NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTTotal War: Shogun 2
Total War: Shogun 2 is the latest installment of the long-running Total War series of turn based strategy games, and alongside Civilization V is notable for just how many units it can put on a screen at once. As it also turns out, it’s the single most punishing game in our benchmark suite (on higher end hardware at least).
Unfortunately for NVIDIA they’re in a bit of a bind with Shogun 2. The March 22nd patch effectively broke Kepler performance under certain situations. GTX 680 performance has been nearly halved due to that patch; what was 33fps at 2560 is now 18fps. As near as we can tell this is a problem with the game – Shogun 2 wouldn’t know what the GTX 680 is and suddenly doesn’t know what to do with it – but the end result is that GTX 680/690 users are in trouble here.
As it stands 2560 is utterly broken – perhaps due to MSAA or shadowing – but our results at 5760 and 1920, which use the Very High profile, have not dropped due to the patch and as aresult we have at least some confidence in them. To that end while NVIDIA’s multi-GPU scaling is quite good at 5760 at 95%, not only does AMD have a lead over the GTX 680 with a single 7970, but Crossfire scaling is nearly perfect. Furthermore the GTX 690 once more has trouble boosting here, leading to a 7% deficit compared to the GTX 680 SLI. As a result the GTX 690 only reaches 85% of the performance of the 7970CF here. Things look better at 1920, but besides being a rather low resolution for the GTX 690 we’re also CPU limited by that point.
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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.