which isn't a bad thing but its just my opinion, if I had the 690 I would skip the 700 series.

Of course if you have the money and you want to tinker and you enjoy it then by all means do what you enjoy.
Click to expand...

Yeah,every time I see this I just shake my head..Adaptive Vsync made what was a small issue significantly smaller.Just started using it myself out of curiosity and am very pleased with it.When it comes to GPU usage, why do people expect the cards to be maxed at 100% all the time? If the game isnt demanding, it wont max..More important is equal usage across both cards. Heaven Benchmark pegs my cards @ 100%, Grid 2 around 70% and most UE3 games around 50%.
 
sk3tch:

I answered u in the other thread. All I can say is that I much prefer the smoother 780 over 660 SLI.
 
sk3tch said:
The Titan is now "slower" than the 780? C'mon. I understand what you're saying - an overclocked 780 will "crush" a Titan...but even with the TDP wall the Titan has some OC headroom - nevermind the add'l Cuda cores and VRAM.

I understand the anti-value statement, but I think you're pushing it a bit by saying the Titan is slower than the 780.
Click to expand...

I think you misread or misunderstood. I said the Titan is still slower than a 690 so there's no point in spending $1000, the same price as a 690, for slower performance. A slightly overclocked 780 will match a Titan for $350 cheaper so the it then boils down to, do you want a faster dual GPU solution for $1000 or a slower single GPU solution for $650 and save some money.
 
The 690 is obtainable at about $750 - $800... I think the extra money over the 780 is worth the performance as long as the lesser VRAM and memory bandwidth isn't a bottleneck.
 
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