GTX 690 owner's experience

updated my post above with some results

I know I should just shut up and enjoy my system... but I want to make sure EVERYTHING is setup right and I get the full potential out of this system. I hate seeing Batman with such low minimum FPS... yet most other reviews said their minimum was in the mid to high thirties.

But what is bugging me is seeing my numbers compared to others and mine are lower AND I have more memory, faster CPU, drives in RAID 0 and etc.
 
What would be the best 690 to go with for overclocking? Didn't know if there was a 690 similar to the 680 classified that was built to overclock or not as I want to put it on water. I was leaning towards the EVGA 690 as its already watercooled which saves me the hassles of buying a $120+ block and installing it.
 
Water cooling the 690 makes absolutely NO difference due to the lack of voltage control, the only thing is it will help prevent the 70C kepler throttle (and temps do get that high during high stress with vsync off).

All 690s are made by nvidia, they are all the same, none are better than any other.
 
Water cooling the 690 makes absolutely NO difference due to the lack of voltage control, the only thing is it will help prevent the 70C kepler throttle (and temps do get that high during high stress with vsync off).

All 690s are made by nvidia, they are all the same, none are better than any other.

Even with the EVBot you can't up the voltage at all?
 
Even with the EVBot you can't up the voltage at all?

Nope, only on the 680 classified. Water will help prevent kepler throttle on the 690 but doesn't help overclocking signifigantly, there are a few reports at the EVGA forum pertaining to this (and they weren't able to OC further)
 
Just joined the 690 club :)

I really like this card a lot and I'm coming from two GTX 580s. Going to start to OC it today and need to see how well others have overclocked theirs.
 
Just got mine and installed it this week. Thing is a beast and so much cooler than my SLI 580's!
 
Just got mine and installed it this week. Thing is a beast and so much cooler than my SLI 580's!

Sweet man! I just hooked up a new 2560x1440 monitor to this beast and waiting for the other 2 to arrive for it. Waiting to see if it will be able to handle 7680x1440. I think it will struggle a bit for some games, but going to give it a try anyway.
 
So I have had this card for a couple of weeks and I am loving it. I moved from a Tri-Fire watercooled 7970 with 3x 23" Eyefinity.

My Overlord Tempest OC came in yesterday and this card drives it perfectly at 2560x1440 @ 110Hz! God I love this setup better than any machine. This 690 is built well, stable and is quiet, in fact I probably wont even bother water cooling it.
 
So I have had this card for a couple of weeks and I am loving it. I moved from a Tri-Fire watercooled 7970 with 3x 23" Eyefinity.

My Overlord Tempest OC came in yesterday and this card drives it perfectly at 2560x1440 @ 110Hz! God I love this setup better than any machine. This 690 is built well, stable and is quiet, in fact I probably wont even bother water cooling it.

I am confused, are you running a total resolution of 2560x1440 or are you running 3x2560x1440 thus equaling 7680x1440? Or did you ditch the 3x23" for a single 2560x1440 display?
 
I am confused, are you running a total resolution of 2560x1440 or are you running 3x2560x1440 thus equaling 7680x1440? Or did you ditch the 3x23" for a single 2560x1440 display?

Sorry I was not clear there. I ditched the 3x setup for a single 27" with 2560x1440
 
Sorry I was not clear there. I ditched the 3x setup for a single 27" with 2560x1440

Heh, that makes more sense, which one did you get? I just got the new Samsung 970D myself and it looks amazing with my card. Waiting for 2 more to show up today to try out a 7680x1440 setup.
 
I really really REALLY want one of these to replace my aging GTX295, but I just can't bring myself to spend 1K on a GPU (again).

So tempting though
 
Heh, that makes more sense, which one did you get? I just got the new Samsung 970D myself and it looks amazing with my card. Waiting for 2 more to show up today to try out a 7680x1440 setup.

Bought an Overlord Tempest X270OC!!! <-- 2560x1440 @ 120Hz!
 
I was considering jumping from a 590 but with next gen only a year away I figured I'd hold out and see what happens with BF4. The 590 almost handles BF3 perfectly at 1080 but does not quite have the headroom for consistent vsync performance. Grats on a great card I'm sure it will trounce everything for two years at least.
 
I bet that 295 Lasted you a good long time though!
If a 295 took you this long and spent 1k, in the long run that 1k was a better investment.
I'm nearly getting every gen gpu and although I can resell, the hassle and the loss you take isn't as good as spending the dough now and it lasting 4+ years.

This is what I've observed, when building/rebuilding + the gotta have it factor...:p
 
Looking for any help with this one. My two 690s' were running great until the 310 driver update. When I installed the latest 310 update, my PC displays an error message saying that the nvidia driver has stopped responding. Then, it's followed by another error saying please connect the SLI connector to both video cards and the PC locks up. I had to reboot into safe mode, unistall the 310 driver and roll back the driver to 301.42. Once I install the 301.42 driver, everything is back to normal. Specs are below
 
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i too get the same message with the latest drivers but when i go to the nvidia control panel i see quad sli enabled and then the msg goes away..wierd
 
yeah why don;t you send me one of your 690s and I'll test it out with mine to see if I get the same error :D

anyway good to know I was thinking of looking at a second 690 later on hope this isn't a constant problem. Excited though to see what the new year brings in the way of video cards!
 
