NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4 GB

[HammerON]

Yes it's valued as two GTX 680s, and is probably more worth it than two 680s. It still doesn't remove the shock factor.

Agree

 

[EarthDog]

Its valued as that, yup. However, in previous generations of cards, like 590, 6990, etc, the pricing didnt represent performance. Those cards were usually slightly slower than its SLI/Crossfire counterparts but cost maybe 1.5x the card (IIRC), while this one is the same or a hair faster.

You didnt see GTX 295's, 590's, 6990's at twice the price though.

 

[douglatins]

Its valued as that, yup. However, in previous generations of cards, like 590, 6990, etc, the pricing didnt represent performance. Those cards were usually slightly slower than its SLI/Crossfire counterparts but cost maybe 1.5x the card (IIRC), while this one is the same or a hair faster.

You didnt see GTX 295's, 590's, 5970's, 6990's at twice the price though.

Fixed

+1. And 999 is like other people said too shocking to accept.
Make it 1.5x the price of a 680 and 90% the performance of a SLI setup, like always.

Would be funny if Asus decided to make a ARES 3. true TRUE 680 SLI. 1800USD.

And a 690 hidro copper, yours for only 1300USD.

Also my opinion is that 1000usd on a single card is not the best investment, dual gpu super top cards lose their value faster and are harder to sell.

 

[15th Warlock]

4870X2

This card is Epic unlike the 590 which was (in W1zzards own words) Epic Fail.

Thanks for refreshing my memory, I forgot about the 4870X2, it truly was an equal to two high end cards

Yes, Nvidia can afford to fix some of the mistakes they made with the 590 thanks to the versatility of GK104, we have to remember that this GPU was really meant to be the GTX670, but due to its high performance, it was marketed as a high end part, now Nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank

Can you imagine the profit margins on a 690? it's two 294mm2 dies after all, about the same size as a 9800GT (a card that was found at $300 back in the day), and they can market this card as a premium product, using materials as aluminum, poly carbonate and magnesium for the shroud alone, in my opinion, they took a page from Apple's book.

It'll take AMD to price the 7990 way low to maybe bring the price of the 690 down, and maybe not even that will be enough, as I mentioned, this is a halo product, and a major PR win for Nvidia anyway you slice it, already review sites are comparing this card to an exotic sports car, rare and unattainable by the vast majority of the population, but highly desirable, and Nvidia is pricing it as such.

 

[HammerON]

It may be shocking, but if I want a true dual GTX 680 card and not a dual GTX 670 then the price is worth it in my opinion. I spent over a thousand dollars when I purchased my GTX 580's. There are some people that are going to buy these at the stated price, not many however. But that is okay as I am sure there will be a limited supply anyways.

 

[qubit]

I can't wait for the bottom end GTX 620. The performance difference will be staggering.

Oh hang on, that space is taken up with modern IGPs. Oh well.

 

[douglatins]

Thanks for refreshing my memory, I forgot about the 4870X2, it truly was an equal to two high end cards

Yes, Nvidia can afford to fix some of the mistakes they made with the 590 thanks to the versatility of GK104, we have to remember that this GPU was really meant to be the GTX670, but due to its high performance, it was marketed as a high end part, now Nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank

Can you imagine the profit margins on a 690? it's two 294mm2 dies after all, about the same size as a 9800GT (a card that was found at $300 back in the day), and they can market this card as a premium product, using materials as aluminum, poly carbonate and magnesium for the shroud alone, in my opinion, they took a page from Apple's book.

It'll take AMD to price the 7990 way low to maybe bring the price of the 690 down, and maybe not even that will be enough, as I mentioned, this is a halo product, and a major PR win for Nvidia anyway you slice it, already review sites are comparing this card to an exotic sports car, rare and unattainable by the vast majority of the population, but highly desirable, and Nvidia is pricing it as such.

Great information here, nvidia could price the 680 all the way to 350, since it was designed for that price range, a mid range card, but performance exceeded the high end solution from AMD, so they bumped the price on it.

 

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

Probably the most amazing thing is that this dual-GPU card stole the perf/w crown at 2560x1600 resolution.

 

[piotrekhc]

omg world wide crysis and they just release 1k card bravo bravo lets separate riches from poorer even more clap our hands !

 

[Benetanegia]

Probably the most amazing thing is that this dual-GPU card stole the perf/w crown at 2560x1600 resolution.

Yeah that's what really surprised me the most.

That and achieving same performance as SLI 680 with 100 Mhz lower clocks.

About that, I wonder if the GTX670 is taking so long because of a similar thing happening. I can somehow imagine Nvidia disabling a cluster and lowering clocks by 100 Mhz as they always do with the GTX x70, just to find out that performance is too close to the GTX680 for them to be comfortable. You know GPU Boost bitting them in the back. I figure it would take them some extra time to find the proper GPU Boost settings, so that it is as fast as they want in most situations but that it does not come too close to the GTX680 in others.

 

[Casecutter]

As to price there’s two fully capable GK104, fully sorted and vetted "top shelve" parts there's work binning those. Then, a especially this time, there's a bunch of engineering and tooling cost spread over a significantly minuscule production numbers to recoup. That magnesium shroud is not like making a plastic part, for once can see a notable differance in the construction of pieces they used.

They look a perf/price... We got this $$$ for 6990/590, customer basically took all we made and those weren't near as nice as this. They think let’s press to see where the market will bend, we can always lower it and still make profit.

