NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTBattlefield 3
Its popularity aside, Battlefield 3 may be the most interesting game in our benchmark suite for a single reason: it’s the first AAA DX10+ game. It’s been 5 years since the launch of the first DX10 GPUs, and 3 whole process node shrinks later we’re finally to the point where games are using DX10’s functionality as a baseline rather than an addition. Not surprisingly BF3 is one of the best looking games in our suite, but as with past Battlefield games that beauty comes with a high performance cost.
Battlefield 3 has been NVIDIA’s crown jewel; a widely played multiplayer game with a clear lead for NVIDIA hardware. And with multi-GPU thrown into the picture that doesn’t change, leading to the GTX 690 once again taking a very clear lead here over the 7970CF at all resolutions. With that said, we see something very interesting at 5760, with NVIDIA’s lead shrinking by quite a bit. What was a 21% lead at 2560 is only a 10% at 5760. So far we haven’t seen any strong evidence of NVIDIA being VRAM limited with only 2GB of VRAM and while this isn’t strong evidence that the situation has changed is does warrant consideration. If anything is going to be VRAM limited after all it’s BF3.
Meanwhile compared to the GTX 680 SLI the GTX 690 is doing okay here. It’s only achieving 93% of the GTX 680 SLI’s performance at 2560, but for some reason pulls ahead at 5760, covering that to 96% of the performance of the dual video card setup.
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paul878 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Nvidia is getting very good at building Vaporware.paul878 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Nvidia is getting very good and making Vaporware.krumme - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Is 6000 pcx. within the first month fx. a paper launch in your view?As selling numbers in that size, does nothing for the economy directly, what do you think is the strategic choices behind putting it on "sale" now?
How do you think marketing at NV thinks about how they can tailor perception from the reviewers on what is perciewed as a paper launch?
Do NV marketing present themselves as one of your kind, having the same background, understanding your dilemmas and problems?
mac2j - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Wonder what the 7990 will look like next month. AMD clearly waited on purpose to see how the 690 was going to perform. They easily could have released a dual 7970 card already or at the very least sent specs to card manufacturers but they haven't.We know they left a lot of headroom on the 7970 - some people have even suggested we'll get a 7980 at some point - wonder if now we'll get 2 x fully clocked 7970s on the same card ... will be interesting to see how they deal with that power consumption at load though.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
With 2x7970 @ STOCK they are already 175 watts over the 690's power draw.Good luck with that "headroom".
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
amd is late to the race, they never showed up this time, and when they do, they will lose, think housefires.Beenthere - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Really? There are some sick people in this world. ;)Nfarce - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
No, unlike OWS protesters, there are some successful people in this world who get off their butts and work hard enough to be able to afford a $1,000 GPU (or in my case 2 GTX 680 $530 GPUs).anactoraaron - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
"Thus even four years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer when it comes to setups using a pair of high-end 28nm GPUs is “you better damn well believe it.”":D
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
No they actually cannot. 1920X, even the cf 7970 or 690 need help with lowered settings, as in many of the games. Can't even keep up with the 1920X monitors resolution refresh rate, set at a low 60.Sorry, more fantasies another for you perhaps. :)