NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTGeForce Experience & The Test
Before jumping into our test results, there’s one last thing we wanted to touch upon quickly. Along with announcing the GTX 690 at the NVIDIA Gaming Festival 2012, NVIDIA also used the occasion to announce a new software utility called GeForce Experience.
For some time now NVIDIA has offered a feature they call Optimal Playable Settings through GeForce.com, which are a series of game setting configurations that NVIDIA has tested and is recommending for various GeForce video cards. It’s a genuinely useful service, but it’s also not well known and only covers desktop GPUs.
With GeForce Experience NVIDIA is going to be taking that concept one step further and offering an application that interfaces with both the game and the successor to NVIDIA’s OPS service. The key difference being that rather than having the settings on a website and requiring the user to punch in those settings by hand, GeForce Experience can fetch those settings from NVIDIA and make the settings changes on its own. This would make the process much more accessible, as not only do users not need to know anything about how to access their settings or what they do, but the moment NVIDIA includes this with their drivers it will be far more widespread than OPS ever was.
The other change is that NVIDIA is going to be moving away from manual testing in favor of automated testing. OPS are generated by hand, whereas GeForce Experience settings are going to be based on automated testing, allowing NVIDIA to cover a wider range of games and video cards, most importantly by including mobile video cards. NVIDIA already has GPU farms for driver regression testing, so this is a logical extension of that concept to use those farms to generate and test game settings.
GeForce Experience will be launching in beta form on June 6th.
The Test
The press drivers for the GTX 690 are 301.33, though it sounds like NVIDIA will actually launch with a slightly newer version today. As the GTX 690 is launching so soon after the GTX 680 these drivers are virtually identical to the GTX 680 launch drivers. Meanwhile for the GeForce 500 series we’re using 301.24, and for the AMD Radeon cards Catalyst 12.4
We’d also like to give a shout-out to Asus, who sent us one of their wonderful PA246Q 24” P-IPS monitors to allow us to complete our monitor set for multi-monitor testing. From here on we’ll be able to offer multi-monitor results for our high-end cards, and a number of cards have already had that data added in Bench.
Next, based on an informal poll on our forums we’re going to be continuing our existing SLI/CF testing methodology. All of our test results will be with both cards directly next to each other as opposed to spaced apart in order to test the worst case scenario. Users with such a configuration are a minority based on our data, but there are still enough of them that we believe it should be covered.
Finally, we’d like to note that since we don’t have a matching pair of 7970 reference cards, we’re using our one reference card along with XFX’s R7970 BEDD. For gaming performance, power consumption, and temperatures this doesn’t have a material impact, but it means we don’t have meaningful noise performance for the 7970.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | EVGA X79 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.2.3.1022 |
| Power Supply: | Antec True Power Quattro 1200 |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung 470 (256GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1867 4 x 4GB (8-10-9-26) |
| Case: | Thermaltake Spedo Advance |
| Monitor: |
Samsung 305T Asus PA246Q |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 6990 AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 5970 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 301.24 NVIDIA ForceWare 301.33 AMD Catalyst 12.4 |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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james.jwb - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
You are correct, I don't own one... I own three in triple screen. Dell U2412m's.I really am at a loss as to what you are on about. It is well known that 16:10 is preferred amongst enthusiasts and professionals for a few reasons. If you want 16:9, fine, go for it, but don't act like it's weird that AT are benching with 16:10 just because you went with cheap ass 16:9 screens.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
Yes of course you are at a loss, you don't understand a word so why reply ?You're all at a loss.
ROFL
yelnatsch517 - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
Are you being sarcastic or an idiot?From my experience 1900x1200 24" monitors are the MAJORITY. My work has roughly 50 24" monitors all in that resolution. My HP ZR24W is 1900x1200 as well. The only 24" monitor that I have even seen is the TN panel that came with an HP computer.
If you are talking about computer monitors, 1900x1200 is the dominant resolution. If you are talking about TVs, then obviously 1080p is the norm.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
There are 242 - count them, well over 200, nearly 250 1920X1080 monitors at the egg._
In your great experience, there are 16 that fit your 1920X1200 dreampipe FUD scenario at the egg, with most of them, well over half, over $400 each, while the 242 common monitors you all buy as you pinch every penny and whine about $10 difference in videocard prices are well under $200 each a lot of the time.
So now suddenly, you all spend way over $300 to plus $400 for 11% more pixels... ROFL HAHAHHAHHA instead of $150 or $200...
I guess that's why this place is so biased, the little bloggers are just as whacked when it comes to being honest.
InsaneScientist - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
Good grief... resorting to personal attacks isn't exactly a good way to get people to listen to you.I'm not going to argue that 1080p isn't more common (from what I've read, no one is), because it is more common, you are quite correct there, however I must point out that your logic to arrive at that conclusion is faulty:
You're contending that 1080p is more common (it is) because there are more models available on Newegg, but just knowing how many models are available doesn't tell us how many units those move.
If, for example, each of those 22 models of 1920x1200 monitors moves 10 times as much stock as each of the 1920x1080, nearly as many of the 1920x1200 will have been sold as the 1920x1080 ones.
Now, I don't think that's likely, and I do agree with you that 1080p is more common nowadays (see next point), but your argument is invalid, even though you have come to the correct conclusion.
Consider this: there are currently two models of iPhone available, compared to dozens of Android phones. By the same logic as you're using, I could say that the iPhone is incredibly rare - I'd get laughed out of town if I tried to make that argument.
The second point is that 1920x1200 hasn't been nearly as rare in the past as it is today. When I bought my previous monitor and my laptop (both 1920x1200), 1080p monitors were almost unheard of. Since monitors tend to last a while, it's not at all unreasonable for a disproportionate amount of people to be using them compared to their current sales.
Thirdly, there is a point of diminishing returns. Notice the complete lack of any benchmarks at or below 1680x1050? These cards are so fast that comparisons at those resolutions are pointless - they're all fast enough for anything you could do to them at that screen res - even Crysis. 1920x1080 almost falls into that category, heck, even 1920x1200 almost falls into that category. Benchmarks are only about who wins if there is some advantage to winning. Below 2560x1600, which card you're using is almost completely irrelevant, so why does it even matter whether they used 1920x1080 or 1920x1200?
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Blah blah blah blah and I'm still 100% correct and you are not at all.Decembermouse - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
You're quite a character.anirudhs - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
I use 2 at work - HP ZR24W.piroroadkill - Sunday, May 6, 2012 - link
Hm, odd.Not only do I have 1920x1200 monitor on my desktop, I have TWO laptops with 1920x1200 screens. Using one right now.
Yes, they're rarer than 1080p screens, but this is a site for enthusiasts, therefore, it is more likely.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
The truth is a bit more simple than that. 5760x1200 is because our choice in monitors for multi-monitor testing was based on my personal monitor, which is another PA246Q. NVIDIA's limited display flexibility (same res + same sync) meant that it was easiest to just pair the PA246Q with some more PA246Qs, Consequently it's easier to just test these monitors at their native resolution when we're using NVIDIA cards.