NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast
by Ryan Smith on May 3, 2012 9:00 AM ESTCompute Performance
For our look at compute performance this is going to be a brief look. Our OpenGL AES and DirectCompute Fluid Simulation benchmarks simply don’t scale with multiple GPUs, so we’ll skip though (though the data is still available in Bench).
Our first compute benchmark comes from Civilization V, which uses DirectCompute to decompress textures on the fly. Civ V includes a sub-benchmark that exclusively tests the speed of their texture decompression algorithm by repeatedly decompressing the textures required for one of the game’s leader scenes. Note that this is a DX11 DirectCompute benchmark.
Given the nature of the benchmark, it’s not surprising that we see a performance regression here with some setups. The nature of this benchmark is that it doesn’t split across multiple GPUs well, though that doesn’t stop AMD and NVIDIA from tying. This doesn’t impact real game performance as we’ve seen, but it’s a good reminder of the potential pitfalls of multi-GPU configurations. Though AMD does deserve some credit here for gaining on their single GPU performance, pushing their lead even higher.
Our other compute benchmark is SmallLuxGPU, the GPU ray tracing branch of the open source LuxRender renderer. We’re now using a development build from the version 2.0 branch, and we’ve moved on to a more complex scene that hopefully will provide a greater challenge to our GPUs.
Unlike the Civ V compute benchmark, SLG scales very well with multiple GPUs, nearly doubling in performance. Unfortunately for NVIDIA GK104 shows its colors here as a compute-weak GPU, and even with two of them we’re nowhere close to one 7970, let alone the monster that is two. If you’re looking at doing serious GPGPU compute work, you should be looking at Fermi, Tahiti, or the future Big Kepler.
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InsaneScientist - Sunday, May 6, 2012 - link
Except that nVidia wins in the article and all of the accumulated benches here, even at 1920x1200 (which this card would be a complete waste on...), so what exactly are you complaining about?It's bias if they say that the AMD cards are better when they're not, but in the benchmarks and in the conclusions (here and elsewhere), nVidia is consistently ahead, so any claims of bias are completely groundless...
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Read my first post instead of asking or having already read it attack like you just did and continue to be a jerk who cares, right ?You obviously are all seriously upset about the little facts I gave in my very first post. You're all going bonkers over it, and you all know I'm correct, that's what really bothers all of you.
Continue to be bothered, you cannot help it, that's for sure.
Sabresiberian - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
It's certainly not crazy, I'd certainly run 3 1920x1200 monitors over 3 1920x1080s.;)
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
I guess all of you got very upset that my point was made, you're looking at a biased for amd set of benchmarks. I'm sure most of you are very happy about that, but angered it has been effectively pointed out.Makaveli - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
The only thing were are upset about is your being a tool!And what point? you haven't shown a shread of evidence to back up this bias claim only whats floating around in your head!
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, May 6, 2012 - link
Go look at the link you missed since you cannot read and only attack and call names.james.jwb - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
I always love these guys who behave like this.On the one hand, if they are trolling just for the reaction, it's fascinating. What kind of weird creature lies behind the internet persona? In most cases, we all know it must be a sad figure of a person with all sorts of interesting personality problems.
But on the flip side, if this person actually means and believes what they say is some sort of honest analysis, it's just as fascinating. What kind of thick bastard must then lurk behind the keyboard in question?
It boggles the mind :)
silverblue - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
Reminds me of SiliconDoc. That particular numpty got banned as far as I remember.Galidou - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
I think that these creatures are Nvidia's fanboy, they react always the same way. CeriseCogburn remember me one of them a little while ago, can't remember his name. He was convinced that the 7970 pricing was the worst thing to ever happen to humanity since the birth of Justin Bieber, or at least, it looked alot like that. Sure the price wasn't attractive, but there's some limit you must not cross to stay in the real world.So as weird a creature they can be, I believe they are a result of Nvidia's funding them to spread insanity in forums speaking of video cards. They can't be natural things after all, they just don't make sense. Their closed mind is second to none. Or else, they could only have the possibility to type insanities and a filter to read the replies to stop some information entering their brain.
Parhel - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
Do you really think ATI and nVidia would pay these weird, sad, little trolls to piss off readers every time one of their products is reviewed? It's an embarassment and a distraction. No, I think they would pay someone like that NOT to talk about their products if they could. I'm sure that employees do write comments on product reviews, but guys like this are bad for business. Nobody wants someone like that on their side. If I were nVidia, I'd pay that guy to become an AMD fan!!!