GTX-690 Reviews are up.

[thilanliyan]

You should be able to see MS on an nVidia setup in Heaven.

Quick, delete that comment before central command sees it!!

 

[RussianSensation]

Looks like the card is sold out at the Egg for $1200.....

I wonder if NV could have priced these at $1.5-2K. Looks like the PC enthusiast crowd got extremely rich during the Great Recession. That's a lot of $ to max out console ports/not demanding PC titles.

1. Diablo III – May 15, 2012
2. Max Payne 3 – May 29, 2012
3. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – June 12, 2012
4. Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 – Q2 2012
5. Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods & Kings – June 19, 2012
6. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition – August 24, 2012
7. Darksiders II – August 2012
8. Far Cry 3 – September 4, 2012
9. Borderlands 2 – September 18, 2012
10. Tom Raider – Q3 2012
11. F1 2012 – September 2012
12. Dishonored – September 25, 2012
13. BioShock Infinite – October 16, 2012
14. Medal of Honor: Warfighter – October 23, 2012
15. Assassin’s Creed III – October 30, 2012

And SC2: HofS at some point.

Historically we have a situation where hardware is so far ahead of software, it's almost laughable now. We have the most powerful hardware vs. lack of next generation game engines (no Dooms, Far Cry, Crysis that are crushing GPUs) and yet $1,000+ cards are selling out. How quickly we went from $250 HD6950 / $270 GTX570 sweet spot being all the rage last generation to $500-1,000 GPUs selling out. I guess I missed the memo where wages doubled and tripled.

 

[Hauk]

While real world gains using PCI-E 3.0 over PCI-E 2.0 are marginal at best, it's reassuring knowing it's there if you have the hardware to support it. From what I'm reading in bold below, 680 SLI users on X79 are running PCI-E 2.0. 690's bridge chip gives two gpu's running at PCI-E 3.0 on X79. For that reason (and because the card is killer), I'd select a 690 over 680 SLI. This is the first time I'd choose a dual GPU card over single GPU flagship SLI:


"When the GTX 680 was first launched, some assumed that its performance would be somewhat curtailed on anything but a PCI-E 3.0 slot. NVIDIA had other ideas since their post release drivers all dialed its bandwidth back to PCI-E 2.0 when used on X79-based systems. The reasons for this were quite simple: while the interconnects are built into the Sandy Bridge E chips, Intel doesn't officially support PCI-E 3.0 though their architecture. As such, some performance issues arose in rare cases when running two cards or more on some X79 systems. This new GTX 690 uses an internal PCI-E 3.0 bridge chip which allows it to avoid the aforementioned problems.

On past dual GPU cards, NVIDIA used their own NF200 bridge but it was only compatible with a PCI-E 2.0 interface. The PLX PEX 8747 meanwhile is equipped with 48 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, making it a perfect way for NVIDIA to squeeze every last drop of performance out of this design. Of those 48 lanes, 36 are split between the two graphics cores while the remaining 18 are used for the primary interconnect between the GTX 690 and the motherboard’s PCI-E bus.

One of the most important aspects of this bridge chip is its speed. Since it takes the place of the sometimes inefficient, latency-laden bus / CPU handoff process when dual individual cards are installed, the GTX 690’s internal SLI connection is able to benefit from a substantially quicker interconnect speed. This is why NVIDIA claims the underclocked card can match up almost evenly against two GTX 680s."

Hardware Canucks review

 

[thilanliyan]

Wow...$1200??!! I guess if a 680 can sell for $600...

 

[Hauk]

Wow...$1200??!! I guess if a 680 can sell for $600...

I give it praise in my previous post, but the price, too rich for my blood right now. Crazy expensive. I'd buy one at $900.

 

[RussianSensation]

Wow...$1200??!! I guess if a 680 can sell for $600...

Right about now JHH is placing an order for the F12 Berlinetta or the F70 Enzo replacement because his F458 isn't good enough anymore. He just pulled the marketing feat of a lifetime - shoving two upper mid-range chips for $1K. GTX590 had 2x 520mm^2 die for $700 and now NV is selling 2x 294 mm^2 for $1200 on the Egg.

