Nvidia GTX 690.

The power under your PC's hood

Meet the new Nvidia GTX 690.

Meet the GTX 690. We’re looking at a pair of fully enabled GK104 GPUs (1536 CUDA cores) clocked at 915MHz, paired with 4GB of 6GHz GDDR5 (2GB per GPU) all on a single card. Taken altogether, this means the GTX 690 should be able to reach at least 91% of the GTX 680 SLI’s performance and probably closer to 95% depending on where GPU boost tops out

To say that I was impressed with what the GTX 690 has to offer would be an understatement. In the past NVIDIA has delivered excellent gaming performance when they dropped a dual GPU card on the market such as the 9800GX2, GTX 295, and the GTX 590. Each offered significant gains in the all important FPS arena but suffered from the same challenges of running two GPUs on one card with increased power consumption and compromises made to cooling the card down that resulted in lower clock speeds than single GPU cards. The GTX 690 for the most part is almost immune to these challenges with a robust 10 phase power circuit and 10 layer, 2oz copper PCB to manage the power needed to maximize performance and stay within the 300 watt TDP of the card; in most games running near a quoted 276 watts.

For cooling NVIDIA does not use a design that uses air passed from one heat sink into the other like earlier dual GPU cards such as the original GTX 295. By using a split system with an axial mounted fan, each independent vapor chamber based heat sink is able to deliver temperature parity for increased overclocking potential by keeping the load temperatures within a degree or two at most. The base plate and fan design help channel all that airflow through the fin arrays helping deliver the cool temperatures and reduce the noise signature. Surprisingly the GTX 690 is incredibly quiet for a card of this type. NVIDIA went and optimized the fan profile to increase airflow without an increase in noise, which is significant with the reduced venting on the mounting bracket. What is not noticed is that it has also changed the fan speed algorithms from noticeable steps to a linear profile that gradually increases fan speed, of course staying quiet in the process. So much so that I had to pull the side off to make sure the fan was running during the testing. Manually setting the fan to its maximum level results in an barely audible (outside the chassis) whirring from the fan and a rushing from the airflow out of the mounting bracket. Anything below 73% was not audible in this scenario. Both wins all the way around. The only concern with the cooling solution is that some of the GPU's discarded thermal load is recycled into the chassis from the vent on the tail end of the GTX 690. Anything behind this vent will get hot. I measured a constant 55+C temperature during my load testing from the rear vent of the card. The better the airflow in the chassis the less of a concern this is.

With a card of this nature you know it is going to carry a steep price tag. There is no way around it as we have seen in the past with dual GPU cards costing nearly as much or more as the £899 entry point for the GTX 690. It's not cheap or even close but the performance delivered speaks for itself. In the end it all comes together with NVIDIA hitting a home run as it did with the GTX 680, delivering the ultimate gaming gear for the gamer that has to have the best card on the market to run the highest resolutions and detail levels while enjoying all the NVIDIA ecosystem has to offer. It's got great performance to go with the great looks. What more is there to say.

What does that mean in plain English?

In a nutshell, adding one of these cards to a good specification computer will crank it up to the highest level of graphics performance, almost like putting a turbocharger on a strong engine. You wouldn't want to put one of these cards into a basic system like an Intel Celeron or Core I3 as the system probably wouldn't be powerful enough to keep up with the amount of data flying in and out of the card.

You also wouldn't want to put this card into just any old PC Case, you need to think about your Power Supply, Ventilation and case dimensions. This card needs plenty of wattage, cool air and also space around it to work well.

Here is a good example of a Coolermaster Case:

 

What difference will it make to my games?

That will all depend on what game you are running and which version of DirectX it is optimised for. Most new games will auto-detect your graphics card and tweak the settings to suit. If you put an low spec and high spec machine side by side you should see a difference in the quality of the image and also the smoothness of any motion, a glitchy game would be unplayable so 24 frames per second is what we want to see here.

 

Above are 2 screen shots taken from two computers looking at the same scene, the shot on the right uses DirectX9 and looks ok, maybe a little false. The image on the left is from a machine with a graphics card with DirectX10 features, the water and sky effects are much more detailed and realistic. Lighting on the left side of the mountains is also more dramatic.

On the left is a screenshot from a game using DirectX10, the same shot to the right is DirectX11. Straight away you notice the shapes are more complex, lighting and shadows more realistic and less edgy. Most new games will have DirectX11 features in them but with an onboard graphics card or an older model if you have an AGP or PCI-e card, you wont be able to use these features and may be missing out on a richer and smoother gaming experience.

 

Upgrade or Rebuid?

Ok so we've convinced you that you need some horsepower in your machine, now you need to think about whether your machine will actually benefit from an upgrade or not. If you have a laptop forget it, they aren't for gaming unless you've shelled out on a Dell Alienware or similar monster. These laptops are not really upgradable so the spec you buy is the spec you're stuck with. With desktop computers you have more freedom, if you have room for a card it might be a simple 30 minute job, depending on whether or not you need a bigger PSU it might take longer.

There are dozens of models to choose from, the main two brands are ATI and Nvidia, both fairly evenly matched on product range and price, from £30 to £1000. If you are just pottering about and just want to game for fun then a good card between £50 and £70 will give you a noticeably better image and most games will set themselves to medium effects settings. If you have a monitor running a high resolution or you're running higher end games or maybe design software it's worth thinking about spending more money, also bear in mind that you might need a bigger PSU to power up your new card. The top end cards are for the Die Hard gamers, having a lightning fast machine will give you the edge over your opponents if you play online, we think the Nvidia 690 is a bit over the top at the moment, the best value for money is still the Nvidia 680.

We don't talk about ATI much do we? That's not because we don't like them, it's just that Nvidia cards have some nice features that are just so easy to use like simple driver updates, 3D Stereoscopic support for red/blue glasses (come on you must have an old pair lying about somewhere!) support for 3D monitors with LCD glasses and support for multiple displays.

 

If you want to talk to us about anything you've seen here, just drop us an email, call us on 0161 652 5700 or use the chat box in the left column. We can tell you what your system may or may not work with and give you a quote too!