NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTOverclocking
With the GTX 590 NVIDIA found themselves with a bit of a PR problem. Hardcore overclockers had managed to send their GTX 590s to a flaming death, which made the GTX 590 look bad and required that NVIDIA lock down all voltage control so that no one else could repeat the feat. The GTX 590 was a solid card at stock, but NVIDIA never designed it for overvolting, and indeed I’m not sure you could even say it was designed for overclocking since it was already running at a 365W TDP.
Since that incident NVIDIA has taken a much harder stance on overvolting, which we first saw with the GTX 680. The reference GTX 680 could not be overvolted, with voltage options limited to whatever voltage the top GPU boost bin used (typically 1.175v). This principle will be continuing with the GTX 690; there will not be any overvolting options.
However this is not to say that the GTX 690 isn’t built for overclocking. The GTX 680 still has some overclocking potential thanks to some purposeful use of design headroom, and the GTX 690 is going to be the same story. In fact it’s much the same story as with AMD’s Radeon HD 5970 and 6990, both of which shipped in configurations that kept power consumption at standard levels while also offering modes that unlocked overclocking potential in exchange for greater power consumption (e.g. AWSUM). As we’ve previously mentioned the GTX 690 is designed to be able to handle up to 375W even though it ships in a 300W configuration, and that 75W is our overclocking headroom.
NVIDIA will be exposing the GTX 690’s overclocking options through a combination of power targets and clock offsets, just as with the GTX 680. This in turn means that the GTX 690 effectively has two overclocking modes:
- Power target overclocking. By just raising the power target (max +35%) you can increase how often the GTX 690 can boost and how frequently it can hit its max boost bin. By adjusting the power target performance will only increase in games/applications that are being held back by NVIDIA’s power limiter, but in return this is easy mode overclocking as all of the GPU boost bins are already qualified for stability. In other words, this is the GTX 690’s higher performance, higher power 375W mode.
- Power target + offset overclocking. By using clock offsets it’s possible to further raise the performance of the GTX 690, and to do so across all games and applications. The lack of overvolting support means that there isn’t a ton of headroom for the offset, but as it stands NVIDIA’s clocks are conservative for power purposes and Kepler is clearly capable of more than 915MHz/1019MHz. This of course will require testing for stability, and it should be noted that because NVIDIA’s GPU boost bins already go so high over the base clock that it won’t take much to be boosting into 1.2GHz+.
NVIDIA’s goal with the GTX 690 was not just to reach GTX 680 SLI performance, but also match the GTX 680’s overclocking capabilities. We’ll get to our full results in our overclocking performance section, but for the time being we’ll leave it at this: we hit 1040MHz base, 1183MHz boost, and 7GHz memory on our GTX 690; even without overvolting it’s a capable overclocker.
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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.