690 or Titan?

ShiversDan · 12 Mar 2013 at 13:44

Im going to be purchasing a new graphics card in about a month's time and was wondering which is the better card to get either the 690 or the titan? I am gaming on a single monitor at 1440p.

Suarez7 · 12 Mar 2013 at 13:49

TITAN, purely for the fact you avoid any potential sli scaling problems and it will run most, if not all games maxed at that res.

Drangueos · 12 Mar 2013 at 13:49

Depends on what do you play, but I think 690 would perform better.
Actually I would get 2x680 instead of a 690...
and I think any of them would run any game in max setting with singe monitor

Rusty0611 · 12 Mar 2013 at 13:54

Difficult one. Potentially at 1440p with a 690 you could end up VRAM limited in the future. Normally the GPU grunt limit kicks in before anything else (i.e. low FPS) but you could run into a situation where you're getting decent FPS but then freezes to single digits due to the VRAM limit.

1440p is in the middle so it's difficult to judge.

ShiversDan · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:23

Yeah i am worried about the 2gb vram but in every bench i see the 690 outperforms the titan at 1440p, what current games use over 2gb vram? also 690 seems to be about £100 less.

Oblivion · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:40

Crossfire 7970/7950s and overclock. This beats a Titan and a 690.

nVidia lost this round to AMD already remember after the legendary 'Never settle' driver updates...

Oblivion · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:40

Delete -double post

weehamish · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:43

I have to agree if you really wanna stay Nvidia its gonna cost you, and the Titan is what id get as mentioned the 2GB will hold u back.

7950x2 = £400 you just cant beat it and youll get loads games too for buying 2.

Ofc people will say scaling issues blabla but its getting better and its only certain games and them games will run fine on 1 card.

You will save over £600 if you sell the games, you can then sell the 2 7950s later on and buy a 8970 or 2 and still not be out of pocket compare to buying a Titan.

Titan is just way overpriced.

Nelly · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:43

Oblivion said:
Crossfire 7970/7950s and overclock. This beats a Titan and a 690.

nVidia lost this round to AMD already remember after the legendary 'Never settle' driver updates...

Does your crossfire work flawlessly in every game you play?

Oblivion · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:47

Nelly said:
Does your crossfire work flawlessly in every game you play?

Its pretty damn good to be honest... most people who go on about stability issues with crossfire actually don't have crossfire.

MOOGLEYS · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:48

I have been testing both. 690 gives more FPS, Titan gives a better experience.

I did not encounter any V-ram limitations using a 690 @ 1440p on any of the games I tried.

If you have the money the Titan will give a better all round experience. The 690 when SLi works perfect is faster but it's all a bit lost on a 60hz 1440p screen in my opinion.

If you have the money get a Titan. Titan will give you the same performance on a 1440p screen as a 680 on a 1080p screen.

layte · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:49

I went from xfire 7950's to a Titan and I am very happy with the improved minimums and lack of microstutter (which I am using here as a catch all for all the weird out of sync frame rate issues xfire sit-ups suffer from). That the card is much, much quieter and exhausts the not terribly substantial amount of heat directly out of the case makes it to me a better solution than the 7950's ever were.

Also, op wanted to know which to choose between the two Nvidia offerings....

Oblivion · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:55

layte said:
I went from xfire 7950's to a Titan and I am very happy with the improved minimums and lack of microstutter. That the card is much, much quieter and exhausts the not terribly substantial amount of heat directly out of the case makes it to me a better solution than the 7950's ever were.

Also, op wanted to know which to choose between the two Nvidia offerings....

Yeah but a lot of people wanting nVidia cards actually don't bother to do their research and listen to the "marketing" instead.

Agreed two cards in one case is very warm. Hence why I went water and 1,200+ MHz on the cores and have never looked back.

If the OP wants hassle free gaming (because moving a slider and performing some driver updates every now and then is too much) then go for a Titan or 690, but know they are a lot of money in comparison to other, faster options (and not talking about water cooled options here).

Ether way, its a great time to be a PC gamer with all this top notch hardware battling it out against each other.

That is all.

Rilot · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:58

Oblivion said:
Ether way, its a great time to be a PC gamer with all this top notch hardware battling it out against each other.

^^ this
It's only good for the consumer to have AMD and nVidia battling it out. Faster product cycles and more grunt for less money. Bring it on.

MOOGLEYS · 12 Mar 2013 at 14:58

7970 even when crossfired have much lower minimum fps than a Titan. This would be more noticeable on a 60hz screen. The Titan is also not reliant on Crossfire or SLi profiles. Tbh for a single 1440p screen the Titan is the perfect card but it's horridly expensive for what it is.

Rusty0611 · 12 Mar 2013 at 15:03

weehamish said:
I have to agree if you really wanna stay Nvidia its gonna cost you, and the Titan is what id get as mentioned the 2GB will hold u back

Not WILL hold you back, MAY hold you back in the future. Nothing stopping anybody dropping settings anyway just like they do with a GPU grunt limit.

humbug · 12 Mar 2013 at 15:05

There is definitely a very valid argument to be made for 7950's CF @ £400 to £500 vs £900 for the Titan.

For sure 7950 CF is the better option to GTX 680 SLI.

Having said that Titan performs close enough as well as 7950 CF / GTX 680 SLI without the potential dual GPU pitfalls that you get in both SLI and CF.

So Titan really is not a bad idea if you can afford such things. but to me £900 is very very steep for what your getting when you consider the alternative is less than half that.

Phixsator · 12 Mar 2013 at 15:07

I would have said Titan if it were between that or the 690 its worth the 100 quid more. But compared to AMD offerings I would say neither of those as you get the same performance for half the money.

Those few games that doesn't properly support dual gpus usually run just fine on 1 single 7900 series or 670-680 gtx.

But don't get me wrong, the Titan is impressive. If I didn't have to think about money I would most likely buy one myself.

Kaapstad · 12 Mar 2013 at 15:12

I would go for the GTX 690 for 1440p, the Titans lack of speed will hit you faster than the 2gb of vram on the GTX 690. If you were using ultra high resolutions on 3 monitors then it would be the other way round and the Titan would be better.

I use both the Titans and GTX 690s.

Andy321 · 12 Mar 2013 at 15:18

Phixsator said:
I would have said Titan if it were between that or the 690 its worth the 100 quid more. But compared to AMD offerings I would say neither of those as you get the same performance for half the money.

^^This

If it were my money and it was between the 690 and Titan only, then I would personally choose the Titan every time.

But if throwing the AMD offerings in the equation, i'd have to seriously consider xfire 7950's as the savings to be made could not be ignored in my opinion.