NVIDIA

[shark0007]

What are your thoughts on the GTX 690

[TMRNetShark]

.... that it's better just to get two GTX 680's in SLI which will come to around the same price. (GTX 680's are ~$500 while the GTX 690's are ~$1000).

Oh and I'll stick to my upper mid-range cards ($150-$250).

[nstgc]

What are your thoughts on the GTX 690

Overkill. Instead of buying a super high end card every N years why not by a normal high end card every N/2 years? Its cheaper, and you won't notice a performance drop. I bought doubt you will see to much of a difference between the 680 and the 690.

[edit] The idea being that shortly after you notice a 680 getting slow you would notice the same thing from a 690. However, in the case of the 680, you didn't blow all your money 2 years prior, and can by an 880 (or whatever the number will be), whereas had you purchased a 690 you may not be in a position to purchase a new card.

[revo]

690=FAIL

[madara90]

.... that it's better just to get two GTX 680's in SLI which will come to around the same price. (GTX 680's are ~$500 while the GTX 690's are ~$1000).

Oh and I'll stick to my upper mid-range cards ($150-$250).

This. I would stick to getting the 2gb for SLI, you could even go for the radeon hd 6950 for around $300 each and go crossfire with them, would give you 4gb for $600 compared to the $1000 mark. I also have the 6950 and they are quite good, dont know how they compare to nvidia though 

[Tatsujin]

If you have the money, go for the 690. If you don't care and you just want gaming, get the 680. Avoid avoid SLI all-together. In today's modern technology ... you want to preserve your computer's life. I'm learning now and I know for the fact that my next computer build will not be towards SLI but towards one beasty card. Your CPU, SSD (not HDD or those half-assed hybird drives) RAM, motherboard's specs and that single beasty card will be the key feature to give you what you're looking for. Also, you save on power, less heat in your computer, longer life-span and less pressure/stress on the motherboard. This is my conclusion.

690 is not only better than the 680, less noise, heat and power consumption and should last longer than the 680 itself (looking at the default design by nVidia). It does cost a lot thou'.

[TMRNetShark]

If you have the money, go for the 690. If you don't care and you just want gaming, get the 680. Avoid avoid SLI all-together. In today's modern technology ... you want to preserve your computer's life. I'm learning now and I know for the fact that my next computer build will not be towards SLI but towards one beasty card. Your CPU, SSD (not HDD or those half-assed hybird drives) RAM, motherboard's specs and that single beasty card will be the key feature to give you what you're looking for. Also, you save on power, less heat in your computer, longer life-span and less pressure/stress on the motherboard. This is my conclusion.

690 is not only better than the 680, less noise, heat and power consumption and should last longer than the 680 itself (looking at the default design by nVidia). It does cost a lot thou'.

So you honestly think that a $1000 card is worth the 200% increase in price for the 10% more power with up to 15% less heat/power consumption? Either way, that card better last for 2 year minimum if I was to spend $1000 on it.

[nstgc]

In my opinion a $1000 card should last 4 years. I'm looking to get 3 years out of my 570.

[TMRNetShark]

In my opinion a $1000 card should last 4 years. I'm looking to get 3 years out of my 570.

Psh, with the state of the PC gaming industry... maybe longer. We haven't had a significant leap in graphics until BF3. Even then, it wasn't that much of a significant leap from Crysis. I would say that the biggest leap by far would be from HL2 to Crysis... but ever since then... our graphics cards aren't getting us anywhere near what we thought. I'm hoping Unreal 4 can deliver on it's Good Samaritan demo.

[buchno]

If you have the money, go for the 690. If you don't care and you just want gaming, get the 680. Avoid avoid SLI all-together. In today's modern technology ... you want to preserve your computer's life. I'm learning now and I know for the fact that my next computer build will not be towards SLI but towards one beasty card. Your CPU, SSD (not HDD or those half-assed hybird drives) RAM, motherboard's specs and that single beasty card will be the key feature to give you what you're looking for. Also, you save on power, less heat in your computer, longer life-span and less pressure/stress on the motherboard. This is my conclusion.
690 is not only better than the 680, less noise, heat and power consumption and should last longer than the 680 itself (looking at the default design by nVidia). It does cost a lot thou'.

So you honestly think that a $1000 card is worth the 200% increase in price for the 10% more power with up to 15% less heat/power consumption? Either way, that card better last for 2 year minimum if I was to spend $1000 on it.

No...? It's about 80% more power than that of the 680.

[TMRNetShark]

If you have the money, go for the 690. If you don't care and you just want gaming, get the 680. Avoid avoid SLI all-together. In today's modern technology ... you want to preserve your computer's life. I'm learning now and I know for the fact that my next computer build will not be towards SLI but towards one beasty card. Your CPU, SSD (not HDD or those half-assed hybird drives) RAM, motherboard's specs and that single beasty card will be the key feature to give you what you're looking for. Also, you save on power, less heat in your computer, longer life-span and less pressure/stress on the motherboard. This is my conclusion.
690 is not only better than the 680, less noise, heat and power consumption and should last longer than the 680 itself (looking at the default design by nVidia). It does cost a lot thou'.

So you honestly think that a $1000 card is worth the 200% increase in price for the 10% more power with up to 15% less heat/power consumption? Either way, that card better last for 2 year minimum if I was to spend $1000 on it.

No...? It's about 80% more power than that of the 680.

So is it still worth the extra $1000 when in the span of 4 years you can buy two more $300~ cards that will literally get the same job done? It's overkill.

