690 vs 680

[blazorthon]

Also, just throwing out there to the people who completely missed it:

1) The 690 is NOT exactly the same as two 680s on a single circuit board - the chips are fairly down-clocked.

2) It's fine if you're playing on one monitor, but as soon as you hit high resolutions or triple monitor setups, the 690 crashes and burns. Everyone is talking about it like it's a 4GB card - it's not. That's marketing BS... it's two 2GB cards in SLI, meaning there's only 2GB usable VRAM.

Even triple 1080p almost never runs into memory capacity issues with 2GB cards. I've yet to hear of any issues with the 690 in 5760x1200 and lower resolutions, although I have read about occasional issues with three-way SLI of 670s and 680s running into memory capacity bottle-necks (easily fixed by changing the settings a little). Not really "crashes and burns" unless you throw something at it that it doesn't have enough GPU performance for either. Now two 690s in SLI may crash and burn in something like triple 2560x1440 in the most intensive games whereas four 670 or 680 4GB cards may handle it, but that's a whole other level of extreme.

 

[bystander]

Also, just throwing out there to the people who completely missed it:

1) The 690 is NOT exactly the same as two 680s on a single circuit board - the chips are fairly down-clocked.

2) It's fine if you're playing on one monitor, but as soon as you hit high resolutions or triple monitor setups, the 690 crashes and burns. Everyone is talking about it like it's a 4GB card - it's not. That's marketing BS... it's two 2GB cards in SLI, meaning there's only 2GB usable VRAM.

Unless you use a lot of mods in your games, such as some high texture mods for Skyrim, 2GB is enough for 5760x1080p. Except in the case of mods, I have never seen a benchmark where the 4GB 670/680's ran at playable FPS, where 2GB was not enough. As mentioned by someone else, it takes about 3 or 4 way SLI before you can turn the setting high enough for that to happen and slightly lower AA levels generally fix it.

 

[babernet_1]

I think you would be interested in this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/GeForce-Titan-leak-launch,20977.html

Note it draws only 235 watts yet outperforms a 690. And it only has one GPU so no sli issues. Definitely worth waiting a couple weeks for.

 

[blazorthon]

TDP and power draw are totally different things. Also, I suggest waiting for official benchmarks before passing judgement on it.

 

[KAIJER]

what this is all about ? we are here to help someone out with his problem right ?
and i think noone is going to get any kind of help out of this.

lets make a quick conclusion [ and i know i'm not the right guy here to make this. But someone has to make it right ? ]

Dear Powka,

hope you are not get bored and reading this..

I was in the same situation as you. So I went ahead and ordered both. I had a 690 and a pair of 680s in my house. In the end I stuck with the 680s SLI. A few reasons as to why.

1. Heat. Many people think you'd get less heat with 1 card vs two. In this case you don't. The 690 gets pretty hot. As does 680 SLI. Big difference between the two? How the heat is moved. With the 690 heat will exhaust inside of your case. Your case will get very hot. Temps raised inside my case by about 10C with a 690. All because it was exhausting all that heat inside of the case. Sure, my pc could handle it. But either way it's not good for everything inside. That alone was enough to make me not want to keep the 690.

2. Future proof. In the end it's cheaper t buy two 680's and enjoy them for all they are worth. Once it's time to upgrade. Throwing another one in shouldn't be a problem. I don't have to fork out another 1k. I'm sure by then. Whatever knew card were coming would most likely make the 690 feel dated or at least not worth another one.

3. Resale Value. There is going to become a time where I don't game as much. Or maybe I'll end up seeing SLI as overkill. With 680SLI I will be able to sell one of the cards and keep the other inside my case. So I'll still have a GPU if I need it and not lose everything. Also, people are willing to spend less when used. Not more. So it's going to become a lot harder to sell a 690 in the future.

4. What If A Card Breaks? Lucky me. If I had two I could use one while the other gets fixed. 690 craps out. You'll be waiting a while for the fix and be out of a GPU.

5. In this case the positives just don't out weigh the negs. Is the 690 the sexiest case to date? You bet! Does it have pros!? Sure. Less power and 1 PCI slot. Also it runs on PCI 3.0 even if your running a SBE.

6. But it also isn't as fast as 680 SLI. Pay the same for less speed? The power difference isn't huge. I'm willing to bet anyone spending that much on a GPU would have a decent GPU to begin with. 680 SLI has more connections. Looks sexier in a case. Fills it up more vs 1 card.

7. In short. I'll say this. Get a 690 only if you plan to buy another one in the future. IMO that's its only selling point. You'll be running quad SLI with only two slots taken. If you only plan to run 1 690 then I see no point in getting one. As 680/670 will work better and keep your case cooler.







or You can buy two 7970 also. Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7970 should theoretically be a lot superior to the Geforce GTX 680 in terms of memory bandwidth [37%]


If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the Radeon HD 7970, but not by far [only 9%]



Hope that helps.

 

[Powka]

Thanks!

I was actually looking at 2 x 4GB 680s (not 2 x 2GB 680) vs. 4GB 690... but I've just enquired my PC shop about when are they planning on getting GTX Titan, as it really does look promising, so I'll see what they say. If it really is as rumored - less power consumption and outperforms 690, then I'll probably go for that one.

 

[Powka]

One quick question off the topic though: what's the best game now or in a month to try out GPU's max performance with ultra settings?

 

[KAIJER]

always crisis 3

Crysis 3 on PC has a confirmed release date on Tuesday 19 February 2013

and for now i will prefer battelfield 3.

 

[babernet_1]

One quick question off the topic though: what's the best game now or in a month to try out GPU's max performance with ultra settings?

Right now Metro 2033 & Far Cry 3 are torturing graphics cards across the world.

 

[blazorthon]

Sleeping Dogs is another good example.