I can tell you that I am not happy with Nvidia's drivers for the last year. I have the exact same build with two AMD/ATI 7990s' for my son and I have to say that I never have driver problems and the graphics look GREAT!!! I will say that AMD's drivers are way better with fewer problems. It doesn't matter if you spend $200 or a $1000 per card, you should be able to expect a decent driver that works! It's getting bad enough that most game developers are dropping the PC platform. People ask me all the time, why do you spend that much money on a PC when you can buy a new PS3 or XBOX for $250? I tell them that Yes, I have a PS3 and XBOX but, I like to play certain games on the PC for the experience. There's just certain games that started on the PC and were meant to be played on the PC. You just don't get that experience from a game console. Nvidia needs to start reading the forums and listen to their customers’. Because without us PC gamers, there's very little stopping most gamers from dropping PC gaming all together and gaming on a console. Just my thoughts!
 
Hey I thought it would be nice to have a thread where some of us lucky GTX 690 owners can share our experiences. Is it meeting your expectations? Worth $1000? Any problems/annoyances?

I just installed my EVGA GTX 690 along with a new 1000W power supply. I've only played about 30 minutes of Battlefield 3 so far.

I'm loving it! I mostly played using Adaptive Vsync and I never once saw anything lower than 59.9 fps. It makes BF3 so buttery smooth I just love it.

I have my computer tower plugged into a Kill-a-Watt power meter. Before today I had an Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU and a GTX 580, nothing else changed. With my GTX 580 my system was drawing 450-470W from the wall while playing BF3. Now with the 690 playing BF3 with Adaptive Vsync my total system power is anywhere from 350W to 430W! Now I do admit I didn't look at my power consumption when in the middle of a huge battle so it is probably that the power usage goes higher but most of the time the 690 is using less power than my old 580. I think my 690 is practically falling asleep when it ONLY has to push 60 fps. :p

So far I'm very happy! :D I'm sure I'll be able to add more later. Afterall I've only used my 690 for about 30 minutes of gaming.

im running sli my system is rock solid and screaming fast BF3 is incredible....and runs cool during hardcore BF3 but i agree the latest driver screwed up my sli had to go back tp previous drivers
 
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Hi,

I was hoping if you could take your time to help me.

I'm an owner of two gtx 690 Quad SLI, 3 of the gpu cores are tri-sli and the 4th is dedicated to PHYSX. I've recently bought this new pc and as you know there are problems with the latest 310.90 drivers.. so I'm using the 310.70 drivers, I saw one of your posts about using old nvidia drivers and not the latest for best Battlefield 3 performance with an SLI setup.. well I'm having BSOD and very limited fps with my setup.. cpu is i7 3930k at 5GHZ.. so I don't believe it's the cpu. I got 16GB of ram.. but gonna do a ram test to see if it has any defects.

My question to you is what drivers are you currently using that work well with gtx 690?

thank you in advance for your time.
 
I had an issue with the 310.90 drivers not detecting my 690 properly after a cold boot. I can't find the threat but there was a 10+ page discussion on this at Anyway they did update the inf file and re-posted the 310.90 drivers and now everything seems great.
 
I was reading reviews on Newegg about the EVGA 04G-P4-2699-KR GeForce GTX 690 Hydro Copper Signature and here is what one guy said:

N/A
7/22/2012 12:55:26 PM
Tech Level:
Ownership:



Follow up on my first review


Pros: I add one more egg because both EVGA and Newegg have responsed to my review.

Cons: I still stuck with a top of the line expensive card that has no overclock headroom.

Other Thoughts: I have went through a lot forums to find the average GPU clock speed of the GTX690, most of them are air cool. Looks like most can make it to 1700Mhz without much effort but mine cannot even made it to the 1035Mhz without crashings. I understand that getting a good video card for overclocking is a hit and miss just like a CPU, but it is a top of the line product and should be at least the average. So far I don't have much problem if I run it at stock speed but only time will tell.


1700 Mhz? Is he nuts or am I not understanding what he is talking about. I thought 1300-1390 Mhz was TOPS for any of the 600 series.
 
Just pulled the trigger on an EVGA 690 HydroCopper today. Got 3 day business shipping and that is still not fast enough.

What are the most stable drivers currently for the 690?
 
Got my 690 and did a fresh install. Using 313.96 beta driver. Runs like a champ. Running BF3 at 1920x1080 max everything and it barely dips below 100FPS. Sim City beat put my card to sleep. This thing is a beast and every thing I play runs like butter. Can't wait for Crysis 3 Tuesday
 
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