NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda's epic sword & magic game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is our RPG of choice for benchmarking. It's altogether a good CPU benchmark thanks to its complex scripting and AI, but it also can end up pushing a large number of fairly complex models and effects at once, especially with the addition of the high resolution texture pack.
Unfortunately for AMD, Crossfire isn’t just broken with Batman, as it’s also broken here. If they could scale they’d be CPU limited like the GTX 600 series, but instead we’re getting negative performance. Furthermore at 2560 that’s a very choppy 58.8fps for the 7970CF.
In any case, even though we’re CPU limited it’s interesting to see that the GTX 690 still can’t quite catch the GTX 680 SLI. At 2560 it trails by 2%, which is on the edge of experimental variability.
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Death666Angel - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Hey guys!Thanks for the article, I enjoyed the read (although I am not in the market for dual GPU configurations after trying the HD3870X2 and 2*8800GTS, happy with one 7970 OC'ed to the max.). But you seem to be missing the numbers for noise from the HD7970 in a CF configuration. I hope you can post them! :D
-DA
Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
This was mentioned on the Test page, but we don't have a matching pair of 7970 cards; what we have is a reference card and an XFX 7970 BEDD. Power and temperature are the same regardless, but it would be improper to list noise because of the completely different acoustic properties of the BEDD.Mygaffer - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
How does that stack up, especially price/performance? Why didn't your conclusion address that question at all? Totally limits the usefulness of the review in my opinion.rs2 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
As per the data in your article, the GTX690 is clocked 10% below the GTX680, and has a 5% lower boost clock. This may be a small compromise, but it is a compromise nonetheless.More accuracy and less hyperbole, please.
pixelstuff - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Seems to me they should be saving money in the construction when compared to two 680 in SLI. Half the fans, half the connectors, have the circuit boards. They should have at least cut $50 off the suggested retail price.Also when will be see 3 of these running in SLI form?
Holler - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
you won't only one SLI connector.
not that impressed, i'll be holding on to my overclocked 1.5 GB TRI-SLI GTX 480 hydro coppers for the forseeable future, this card should atleast double the RAM it has now...
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
Half the magnesium, half the aluminum, half the PLX chips, half the R&D, half the vapor chambers, half the chip binning, half the power circuits, half the copper pcb's.... oh no wait, all those are added expenses, not reductions...+
I guess they should be charging $200 over the 2x$499 dollar usual price.
See how actually using the facts, instead of sourpuss emotion delivers a different picture ?
will54 - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
These cards are sold out on Newegg for $1200 per. talk about taking advantage on a 20% markup over the msrp,hopefully AMD knocks the prices way down when they bring out there 7990, $800 sounds about right.faster - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
Now I need a new keyboard because I was drooling into mine as I read this review. I have a GTX 680, but I don;t like to run SLI setups - I had a bad experience with my dual 560ti's. This looks like a truly awesome card that would hold its value for resale later. Nevertheless, there is no way I'm spending a grand on a video card.Origin32 - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
I predict that the 790 will, finally, be able to run Crysis. Next year an era will end. Enjoy it while it lasts, folks.