Considering 690 need your help

el-nino · 17 May 2013 at 10:38

Hi guys, I am considering upgrading my 5970, I know jesus how old is that thing.

I am looking at the NVIDIA 690 to get myself right up todate. Most of My rig is just over a year old.

i7 2700k @ 3.5, 16gb DDR3, P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 Intel Z68, 850w PSU.

I currently have a 27" 2560x1440 monitor considering moving to multiple screens in coming months.

I have been looking at bottlenecks to see if the 690 is worth it as I don't plan on upgrading CPU etc just yet.

Will the 690 bottleneck with the i7 2700k?

alex_123_fra · 17 May 2013 at 11:32

el-nino said:
Hi guys, I am considering upgrading my 5970, I know jesus how old is that thing.

I am looking at the NVIDIA 690 to get myself right up todate. Most of My rig is just over a year old.

i7 2700k @ 3.5, 16gb DDR3, P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 Intel Z68, 850w PSU.

I currently have a 27" 2560x1440 monitor considering moving to multiple screens in coming months.

I have been looking at bottlenecks to see if the 690 is worth it as I don't plan on upgrading CPU etc just yet.

Will the 690 bottleneck with the i7 2700k?

In short, no. Especially if overclocked.

Gregster · 17 May 2013 at 11:49

The 690 is a good card and that CPU is more than enough

squarehead94 · 17 May 2013 at 11:54

Id get the 7990 if your wanting a beast card. or crossfire 7970's. Can pick up used 7970s for around 200 each, cheaper than a 690. or twin 680's.

MOOGLEYS · 17 May 2013 at 12:40

690 is a great card just make sure you have good case ventilation and possibly look at swapping fans around. It dumps a 680 worth of heat into your case and will heat things up nicely with poor airflow.

I had no end of hassles with crossfire but have not had any with SLi. They are overpriced but do offer a hassle free experience.

sypher365 · 17 May 2013 at 13:02

I would consider waiting for now the next gen Nvidia & AMD cards are due for release very soon so might be worthing seeing what they offer and price points may push the 690 down a bit if thats what your set on.

OCPete · 17 May 2013 at 13:10

sypher365 said:
I would consider waiting for now the next gen Nvidia & AMD cards are due for release very soon so might be worthing seeing what they offer and price points may push the 690 down a bit if thats what your set on.

+1

NV 7 series is out next week. At least 6 series prices will drop a bit, even if the 7 series don't appeal.

el-nino · 17 May 2013 at 14:08

Thanks guys. Yeah I have a Coolermaster Haf 912 case with three 20CM fans and two 12cm fans. Nothing gets too hot at the moment. I read next gen cards are not being released till end of the year possibly later due to the new consoles.

I like my dual chip cards had the 4970x2 and the 5970 had no problems. I have considered the 7990 but for some reasons I do not trust this card. Read a few issues linked to build quality and also around the issues they had cooling it kind of put me off.

May just be reading the wrong stuff mind.

At least I know that my current setup is fine. Thanks again guys

Gregster · 17 May 2013 at 14:08

squarehead94 said:
Id get the 7990 if your wanting a beast card. or crossfire 7970's. Can pick up used 7970s for around 200 each, cheaper than a 690. or twin 680's.

So you would get the 7990 over the 690? For what reasons would you do this? I don't wish to appear rude but you did ask is it worth swapping a 480 for a 7870 yesterday and today you have enough knowledge to advise against a 690 that has hardware frame metering and go with a 7990 that is frankly broken at present with poor drivers.

Freddie1980 · 17 May 2013 at 14:15

The 2nd hand value of a 690 is going to drop like a stone in the coming months, I would give it a miss if I were you and go two GTX670's/HD7950's.

Gregster · 17 May 2013 at 14:32

Freddie1980 said:
The 2nd hand value of a 690 is going to drop like a stone in the coming months, I would give it a miss if I were you and go two GTX670's/HD7950's.

Unless the 780/770 comes in at ~£420/£320, I can't see the 690 dropping in price till the 790 is being released (no idea when).

It would still pay to hold off till the 7 series pricing is shown but I can't see the 690 dropping massively in the next few months.

