GeForce GTX 690: Overview | Specification (Specs) | Testing | Benchmark | Is It Good For Gaming? / Price “$200″– Very soon after the release of a powerful solution in the face of the GTX 680, NVIDIA is launching a new real “monster” on the market. The GeForce GTX 690 video card is practically a double GTX 680. The new dual-processor video accelerator is another fashion and, accordingly, a very expensive product in this line.
The video card uses two Kepler architecture GPUs codenamed GK104. The result is an ultra-extreme system for special connoisseurs. But one thing is clear – such power is not really required for gaming applications. And yet, at the time of its release, this model is the fastest on the market. According to NVIDIA, it is almost one and a half times faster than its two-chip predecessor GeForce GTX 590.
In the modern world, more and more diligently focuses on energy efficiency. Compared to the already mentioned GTX 590, this figure is almost doubled. Compared to two GTX 680s, the GTX 690 consumes much less power – 300W, while each 680 consumes 195W (GTX 590 – 365W). Also, in terms of cost, the GeForce GTX 690 is positioned as the equivalent of two 680s. The MSRP is $999 and the GTX 680 is $499.
Despite its enormous power, the 690 is 11 inches (28 cm) long. For comparison, the GTX 680 is 25.5 cm. The cooling system was well thought out and optimized. As a result, the GeForce GTX 690 is only 47 decibels (dBA), while the two 680s are 51 dBA in SLI mode.
GeForce GTX 690: Specification (Specs)
| Kernel name | GK104 x 2 |
| Technological process, microns | 0.028 |
| Number of transistors | 7080 mln |
| Number of universal processors | 2×1536 |
| power usage | 300 watts |
| Core frequency | 915 MHz |
| Memory type | GDDR5 |
| Memory | 2×2 GB |
| Memory bus width | 512 pages |
| GDDR5 Memory Bandwidth | 2 × 192.3 GB / s |
| PCI Express bus | 3.0 |
Video review and testing of ASUS GTX 690
GeForce GTX 690 4GB is the fastest graphics card in Nvidia’s offer. Thanks to the use of two GK104 cores built on the basis of the Kepler architecture, it is a solution of the highest efficiency class. We check whether it is as spectacular in games and testing programs as its specification suggests. The new Nvidia card costs as much as PLN 4999, so hardly anyone will be able to afford it.
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: TechPowerup
GeForce GTX 690 4GB is a construction based on the Kepler architecture and it was made in a 28 nanometer technological process. It has 3,072 shading units, 64 ROP units, and 256 texture units. The core clock is 915MHz in standard mode, but it can automatically crank up to 1019MHz thanks to the Boost mode. 4GB of GDDR5 RAM runs on a 256-bit bus with a 1502MHz clock (6008 MT / s). In short, these are two GeForce GTX 680s with lower than usual clock speeds. If you want to learn more about the construction of the next-generation GeForce cards, check out the article devoted to this topic. You can find it here or in the June issue of PC World from 2012. There are described all the new technologies used in the new Nvidia graphics cards .
The GeForce GTX 690 of course allows you to connect two such cards in SLI mode and as a result use the power of four Kepler cores.
The main competitors of the card tested today are the Radeon HD 6990 and the upcoming RadeonH7990. The premiere of the last card should take place in June.
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: Cooling
You can see at first glance that the GeForce GTX 690 is an exclusive product. Its housing is made of plastic, aluminum and glass and it looks simply amazing. It is massive and strong. Thanks to the lenses, we can look inside and see the heat sinks. It is a product so refined that most manufacturers do not intend to change it. This means that almost all GeForce GTX 690s available on the market will be identical to each other.
The cooling itself consists of two aluminum heat sinks, one for each core. Between them is a fan that disperses the hot air that can escape through the herring and the end of the card.
GeForce GTX 690 4GB is a long card. It measures 28 cm and certainly does not fit into every housing. Before we buy this monster, it is worth checking if the distance from the tracks to the basket with disks is greater than the length of the accelerator.
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: Video outputs
GeForce GTX 690 4GB is equipped with three DVI outputs and one mini Display Port. Other types of monitors can be connected to it using DVI – D-Sub and DVI-HDMI adapters, which should be included with the card by default.
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: Power Supply
The graphics accelerator is powered by two 8-pin PCI-E slots. We expected this, as such an efficient card must also use up a lot of energy
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: Performance Gaming
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: Benchmark
GeForce GTX 690 4GB: Benchmark Tessellation
GeForce GTX 690 4GB Benchmark: Games – 1920×1080 resolution
Games – resolution 2560×1600
In almost all tests, the GeForce GTX 690 turned out to be the best card in the field. The GeForce GTX 680 is better than a single GeForce GTX 680 by an average of 63%, and a maximum of 81%, which can be considered a very good result. Due to the lower clocks than in the GeForce GTX 680, the dual-processor card will be slower than the two designs working in SLI mode by about 4%. This is the price to pay for placing two such powerful chips in one housing. The GeForce GTX 690 turns out to be much better than all Radeons HD 7970, which was to be expected.
The GeForce GTX 690 did not cause any problems during operation, and we did not notice the phenomenon of microstuttering, which is a problem for configurations equipped with several graphics cards.
Working temperature, volume, power consumption
The maximum operating temperature of the GeForce GTX690 is 83 degrees Celsius. We obtained this result after an hour of heating the accelerator in the FurMark program . It can be considered high, but in the case of a dual-processor card it is better than the standard one. We are impressed!
GeForce GTX 690 is very quiet for a dual-core card. It is inaudible at rest, but this changes when the card is charged. Fortunately, the noise generated by it is not huge anyway.
In terms of power consumption, the GeForce GTX 690 is doing quite well. The power consumption of the entire test platform was 93W when idle and 380W when playing The Witcher 2. These values are the most acceptable. To power the GeForce GTX 690, we recommend a proprietary power supply with a power of 800W or higher.
Tweak
The maximum clocks that we could get was 1241MHz for the core in Boost mode and 1625MHz (6500MT / s) for the memory. Unfortunately, despite the setting of the maximum voltage and the level of energy consumption, the card did not want to significantly accelerate and the efficiency gain oscillated within the measurement error. Lowering the clocks did not help, the performance was very similar all the time. Apparently, the GeForce GTX690 consumes almost all the energy supplied to it already in the standard settings and the performance ceiling cannot be raised by this.
Conclusions
GeForce GTX 690 is the undisputed king of performance, which will surely meet any game, even at a resolution of 2560×1600 or using several monitors. In addition, it is a component that is characterized by power consumption adequate to the performance and excellent cooling. Thanks to it, the card works quietly and maintains relatively low temperatures for a dual-core design. It is also important that the accelerator we are testing worked stably and did not cause any problems in games, which is not so obvious in the case of multi-processor cards. In fact, the GeForce GTX 690 has only two disadvantages. The first one is the dimensions, thanks to which the structure will not fit into many housings. However, large dimensions are standard among the most efficient graphics cards. The second disadvantage is the horrendously high price, which is PLN 4999.
In short, it’s time to say goodbye to the old generation of graphics cards and get used to Nvidia’s dominance for the next few months. GeForce GTX 690 is a great, thoughtful and complete design. I wish there were more products on the market like this. Preferably at a slightly lower price.
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