GTX 690

U

Ultimate Gohan

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Apr 14, 2012
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Hii guys,
Iam getting a new pc for this weekend . I think u would be aware of gtx 690 which is coming to market on may 3.

Iam going to hook up 3 asus vg278h monitors in 3d vision surround . gtx 690 performs similar to gtx 680 sli . gtx 690 has 2gb vram per gpu .

My concerns about gtx 690 are :

Iam afraid that 2gb vram in gtx 690 will bottleneck and cause stuttering in 5760X1080 RESOLUTION @ 3d. After getting a $1000 graphic card i dont want to sacrifice any settings .

I cant exact numbers of vram usage in surround 3d resolutions.


1. Will 2gb vram on gtx 690 will be enough for surround 3d resolutions ?

OR

2. Should i wait for 4gb gtx 680 to get released so that i can get 4gb gtx 680 sli ?

Additional Questions:

1. Does 3d consume any extra vram when compared to 2d ?
2. How much vram does games like battlefield 3, crysis 2 etc consume in surround resolutions ?

Please Note:
1. Please read everything above before commenting.
2. gtx 690 has 2gb per gpu thats why everyone calls it as 4gb but actually its just 2gb.
3. I also want my gpu to last atleast 2 years from now.

Also posting exact numbers will be really helpful for me.

Thanks in advance for your reply .
 
[H] did an SLi review so you can refer to this to give you an idea.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/28/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_sli_video_card_review/5

In Battlefield 3, with 4X MSAA, the 680 starts showing sharp dive in its frame rate from time to time which may suggest its running out of VRAM and the card starts to swap textures in and out, you start experiencing that split second pause (those downwards spike in the graph).

Personally, I would rather get 2 4GB 680 and SLi them. Galaxy already have a 4GB GTX680 GC card, and Palit too if you can get that brand.

Of course it will cost more than $1000 as these 4GB cards are more than $500 each. But if you have the budget for it, I think it would be the better choice.
 
The 4GB GTX 680 offers little over the 2GB version according to this review. That review doesn't go up to surround resolutions but at 2560x1600 there is very little difference between the 2GB and 4GB cards. However it will be interesting to see a GTX 680 4GB SLI vs 2GB SLI review at 5760x1080.

In any case you won't get playable framerates in 3D surround at max settings in BF3, Crysis 2, etc. with just one GTX 690. Maybe quad-SLI might come close to 120fps at 5760x1080 but that setup will cost at least one kidney.

Ultimate Gohan said:
3. I also want my gpu to last atleast 2 years from now.
Click to expand...
That's not a great way of buying GPUs, given how much they depreciate (e.g. the Asus MARS I and II...) In 2 years mid-range GPUs will probably have GTX 690 performance.
 
slh28 said:
The 4GB GTX 680 offers little over the 2GB version according to this review. That review doesn't go up to surround resolutions but at 2560x1600 there is very little difference between the 2GB and 4GB cards. However it will be interesting to see a GTX 680 4GB SLI vs 2GB SLI review at 5760x1080.

In any case you won't get playable framerates in 3D surround at max settings in BF3, Crysis 2, etc. with just one GTX 690. Maybe quad-SLI might come close to 120fps at 5760x1080 but that setup will cost at least one kidney.


That's not a great way of buying GPUs, given how much they depreciate (e.g. the Asus MARS I and II...) In 2 years mid-range GPUs will probably have GTX 690 performance.
Click to expand...

No u are wrong because Kepler's successor aka Maxwell wont be out for atleast for another 2 years . The difference between gtx 480 and gtx 580 is not much because they both belong to same family which is fermi but the difference between gtx 580 and gtx 680 is huge not in terms of fps alone but also more feature packed. Also gtx 690 is $1000 therefore there is no reason to buy new graphic card within a year itself.
 
slh28 said:
That's not a great way of buying GPUs, given how much they depreciate (e.g. the Asus MARS I and II...) In 2 years mid-range GPUs will probably have GTX 690 performance.
Click to expand...