TheRealDeal · 17 May 2013 at 14:52

If going to a multi monitor setup i would be going amd as all nvidia cards bar the titan suffer from having a 256bit bus.

This review from hardocp who are pretty nvidia biased shows it all. They have been harping on for ages about how bad crossfire was for years. Even there own followers have been having a go over there about there nvidia bias. Amd must have improved as this is what they had to say.

"In all cases, Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition CrossFire from two separate video cards was still the fastest, and best gameplay experience, for a lesser price."

For them to be saying 7970cfx is the best gameplay experience it must have been pretty smooth.

This was testing 7990,7970cfx,gtx680sli and titan.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/05/05/radeon_hd_7990_versus_geforce_gtx_titan_review/8

Gregster · 17 May 2013 at 15:00

LtMatt and Tommybhoy will be in telling you that you can't use [H] as they are biased.

Kaapstad · 17 May 2013 at 15:00

I would choose a GTX 690 over any card now available (or soon to be released GTX 770/780) for use on a single monitor up to 1600p (I own Titans, GTX 690s, HD 7970s and HD 5970s).

You will see a huge step up in performance going from a HD 5970 to a GTX 690.

I don't think the value of the GTX 690 will drop much in value in the next few months, if NVidia were to release a GTX 790 it would probably use the same chips as the GTX 690 (2 x gk104s aka 2 x GTX 770s).

Yaayuh! · 17 May 2013 at 15:04

Single monitor gaming then the GTX690 would be a great choice. But if you plan to go multi-monitor (especially with high res screens!) then consider the VRAM.

Kaapstad · 17 May 2013 at 15:06

TheRealDeal said:
If going to a multi monitor setup i would be going amd as all nvidia cards bar the titan suffer from having a 256bit bus.

This review from hardocp who are pretty nvidia biased shows it all. They have been harping on for ages about how bad crossfire was for years. Even there own followers have been having a go over there about there nvidia bias. Amd must have improved as this is what they had to say.

"In all cases, Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition CrossFire from two separate video cards was still the fastest, and best gameplay experience, for a lesser price."

For them to be saying 7970cfx is the best gameplay experience it must have been pretty smooth.

This was testing 7990,7970cfx,gtx680sli and titan.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/05/05/radeon_hd_7990_versus_geforce_gtx_titan_review/8

You have forgot to mention the microstutter, frametime problems and the driver problems that can crop up with xfire. These are things that do not trouble the GTX 690.

Kaapstad · 17 May 2013 at 15:06

Rossi~ said:
Single monitor gaming then the GTX690 would be a great choice. But if you plan to go multi-monitor (especially with high res screens!) then consider the VRAM.

+1

TheRealDeal · 17 May 2013 at 15:11

Kaapstad said:
You have forgot to mention the microstutter, frametime problems and the driver problems that can crop up with xfire. These are things that do not trouble the GTX 690.

Did they not say it gave the better game play experience which would contradict your statement. They mention no problems with drivers, frame time problems or microstutter. They played the games and decided which was the better experience. In almost all there other reviews they go on about how cfx is just not as good a game play experience as sli. In this they thought 7970cfx was the best game play experience. If it was stuttering everywhere i am sure they would happily mention it as they have done in almost every sli v cfx review for the past year or 2.

whyscotty · 17 May 2013 at 15:13

Rossi~ said:
Single monitor gaming then the GTX690 would be a great choice. But if you plan to go multi-monitor (especially with high res screens!) then consider the VRAM.

Kaapstad said:
You have forgot to mention the microstutter, frametime problems and the driver problems that can crop up with xfire. These are things that do not trouble the GTX 690.

^^^
These

However, AMD are releasing a new driver that fixes the alledged microstutter

Kaapstad · 17 May 2013 at 15:26

TheRealDeal said:
Did they not say it gave the better game play experience which would contradict your statement. They mention no problems with drivers, frame time problems or microstutter. They played the games and decided which was the better experience. In almost all there other reviews they go on about how cfx is just not as good a game play experience as sli. In this they thought 7970cfx was the best game play experience. If it was stuttering everywhere i am sure they would happily mention it as they have done in almost every sli v cfx review for the past year or 2.

I think in another life you would have been one of those who persecuted Galileo.

Problems with frametimes, microstutter and drivers are very real.