Even if price per wafer went up 20%, NV is now selling 77% smaller die chip with a ~ 45%+ price increase (assuming $999 MSRP). I realize that NV sells chips to board partners, but still, they must be making a killing on these.

 

[MrK6]

Practically every game they test shows that kind of frametime. Maybe their testing is flawed? I'm not trying to draw flames here, I would seriously like to know whats what. Some people swear that there is MS on certain cards, others don't. I have not seen MS in a LONG time. I have not seen MS on 680sli either.

It depends on how they test microstutter. IIRC, by design NVIDIA drivers report framerates differently in a way that averages frametimes and therefore masks microstutter. Since there wasn't any big brouhaha regarding new tech on the GTX 690 to reduce microstuttering, I'd say the variances seen across reviews are the previously mentioned driver issue.

Most reviews are interesting. As a whole, I think the card is a let down since no voltage control. The GTX 590 was lame because it was neutered to fit into power specs, and now the GTX 690 is neutered further with no voltage control at all.

EDIT: And I just read Anandtech's review - what's up with their 7970 CF power numbers?

 

[Zebo]

Where is that guy who said these should be $800?

 

[3DVagabond]

Looks like the card is sold out at the Egg for $1200.....

OMG! D: Newegg isn't out of stock?!!?! There's a surprise. /sarc

 

[Zebo]

Looks like the card is sold out at the Egg for $1200.....

I wonder if NV could have priced these at $1.5-2K. Looks like the PC enthusiast crowd got extremely rich during the Great Recession. That's a lot of $ to max out console ports/not demanding PC titles.

1. Diablo III – May 15, 2012
2. Max Payne 3 – May 29, 2012
3. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – June 12, 2012
4. Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 – Q2 2012
5. Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods & Kings – June 19, 2012
6. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition – August 24, 2012
7. Darksiders II – August 2012
8. Far Cry 3 – September 4, 2012
9. Borderlands 2 – September 18, 2012
10. Tom Raider – Q3 2012
11. F1 2012 – September 2012
12. Dishonored – September 25, 2012
13. BioShock Infinite – October 16, 2012
14. Medal of Honor: Warfighter – October 23, 2012
15. Assassin’s Creed III – October 30, 2012

And SC2: HofS at some point.

Historically we have a situation where hardware is so far ahead of software, it's almost laughable now. We have the most powerful hardware vs. lack of next generation game engines (no Dooms, Far Cry, Crysis that are crushing GPUs) and yet $1,000+ cards are selling out. How quickly we went from $250 HD6950 / $270 GTX570 sweet spot being all the rage last generation to $500-1,000 GPUs selling out. I guess I missed the memo where wages doubled and tripled.

This this and this. As far as why - epeen bro. Limited product for hobby you love and all that.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Quick, delete that comment before central command sees it!!

I will openly admit when I have issues, though I can't really say MS in heaven is really an issue... It's just a benchmark that no other game uses it's engine for.

I can play Crysis 2, DX11, High Res Textures max settings with 1.28gb of vram at 5900x1080 while getting 30~ fps and not see the MS I see in Heaven at 100+ fps.

 

[blastingcap]

You should be able to see MS on an nVidia setup in Heaven.

So much hate for NV.

 

[Zebo]

If they fix micro-stutter with no accompanying lag I'll be shocked. Also, never a reason again to buy a high end card since performance/$ is so much higher lower you go so two cheap cards will always be the way to fly instead of high margin single card

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Here is MS in Heaven with 590 SLI (Quad), it's the only program I've seen it in personally with my setup before I went Tri SLi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGXGtuUVQgE

Here is Crysis 2 maxed out + high res dx11 470 SLI (not tri), even at 1080p it used all my vram. Still even at 34~ fps there is no MS like in Heaven.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLdw8P3OAf0

 

[pcm81]

Am I the only one who finds 95% of all dual GPU card reviews useless? No, really; we knew ever since the first bench of single gpu card that dual gpu cards will be in 90-100 percent range of single GPU SLI/CF...

What we want to see is Quad fire / Quad SLI (2x dual gpu cards in SLI/CF)...

