NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTDiRT 3
For racing games our racer of choice continues to be DiRT, which is now in its 3rd iteration. Codemasters uses the same EGO engine between its DiRT, F1, and GRID series, so the performance of EGO has been relevant for a number of racing games over the years.
Interestingly enough it looks like the GTX 690 has met its match on of all things DiRT 3. At 5760 the GTX 690 finally falls behind the GTX 680 SLI to a noticeable degree, trailing NVIDIA’s dual video card setup by 8%. We’re not entirely sure what’s going on that keeps the GTX 690 from boosting so much here, but whatever it is takes its toll at these high resolutions. Meanwhile at 2560 things look much better for the GTX 690 with it once again trailing the GTX 680 SLI by only 3%.
Meanwhile compared to AMD’s 7970CF, NVIDIA still has some trouble pulling away. At 5760 the GTX 690 and 7970CF are virtually tied; it takes a drop to 2560 for the GTX 690 to open up and take any kind of real lead.
Our minimum framerates in DiRT 3 reflect our averages, which in turn reflects the fact that DiRT 3 has rather consistent performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
200 Comments
View All Comments
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Keep laughing, this card cannot solid v-sync 60 at that "tiny panel" with only 4xaa in the amd fans revived favorite game crysis.Can't do it at 1920X guy.
I guess you guys all like turning down your tiny cheap cards settings all the time, even with your cheapo panels?
I mean this one can't even keep up at 1920X, gotta turn down the in game settings, keep the CP tweaked and eased off, etc.
What's wrong with you guys ?
What don't you get ?
nathanddrews - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Currently the only native 120Hz displays (true 120Hz input, not 60Hz frame doubling) are 1920x1080. If you want VSYNC @ 120Hz, then you need to be able to hit at least 120fps @ 1080p. Even the GTX690 fails to do that at maximum quality settings on some games...CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
It can't do 60 v-sync at 1920 in crysis, and that's only on 4xaa.These people don't own a single high end card, that's for sure, or something is wrong with their brains.
nathanddrews - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
You must be talking about minimum fps, because on Page 5 the GTX690 is clearly averaging 85fps @1080p.Tom's Hardware (love 'em or hate 'em) has benchmarks with AA enabled and disabled. Maximum quality with AA disabled seems to be the best way to get 120fps in nearly every game @ 1080p with this card.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
You must be ignoring v-sync and stutter with frames that drop below 60, and forget 120 frames a sec.Just turn down the eye candy... on the 3 year old console ports, that are "holding us back"... at 1920X resolutions.
Those are the facts, combined with the moaning about ported console games.
Ignore those facts and you can rant and wide eye spew like others - now not only is there enough money for $500 card(s)/$1000dual, there's extra money for high end monitors when the current 1920X pukes out even the 690 and CF 7970 - on the old console port games.
Whatever, everyone can continue to bloviate that these cards destroy 1920X, until they look at the held back settings benches and actually engage their brains for once.
hechacker1 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Well not if you want to do consistent 120FPS gaming. Then you need all the horsepower you can get.Hell my 6970 struggles to maintain 120FPS, and thus makes the game choppy, even though it's only dipping to 80fps or so.
So now that I have a 120FPS monitor, it's incredibly easy to see stutters in game performance.
Time for an upgrade (1080p btw).
Sabresiberian - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Actually, they use the 5760x1200 because most of us Anandtech readers prefer the 1920x1200 monitors, not because they are trying to play favorites.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Those monitors are very rare. Of course none of you have even one.Traciatim - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
My monitor runs 1920x1200, and I specifically went out of my way to get 16:10 instead of 16:9. You fail.CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
Yes you went out of your way, why did you have to they are so common, I'm sure you did.In any case, since they are so rare the bias is still present here as shown.