 |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Olin Coles | |
| Thursday, 03 May 2012 | |
|
Page 13 of 13
GeForce GTX 690 ConclusionIMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested, which may differ from future versions of the same product. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate. As we discovered with the GeForce GTX 680 video card just a few weeks back, NVIDIA's Kepler architecture is designed to operate faster, offer more features, deliver more functionality, use less energy, and generate less heat. Taking these design goals into consideration, it seems that Kepler would be the perfect fit for the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690. Making a bold claim, NVIDIA insists the GeForce GTX 690 is capable of matching performance with two GTX 680s in SLI. After running fifteen different benchmark tests, the results have proven their point. Spoiler alert: the GeForce GTX 690 easily surpassed graphics performance on every product available, and in some tests it even doubled performance of its closest competitor - AMD's Radeon HD 6990. Expect nothing short of amazing performance from the GeForce GTX 690, but let test results prove my point: DirectX 11 tests delivered an astounding lead for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 in nearly all benchmarks. Testing with Aliens vs Predator, the GTX 690 enjoyed a 15 FPS advantage over the AMD Radeon 6990 and pushed nearly 35 FPS past the GTX 590. The demanding DX11 graphics of Batman: Arkham Asylum made use of Kepler's optimized architecture, delivering a staggering lead to the GeForce GTX 690 over every other graphics card tested. Battlefield 3 continued the run, pushing the stock GTX 690 more than 47 FPS beyond the Radeon HD 6990 before receiving an overclock that sent it another 10 FPS higher. Lost Planet 2 played well on all graphics cards when set to high quality with 4x AA, yet the GeForce GTX 690 still surpassed Radeon HD 6990 performance by 45 FPS. Metro 2033 is another demanding game that requires high-end graphics to enjoy quality settings, which reduced the GTX 690s lead over the Radeon HD 6990 to just over 12 FPS. Synthetic benchmark tools produced similar performance results to those seen from our video game tests. Futuremark's 3DMark11 benchmark suite strains high-end graphics cards with only mid-level settings displayed at 720p, yet the GeForce GTX 690 makes the test look silly and nearly doubles the next best performer. Gugila GroundWiz RTS Demo uses the Alpine scene to cripple graphics cards with real-time shadows that are so demanding our tests had to run at 1280x720p just to get decent frame rate results. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 690 did well, but it seems that AMD needs to sort out issues on their new Radeon HD 7970 which failed this test. Unfortunately AMD did not consider this issue to be worthy of response, even though the test works nicely with their other products. Finally, the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark confirmed what we've seen in most other tests: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 690 leading way ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 6990 (by more than 31 FPS at 1920x1080), and then leaping past it more than 41 FPS once overclocked to maximum GPU Boost. Appearance is a much more subjective matter, especially since this particular rating doesn't have any quantitative benchmark scores to fall back on. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX series has traditionally used a recognizable design over the past two years, and with the exception transparent windows and treated materials, the GTX 690 looks very similar to their GTX 590 model. Expect most partners to dress up the original reference design by placing exciting graphics over the fan shroud or using colored plastic components. While looks might mean a lot to some consumers, keep in mind that this product outperforms the competition while generating much less heat and producing very little noise. Construction is the one area NVIDIA continually shines, and thanks in part to extremely quiet operation paired with more efficient cores that consume less energy and emit less heat, I'm confident that GeForce GTX 690 will continue this tradition. Benchmark Reviews has published our NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Features Overview in a separate article, which details these improvements. Gamers wanting a single-card solution capable of driving three monitors in 3D Vision Surround will be pleased with the GeForce GTX 690, which offers three DL-DVI ports with supplementary mini-DisplayPort output. Defining value for an ultra-premium high-end product isn't easy because hardware enthusiasts know that they're going to pay top dollar to own a cutting-edge product. GeForce GTX 690 is the ultimate enthusiast graphics card intended for affluent top-end gamers, and demonstrates NVIDIA's ability to innovate the graphics segment while establishing a huge lead in the discrete graphics market... but it comes at a cost: $999 MSRP to be exact. Keeping in mind that the GTX 690 also offers triple-display 3D gaming, PhysX technology support, GPU Boost overclocking, FXAA, and now TXAA post-processing, consumers get more than sheer graphical processing power for their purchase. Our GeForce GTX 690 test sample took the standard 915/1020 MHz GPU clock and easily reached 1053/1158 MHz with GPU Boost helping to produce 1215 MHz when needed. Add this to the record-setting 6.0 GHz GDDR5 memory clock (which we also overclocked to 6.4 GHz), and enabling vSync on every game becomes a possibility... especially with NVIDIA Adaptive VSync now available to smooth the frame rate gaps. Using just one GeForce GTX 690 video card is enough to surpass the competition by nearly 100%, so imagine the graphics quality settings and resolutions possible with two units combined into a quad-SLI set. In conclusion, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 has dramatically surpassed all graphics cards on the market and could be the top contender for much longer than we expect. AMD has been forced to show their hand, and I expect the Radeon HD 7990 to surface sometime soon. Yet, even if AMD manages to double the performance of a single Radeon HD 7970, it still won't surpass GTX 690 frame rates and will still lack the thermal performance, quiet acoustics, and FXAA/TXAA post-processing. So what do you think of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Kepler graphics card, and are you planning to buy one?