 

[RussianSensation]

What we want to see is Quad fire / Quad SLI (2x dual gpu cards in SLI/CF)...

Well seeing as you have 2x HD6990s, I am guessing that people who spend $1.5-2K on GPUs don't need to see reviews - they just buy the fastest cards at a point in time, which happens to be 690 right now. If you want a Quad-SLI/CF setup, your only option is 690s since HD7990s are not for sale and that card isn't rumored to launch for another 2 months. Also, considering HD7970 Tri-Fire is worse than 680 Tri-SLI, even if 7990s were available, it would still be questionable to get 2 of those. If you plan on getting quad-GPUs, GTX690 SLI is as good as it's going get this generation. This is even more so considering how the 690 is quiet, and can overclock to 1200mhz, something HD7990 has no hope of touching.

 

[pcm81]

Well seeing as you have 2x HD6990s, I am guessing that people who spend $1.5-2K on GPUs don't need to see reviews. If you want a Quad-SLI/CF setup, your only option is 690s since HD7990s are not for sale and that card isn't rumored to launch for another 2 months. Also, consider HD7970 Tri-Fire is pretty much broken, even if 7990s were available, it would still be questionable to get 2 of those. If you plan on getting quad-GPUs, GTX690 SLI is as good as it's going get this generation.

I am nt planing to upgrade until next gen... Hd7970 trifire being "broken" as you state it is exactly the reason to do the sli/CF of 2GPU cards to see if the problem was solved. I know that 7990s are not avaiable, i am just discussing in general the reason for 2gpu card bench marks... We already know how one of those will perform from single gpu sli/cf benches... the biggest "new" information about performance would come from 2x 2gpu card setups...

 

[RobertR1]

The results mean nothing as long as Crossfire delivers a poor experience due to drivers and other issues.

 

[djnsmith7]

This card would look much better if it were all black...

 

[3DVagabond]

This card would look much better if it were all black...

They should have them in designer colors with a switch to change the color of the lit logo on the side. /sarc.

 

[SirPauly]

This this and this. As far as why - epeen bro. Limited product for hobby you love and all that.

Not necessarily though -- if one has a 3d stereo platform. multi-monitor platform -- one can easily use the performance -- and there is enhancements to IQ combined with 3d stereo or multi-monitor and if one really likes to add super-sampled to their titles.

 

[3DVagabond]

Not necessarily though -- if one has a 3d stereo platform. multi-monitor platform -- one can easily use the performance -- and there is enhancements to IQ combined with 3d stereo or multi-monitor and if one really likes to add super-sampled to their titles.

I think the point is you could get similar performance for less money. The 690 gives you more than just FPS though. It's easily the most elegant solution for the type of performance it gives. Some people could care less about that. People who can generally afford to buy "nice things" though understand and appreciate the overall package.

There are people who buy AMG Mercedes and there are people who supe up Subaru's.

Disclaimer: Owners of suped-up Subaru's... nothing personal.

 

[Silverforce11]

:hmm: 1 review out of 10 enthusiast websites shows that....

You do realize it all depends on the games being benched. Most of the reviews use what, 4-5 games? That's a tiny amount. Only a few use more games.

Similar to the gtx680 launch, CB.de had heaps of games, they found a 5% performance lead vs 7970. Other sites review a small list, found a bigger lead. Selection bias is amplified the smaller the sample size. Look at [H], out of his 4 games, 2 are NV favored while the others are neutral.

Also, your example of Witcher failing on quad-fire then concluding that NV is automatically better in the driver department is fraud. Remember Alan Wake? I had previously made a big list of games that are furbar on SLI and its not a small one either. That doesn't mean SLI is bad, it would be very biased of me to claim such. The point is multi-GPU always have this disadvantage, some games just don't work right until the profiles are updated. If you said NV currently seems to have better SLI support, that would not be incorrect. Saying NV is outright better, then when the next few bunch of games come out and its furbar on AAA titles again, you gonna eat your words?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

You do realize it all depends on the games being benched. Most of the reviews use what, 4-5 games? That's a tiny amount. Only a few use more games.

