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Impulse buy! GTX690. Mistake? Overkill?

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Ecojiro2

Junior Member
I snagged a EVGA 690 for $725 the other day, on a whim (yes, I have a problem with impulse buying). I had just upgraded to a Dell 27HM, and my Raedon 4870x2 wasn't holding up. Except now.. I feel like a replaced a tonka motor with a jet engine. Awful move? Should I return it and snag a 680 or something?

Should I replace anything else in my system to fully utilize the 690? I can afford this, but should I have buyer's remorse?

Main Use: Gaming.

Specs:

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
i7 2.67
16 GB DDR3
256 SSD

THANK YOU!
 
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Ecojiro2 said:
I snagged a EVGA 690 for $725 the other day, on a whim (yes, I have a problem with impulse buying). I had just upgraded to a Dell 27HM, and my Raedon 4870x2 wasn't holding up. Except now.. I feel like a replaced a tonka motor with a jet engine. Awful move? Should I return it and snag a 680 or something?

Should I replace anything else in my system to fully utilize the 690? I can afford this, but should I have buyer's remorse?

Specs:

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
i7 2.67
16 GB DDR3
256 SSD

THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

sell it for a profit and buy a 7970, a cpu cooler, a new psu, and mobo, then overclock the hell out of your cpu and gpu .
 
Nah...You just bought yourself a monster of a video card. I'm a sucker for well built video cards; and the 690 looks like a piece of art. Look at it this way, you won't have to upgrade for a few years. Now go enjoy it and don't second guess yourself.
 
For the price you did better than most but to be honest if you make good use of it then $725 isn't so bad. When I impulse buy I cut out other expenses to make up for it.
 
Welcome to AnandTech!

Grab a CPU cooler and overclock your CPU to 3.8-4.0ghz. Enjoy the card for another 5 months and if GTX780 is worthy of an upgrade for your resolution, sell the 690 and you'll probably lose minimal $ from now until then. If GTX780 is not that great, then you can keep the 690 and enjoy gaming. The price at which you got it is pretty good if you actually were eyeing a dual GPU upgrade.
 
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You can't fully use the 690 with a 2.67GHz i7 920. Need to OC to 3.5+ to ensure as little bottlenecking as possible. On 1080p, I was occasionally bottlenecked by i7 920 @ 3.36GHz, using a GTX 560 Ti (Battlefield 3, Alan Wake)
 
haha! Awesome 😎

Nah, it's fine. When you decide to upgrade the CPU to Haswell in 6-7 months, you'll be set with just new motherboard and CPU. Might as well enjoy that video card in the meantime, it's hard to believe the "next gen" cards are going to be anything special without a dieshrink.

That 690 might be king of the hill for the next 18 months or more. Or card #2 on the hill.

*or buy a 3770k and a motherboard now and feel incredibly smug about it, as it is unlikely there will be anything considerably faster in the next year or two*

I plan on dropping a load of cash next summer on IVB-E or Haswell... It might well be the last main rig I build 🙁 This card and a current high end CPU might have you set for the next 4-5 years, sadly.

Of course, if you want the fun of upgrading, you should get something weaker now 😉
 
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That's a really good price. If you don't need the power, take the profits on the sale and get a 670 or 7970 which is killer for 1080p.
 
Yup, sweet deal for the fastest single card out there! And that magnesium fan housing makes my TF3 7950's look like crap.

But for the love of all which is good, OC that CPU, OP!
 
Ecojiro2 said:
I snagged a EVGA 690 for $725 the other day, on a whim (yes, I have a problem with impulse buying). I had just upgraded to a Dell 27HM, and my Raedon 4870x2 wasn't holding up. Except now.. I feel like a replaced a tonka motor with a jet engine. Awful move? Should I return it and snag a 680 or something?

Should I replace anything else in my system to fully utilize the 690? I can afford this, but should I have buyer's remorse?

Main Use: Gaming.

Specs:

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
i7 2.67
16 GB DDR3
256 SSD

THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

For 729$? I definitely would not have buyer's remorse at that price, that is quite the deal.
 
Ha, thank you for the feedback everyone, definitely feeling better about my purchase. I think I'll keep it and upgrade other components in a while, as some have recommended. Now I just have to figure out how to OC my processor.
 
You do need a new CPU cooler (Noctua NH14 or similar) and overclock that cpu to 3.6-4.0ghz. That stock CPU speed will hold,you back, the rest is fine for now. Certainly don't buy a new mobo you won't see much more than 5-10% higher overclock than what your current mobo can achieve.
 
Good buy!!!!Now go and buy a new processor and you'll have a really good rig.In the meantime overclock your current processor like crazy.
 
$725 is an awesome deal, but your CPU is going to hold it back. If you can afford it then its a great deal. If you bought on Credit, I'd try to flip it on ebay. You'd prob get $850 or so for it there.

I saw a Corsair A70 on sale recently for $30.00. (Performs better than 212+) Get something like that and O/C that cpu to 3.6 or higher and you'll be set. (I'd try to hit 4.0)
 
Agreed with others that it is a good buy, but you will be CPU bottlenecked.
 
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