I don't know volume sold on other Dual Offering of the past, but if they know they sold all they could deliver on those (in an austere economy) they figure maybe we can sell "X"-more volume, with "X"-more profit now. The same thing folks decry AMD for when the 7970 release for $550, but these things have a way of working out.

And agian there's a line forming, while other hope to justify/scrounging $1000 to throw at those marketing folks when they get to market. Those selling don’t see it as high... if there's buyers, just those whining they can't.

 

[N3M3515]

Yeah, but if it's $200-$300 less expensive ...

Then it definetly would be the better card lol

 

[N3M3515]

Thats the problem... when you put 2 GPU's on a single PCB, PCIe spec is max of 300W so it needs to fit in that envelope. Obviously overclocking wouldnt help make it fit under that number soooo.........

Think about something for a moment: amd released 7970 almost 3 months before gtx 680, and amd also has better yields of the chip, as they said they have no trouble with supply.
So, why didn't amd released 7990 before nvidia released gtx 690?
Maybe, just maybe they are up to something, maybe they managed to lower the power consumption of the gpu without lowering the clocks, maybe they will release it at 1000 or 1050 core clock. We just don't know for sure, but the fact is that amd could have released this card months ago, they just didn't, and for a good reason.

That's a lot of maybes, but hey . . . . . . . . . . .maybe

 

[EarthDog]

Maybe... But it already had a 20-25W hurdle to overcome. That said, Nvidia manged to shave off 90W to hit the 300W spec, so who is to say that AMD cant shave off 140W.

 

[OneCool]

I wish I could afford one myself.

With a grand I could build a nice IB gaming rig

 

[mrthanhnguyen]

hi

Why did they release a gtx 690 when gtx 680 is always not in stock? $1200 for gtx 690 gives u equal performance to gtx 680 sli-$1000, less power consumption, and less slot occupied. this gtx690 cost similar as my rig. what the hell is this?

 

[dude12564]

Why did they release a gtx 690 when gtx 680 is always not in stock? $1200 for gtx 690 gives u equal performance to gtx 680 sli-$1000, less power consumption, and less slot occupied. this gtx690 cost similar as my rig. what the hell is this?

Moneymaking?

 

[manofthem]

Another great review W1zz. Love the BF3 bench to show the overclock gains, very practical!

And an awesome card too! That would be an awesome $1k to blow.

 

[Delta6326]

Awesome REVIEW as always

Awesome card with a understandable price. As a company $1000 makes sense, I know most people are hating on the price but it does make sense. the 680 is $500, but you never really find it at that price its around $520-550 here so $999 is good and I think people are for getting that this is made out of magnesium alloy which makes it lighter than other dual GPU cards and its quieter than 2x 680 while saving space and cables. which in my book adds value to a card.

I also do agree that in general GPU's are getting to $$$ for their performance, I personally think that the 680 should cost $400 and the 690 $750-800

 

[D007]

lol people talking about 999.00 and 500.00 what gpu's are you looking at? The prices are horrendous out there.. try more like 1200 and 600..

300-600 is what I feel they should stay at. Sony and Xbox make an entire system for that with a blu ray player.. The blu ray alone at that time was around 600 dollars. They are not being fair with pricing. They are gouging, no mystery to it.. It's upsetting really. People get in trouble for doing things like this. Like how the Ebook scenario got them sued, for fixing prices.. Nvidia and Ati keep this up, they'll be on that wagon soon enough..

 

[HTC]

lol people talking about 999.00 and 500.00 what gpu's are you looking at? The prices are horrendous out there.. try more like 1200 and 600..

300-600 is what I feel they should stay at. Sony and Xbox make an entire system for that with a blu ray player.. The blu ray alone at that time was around 600 dollars. They are not being fair with pricing. They are gouging, no mystery to it.. It's upsetting really. People get in trouble for doing things like this. Like how the Ebook scenario got them sued, for fixing prices.. Nvidia and Ati keep this up, they'll be on that wagon soon enough..

Judging by the fact that the 680 is $640 over here, you're a tad bit off.

 

[Darkrealms]

Thanks for the awsome review (as always) W1zz!

Nvidia did it right this time. Performance, power, even noise. The price is steep but for what this card can do and the build quality of it, I can see the price tag. If you think about the build quality there isn't a 680 out there, that I've seen, that matches it. Granted out of my reach (willing to pay) but it will make some people very happy.

 

[MicroUnC]

Judging by the fact that the 680 is $640 over here, you're a tad bit off.

$710 here!

 

[powow]

honest, it's an almost perfect card.. in 3 digits level, it scores 999.. in dollars too..

it's jussst.. mmm.. if i have that amount of money, i'll spend about 599 bucks to upgrading my present rig.. it can be a much better speaker and soundcard, or more hardisk space,or another video card for SLI, or much much better PSU, etc.. and i'll have much more fun in my gaming room..
the rest 400? buying presents for my girlfriend, hanging around the real world, having so many much fun out there too.. well, fresh air is always good for you..

 

[MicroUnC]

honest, it's an almost perfect card.. in 3 digits level, it scores 999.. in dollars too..

it's jussst.. mmm.. if i have that amount of money, i'll spend about 599 bucks to upgrading my present rig.. it can be a much better speaker and soundcard, or more hardisk space,or another video card for SLI, or much much better PSU, etc.. and i'll have much more fun in my gaming room..
the rest 400? buying presents for my girlfriend, hanging around the real world, having so many much fun out there too.. well, fresh air is always good for you..

Well that is fare enough