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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 - Looking For The Knockout

By James Lu - 3 May 2012

Test Setup

Test Setup

 

  • As usual, the following are the specs of our trusty graphics card test bed system:
  • Intel Core i7-975 (3.33GHz)
  • Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard
  • 3 x 1GB DDR3-1333 G.Skill memory in triple channel mode
  • Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
  • Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Obviously, we’ll be pitting the GTX 690 against dual GTX 680s in 2-way SLI configuration to test NVIDIA’s claims of similar performance output. Take note that the slightly lower GPU base clock speed of the GTX 690 would mean that you're likely to see the GTX 690 tailing the GTX 680 SLI pair by a hair. We’ll also see how it compares to dual AMD Radeon HD 7970 cards in CrossFire configuration, a single GTX 680 and HD 7970 as well as previous generation dual-GPU cards.

The list of cards tested and driver versions used:

  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 301.33)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 2-way SLI (ForceWare 301.10)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 301.10)
  • AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 2-way CrossFireX (AMD Catalyst 12.2 Preview Version)
  • AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 (AMD Catalyst 12.2 Preview Version)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 3GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 267.71)
  • AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB GDDR5 (AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview)

The list of benchmarks used:

  • Futuremark 3DMark 11
  • Unigine Heaven V2.1
  • Far Cry 2
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  • Crysis Warhead
  • Crysis 2
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • Dirt 3
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
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8.5
  • Performance 9
  • Features 8.5
  • Value 8
The Good
Competitive with GeForce GTX 680 2-way SLI
Overclockable to outgun GTX 680 2-way SLI
Solid build quality
Power efficient
The Bad
High temperature
Cooler vents hot air back to casing
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