Related Articles:
|
|
Comments
GTX 680s in SLI completely destroy a single 690.
saves you space on you motherboard.
price of 2x gtx 680 is same as 1x gtx 690.
gtx 680 2x power consumption.
SLi/crossfire, 2x gpu setup delays because they need to communicate between each other first before making computations
everyone knows that SLi or crossfiring 2 gpu doesnt give you 2 times performance. some games doesnt fully support SLi usually you have to wait for game updates. You also need to wait gpu driver updates to make sli/crossfire work efficiently on new games especially on new release gpu cards
which by the way an sli of gtx680 needs to be plugged in two pcie which in many cases causes bottleneck because some mobo has diffrent pcie gen2, gen3 and sometimes even if on 2x pcie gen3 sli some mobo will run it as gen2 which is the bottle.. tooo much hassle..
a single gtx690 = on a single pcie running at gen3
I'll buy a 690, and in less than a year I'll buy one to SLI for half the price. They've already stated that it'll clock over 1,100 on stock cooling, so as far as you being "really sure", i'm not sure what you're smoking.
I had the 7950 gx2 back in the day and it ran as well as the 8800, and it was cheaper, minus dx10. A couple months later I bought another for half the price because i HAD ROOM. It lasted another 3-4 years, and still kicked ass.
If you're going to buy anything and they're the same price, why would you buy 2 that have less performance, instead of one at the same price using the same chips and more room to expand?
I'm not sure of your reasoning on this, it makes no sense.
And don't correct me on price, that is the price for two, actually useful 680's.
I´ve read an article about GeForce GTX 680 3-way SLI an that didnt impress me much... i think an 690 or an 2-way SLI of 680 is a gamers dream for the next time. Maybe NVIDIA has some driver work to do for more power with more cards, dunno....
But hey maybe they will benchmark an GTX 690 Quad SLI Pack here.... that would be more than great....
Would the cpu hold the GTX690 or the GTX680 back too much to be worth the investment, or will a GTX680 or GTX690 be able to deliver nevertheless?
You have somewhat put my worries to rest.
I have been thinking of upgrading since GTA V was announced. My GTX 295 can handle all current demanding games with surprising ease, but it is at its limits when I want to push the GTA IV graphics. I hope the GTA V engine is better optimized for PC.
I will try to hold back my eagerness to buy a new video card until I feel it is really necessary.
And I didn't see the power usage idle/load on power chart.
This isn't a motherboard review, so there's no point in testing PCI-E 2 vs 3. If someone has $1000 to burn on a video card, they're not using it on old hardware.
Seriously, good stuff, but did I miss the usual scoring in the conclusion section or is it just not present?
Sure, if you're running a multiple monitor setup, higher FPS is what you want, but STILL, dual 680s in SLI is way better than a single 690.
Also, I disagree that SLI 680s is better than one GTX 690. It's your money, so buy what you want, but there's no 'right' answer.
Do you know what the "p" in terms like "720p" actually stands for?
So I am afraid to buy Radeon now.
I have tried a few generations of Nvidia cards and all my driver problems have gone away.
So you can see why I would be hard pressed to ever go back to the video cards that gave me so much trouble.
I am not saying I will never ever try an AMD card again, But at the moment I decline.