Similar to the gtx680 launch, CB.de had heaps of games, they found a 5% performance lead vs 7970. Other sites review a small list, found a bigger lead. Selection bias is amplified the smaller the sample size. Look at [H], out of his 4 games, 2 are NV favored while the others are neutral.

Also, your example of Witcher failing on quad-fire then concluding that NV is automatically better in the driver department is fraud. Remember Alan Wake? I had previously made a big list of games that are furbar on SLI and its not a small one either. That doesn't mean SLI is bad, it would be very biased of me to claim such. The point is multi-GPU always have this disadvantage, some games just don't work right until the profiles are updated. If you said NV currently seems to have better SLI support, that would not be incorrect. Saying NV is outright better, then when the next few bunch of games come out and its furbar on AAA titles again, you gonna eat your words?

www.fbi.gov

 

[RussianSensation]

Also, your example of Witcher failing on quad-fire then concluding that NV is automatically better in the driver department is fraud. Remember Alan Wake? Saying NV is outright better, then when the next few bunch of games come out and its furbar on AAA titles again, you gonna eat your words?

I didn't know I am being cross-examined.

I apologize that I didn't provide more info but it's all there in the reviews. At Anandtech and Xbitlabs and Hardware Canucks, they each had problems with CF scaling in different games. In those reviews, SLI exhibited much more consistent scaling.

Further, HardOCP noted that SLI feels smoother. Thus far, 90% of reviews think GTX690 is a superior option than HD7970 CF for these reasons, not to mention the 150-200W power consumption penalty dump into your room for what essentially is best case scenario similar performance from AMD. Either way, as has been mentioned by many posters here GTX680 SLI is prob. preferable over 690 anyway. For that reason 690 occupies a niche market for small form factor cases where HD7970 CF isn't even an option. Thus, 690 vs. HD7970 CF is a moot point but 680 SLI > HD7970 CF in smoothness has been shown across the board and not in just 4-5 games as you claim it to be.

As other posters have noted, if you play Metro 2033, Crysis 1, and Anno 2070, then 7970 CF setup looks good. If one plays more recent games such as SKYRIM, BF3, Batman AC, Crysis 2, GTX680 is faster and that means GTX680 SLI will perform at minimum as good as 7970 in CF. At 2560x1600, HD7970 CF closes in, but it dumps more heat into the room for no particular gaming advantage. Power consumption is the last thing I care about, but when all things are more or less similar, I'll take 150-200W less. Of course, the best thing to do is get the GPUs for the games you play. However, ironically the games in which HD7970 does well are mostly old or not very good (like AvP). I also don't know anyone who plays Metro 2033 or Crysis 1 anymore.....

The fact that Metro 2033 can't even be maxed out on 4 GTX680s at 2560x1600 shows how much of a joke that benchmark has become. I even noted when HD7970 launched that it barely made a difference to make that game playable. It will take at least 5 GTX680s to get 60 fps in Metro 2033 or 4 HD7970s. :thumbsdown: By that time we'll be on Maxwell and HD9000 series.

To summarize, for gaming, GTX680 / GTX680 SLI is at least as fast as HD7970 / HD7970 CF, while having a lot more features (native AO, PhysX, CUDA, working HD video encoding for iPad/smartphone, TXAA) and consuming less power (this is esp. true for 690/680 SLI vs. 7970 CF). All things being equal, other than dual precision / bitcoin performance, HD7970 makes little sense without a $450 price for an aftermarket version such as Sapphire Dual-X and guaranteed overclocking to 1200mhz.

I don't remember anyone ever recommending a card in the past that costs more or less the same, needs a set in stone 30% overclock to match a mildly OCed competitor, and then still consumes a lot more power to get there. HD7970 is the first such card.

GTX680 OC

HD7970 OC

= similar performance, HD7970 uses 100W more

That means 200W more for 2x HD7970.

GTX480/580 used more power than 5870/6970, but they were undeniably faster and had a lot more more performance in overclocked states. HD7970 OC CF can't convincingly beat an OCed 680 SLI, and yet you pay for it with less consistent CF drivers and a whopping 150-200W power penalty.

That's not logical.