[Tatsujin]

If you have the money, go for the 690. If you don't care and you just want gaming, get the 680. Avoid avoid SLI all-together. In today's modern technology ... you want to preserve your computer's life. I'm learning now and I know for the fact that my next computer build will not be towards SLI but towards one beasty card. Your CPU, SSD (not HDD or those half-assed hybird drives) RAM, motherboard's specs and that single beasty card will be the key feature to give you what you're looking for. Also, you save on power, less heat in your computer, longer life-span and less pressure/stress on the motherboard. This is my conclusion.

690 is not only better than the 680, less noise, heat and power consumption and should last longer than the 680 itself (looking at the default design by nVidia). It does cost a lot thou'.

So you honestly think that a $1000 card is worth the 200% increase in price for the 10% more power with up to 15% less heat/power consumption? Either way, that card better last for 2 year minimum if I was to spend $1000 on it.

Technically, the two cards are better than the one card with performance. But with power consumption, pressure/stress, heat, noise and the fact that they don't feature the cooling features the 690 has which automatically puts the 690 ahead of the 680 in terms of durability makes the 690 better than 2x 680 ... oh yea, 2x 680 take up more space inside your case. Really, that's up to you.

I'm going down with one beasty card from now on rather than two cards in SLI.

[TMRNetShark]

Technically, the two cards are better than the one card with performance. But with power consumption, pressure/stress, heat, noise and the fact that they don't feature the cooling features the 690 has which automatically puts the 690 ahead of the 680 in terms of durability makes the 690 better than 2x 680 ... oh yea, 2x 680 take up more space inside your case. Really, that's up to you.

I'm going down with one beasty card from now on rather than two cards in SLI.

No no, you missed the point. I'm saying if you bought a ~$300 card now instead of the GTX 690. Will it still play a lot of games on high setting? I would say so... my $160 card does (an ATI 6850).  So in the next two years, I can still buy 2 MORE ~$300 cards that will still get the job done while being better than the previous card.

Idk, I think spending $1000 on ONE card is overkill when I can build an entire PC for that price.

[nstgc]

What would you use all that computational power for? I'll admit that I like to forse 4x SSAA on EVERYTHING, but most games don't need it. Newer games are designed in such a way that MSAA is good enough...usually (ME2 is eye cancer without SSAA).

[GoGeTa006]

I've had my GTX9800+ for like 4 years now. . .and I still play all games in high settings. . .

I think if you're gaming you shouldnt even consider those cards. . .go for the 680, TBH the only "leap" Im expecting anytime soon is as mentioned the Unreal Engine 4, which should come out next year I think. . . it looks pretty legit, but I doubt it will use more than 60% of what the 690 can perform. . .

 I mean sure its great to have a 690, if you have money to trow away just buy it. . .but think that if youre going to be gaming, I really really REALLY doubt that you will use that card to its full capacities. . .

its like getting a core i7 with 8 GB of RAM to play angry birds. . .


unless you can somehow play BF3 + Unreal Tournament (4?) + Crysis + MW (whatever number) at the same time. . .

[TMRNetShark]

I think some people are FPS whores. Just by getting 140 fps instead of 60 is enough to justify spending $700 more on the card.

[GoGeTa006]

I think some people are FPS whores. Just by getting 140 fps instead of 60 is enough to justify spending $700 more on the card.

IIRC most monitors have 60 Hz refresh rate dont they?, and even if you get some high end 120Hz . . .what, you're missing 20 fps that no one will notice

1 Hz = 1 fps

but yeah, I've seen people that just jizz looking at the vid cards fps drawing speed (not that they notice any difference once they reach their monitors refresh rate)

[Saras]

To me crossfire and SLI isn't a starting point, it's a compromise for old systems. Let's say you have and old system running a 5850, say unreal 4 comes and you need that little bit of extra juice without resorting to a whole new rig. Get a second-hand 5850 for a 100$ and be fine for another two years.

[Tephnos]

The 690 is pretty useless, and it's only really for e-peen. Just wait until the 700 series is out. Nvidia has specifically mentioned before that the 600 series are mid range cards, and they're charging so much for them because they realised those mid range cards already smacked around ATI's top offerings.

Furthermore, I wouldn't bother with the 680 now. The 670 retails for around 100 less, but an OC'd one can beat a stock (or even overclocked, if you get a good one) 680. The 3-5% performance increase for around 100+ more is just not worth it.

The best price for performance ratio right now is SLI GTX 670s. However, if going SLI and running on air cooling, you absolutely must get reference cards. They may be loud, but the heat will be ejected out of the back of your case instead of on top of the other card/around the case like with aftermarket coolers.

[Tatsujin]

Technically, the two cards are better than the one card with performance. But with power consumption, pressure/stress, heat, noise and the fact that they don't feature the cooling features the 690 has which automatically puts the 690 ahead of the 680 in terms of durability makes the 690 better than 2x 680 ... oh yea, 2x 680 take up more space inside your case. Really, that's up to you.

I'm going down with one beasty card from now on rather than two cards in SLI.

No no, you missed the point. I'm saying if you bought a ~$300 card now instead of the GTX 690. Will it still play a lot of games on high setting? I would say so... my $160 card does (an ATI 6850).  So in the next two years, I can still buy 2 MORE ~$300 cards that will still get the job done while being better than the previous card.

Idk, I think spending $1000 on ONE card is overkill when I can build an entire PC for that price.

Absolutely, what you said is correct. The cards that are coming out right now are really powerful and more than enough to play any game at high and very high settings. Two cards is, in my opinion, not worth it. This also goes the same for the 1Kish cards. The 660-670 GTX models are good cards for your money. I'd rather than not throw 450-500 dollars on a single card, thou'. This is why I stick to the 250ish~ USD cards. They're more than enough. The GTX 560 Ti SC should last me another 2-3 years.