Strongly disagree , my GTX 480's came out April of 2010 and are still going very strong. They also had strong resale value up until recently. Their performance is also quite amazing as well considering what options are out there now.

You can buy GPU's to last if you aren't a frantic upgrader that see's 10-15 extra FPS as a major difference at the same resolution you are running. GPU's have never had such longevity that I can remember. In fact many GPU's really only excel when you throw surround monitor setups at them.

Most people are still runnning 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 or even less so for them its an even slower upgrade cycle than 2 years.
 
Godmachine said:
Strongly disagree , my GTX 480's came out April of 2010 and are still going very strong. They also had strong resale value up until recently. Their performance is also quite amazing as well considering what options are out there now.
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I'm not saying people shouldn't buy the top of the line GPUs, my point is that if you're going to buy top end hardware it's better to upgrade frequently for a small premium than hold onto it for 2-3 years and see it depreciate, then buy another $500-$1000 GPU. You said yourself that your 480s have lost a lot of resale value when Kepler came out. Obviously it depends how easily you can sell used cards, but generally I upgrade every 6-12 months for a net £50.
 
slh28 said:
I'm not saying people shouldn't buy the top of the line GPUs, my point is that if you're going to buy top end hardware it's better to upgrade frequently for a small premium than hold onto it for 2-3 years and see it depreciate, then buy another $500-$1000 GPU. You said yourself that your 480s have lost a lot of resale value when Kepler came out. Obviously it depends how easily you can sell used cards, but generally I upgrade every 6-12 months for a net £50.
Click to expand...

well newer cards comes every year. i.e gtx 690 is released this year so we might mostly see gtx 790 next year or we might not even see dual gpu card on next gen graphic cards . even if nvidia releases gtx 790 it will be another 10-15% powerful than gtx 690 if history repeats but on gtx 890 i,e maxwell u might really see a huge leap .
 
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if you have space to fit sli gtx 680 i would do that instead of buying a gtx690
 
I say, if you can afford 690, try to picture it mentally; opening the box, installing, finally playing with it. Considering benches and reviews that are forthcoming if it'll be appropriate for your needs, etc. If you are certain it'll make you happy, self-contained, then go for it absolutely (gl finding one though).

Imo I don't think outside influence like e-peen should influence you one way or the other. If they do you'll have bigger issues and problems in real life than wasting money on a card you don't really need/want.

eh, quite a few people make an argument for getting better price/ratio performance for mid range cards and I think it's totally valid and makes sense. That's what they believe in and that's how they practice their building habits so of course they advocate their beliefs.

Some others who like to get the top end and care less about price/ratio performance can make an equally compelling argument too! If one was waiting for diablo 3/skyrim/bf3, etc.etc. all at once coming from a huge upgrade and didn't care much about anything else released the rest of the year, then a 690 coinciding with that is really cool! (yes I realize that a 690 would be overkill for d3, probably a 480 is even overkill tbh and skyrim has been out for a while) My point here is if someone was waiting to play all those and D3 was the catalyst to start getting into all the games they can't play on their current machine for whatever reason, then May would be a great time to get a card! The question is which one based on future plans now that you've acknowledged current plans?

I do normally believe in the get-a-mid range card with sli/xfire in mind (make sure it scales well, consider the games you like and how they play well with multi cards, drivers etc.) and then get another when it goes on a nice sale half a year later or an even bigger sale a year later.

Let's just agree there are different paths and everyone's situation is different. Just because one way seems most efficient to you (and it probably is) doesn't mean someone else can benefit from a completely different path.

In the end, it comes down to, are you happy when you officially bought, are you happy when you unboxed, are you happy the first months of using it, are you happy looking back when you finally upgrade/replace and retire it or handdown/sell.

Keep track of what made you most happy and how you went about doing it, and you can repeat it, ad infinum :)
 
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