Vortez - Computer Hardware News & Reviews » News » April 2012 » NVIDIA Announce The Dual-GPU GTX 690

Featuring two GK104 GPU's, the GTX 690 total's 3072 CUDA cores but a TDP of only 300W; also takes more advantage of Kepler's boost clock feature.




During the NVIDIA Gaming Festival Shanghai 2012 Keynote this morning NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took the time to introduce new technologies incoming from the market leading manufacturer of video cards. The most significant of those for the assembled audience was that of the awaited GTX 690, and Jen-Hsun was good enough to provide some details of the card itself:



The specs line up to two GK104 cores on one PCB, in a similar fashion to previous dual-GPU cards in the past, which firmly nix's the rumour of the full-fat Kepler (GK112/110) for the time being. It's unsurprising that the cores of the GTX690 will be clocked a touch lower than the 680 at base; it seems likely that keeping under a 300W TDP was be a significant challenge even at 28nm. Even so, the boost clock is set at an impressive 1.019GHz, implying that they feel there's enough leeway in the power draw of the card to justify peak clocks almost as high as a GTX 680.



Memory is set at exactly the same speed as the GTX680, though the card will of course have 4GB of RAM to play with rather than 2GB (but still limited to 2GB per core). The performance should be just below that of two GTX680's in SLI (NVIDIA quote an average of 75% faster than a single 680), and at $999 is priced accordingly. For those after absolutely the fastest single card on the market the GTX 690 will be it, unless AMD can get their 7990 out the door (and even then it will likely be nip and tuck).

NVIDIA have an article detailing the capabilities of the GTX 690 and Kepler architecture which is well worth reading. There's no news yet of the street date for their flagship card, but it should be pretty soon.



Tagged as: NVIDIA, Kepler, GTX 690

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28.04.2009 09:40:17: First Look: NVIDIA Announces New PhysX Titles @ Hi Tech Legion by Ryan Morris

PCplod Posts: 759 Joined: 2011-10-13

#24946 Posted on: 29.04.2012 08:23:54 BEAST Looks like its gonna be way too expensive though, I can see AMD bringing out the 7990 just after and completely undercutting them.

Azza Posts: 50 Joined: 2011-09-07

#24947 Posted on: 29.04.2012 09:21:53 £800... I'll take 2.

PCplod Posts: 759 Joined: 2011-10-13

#24948 Posted on: 29.04.2012 10:10:57 Every other gens top dual GPU cards have been about £600. People need to rejoice and stop letting them charge so much, if people keep buying them.. then they are just going to keep the prices up. Which is ridiculous because these GPU's cast hardly anything to manufacture, and I can't see the actual development costs being that much more than every previous gen. Too greedy...

Helios1234 Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#24949 Posted on: 29.04.2012 13:33:39 I'd rather not spend half a month's salary on this...

w3bbo Moderator Posts: 608 Joined: 2011-04-21

#24950 Posted on: 29.04.2012 15:42:40 Tasty! However at £800 it is just silly expensive.

Mishima Administrator Posts: 4332 Joined: 2009-07-28

#24955 Posted on: 29.04.2012 18:50:06 Wonder how these will sell...

PCplod Administrator Posts: 759 Joined: 2011-10-13

#25020 Posted on: 03.05.2012 14:08:54 Well..... its out..... And its even more expensive than how expensive we thought it already was (if that makes sense lol) Basically its ridiculously expensive. From £840-£900... Seems like Nvidia thought they would make it look cool and charge even more over the odds? When chances are allot of people that get this are going to watercool anyway. I think a backplate would have been more important than the fancy looking cooler, it hasn't even got one! And I also bet allot of people will have multi monitor hi res set ups who purchase these.... yet they are 2gb which is already limiting in high resolutions in modern games, I dread to think in a years time these may be obsolete for modern games on hi res set ups. Strange decisions all over the place with this one. I reckon AMD are going to come out with the 7990 that performs on par, has the 3gb RAM which is needed to future proof hi res set ups (and is much desired now in games like BF3) for about £700. I think Nvidia have king of made their own Mars card here.... Ridiculously overpriced, likely bottlenecked by VRAM in the future for modern games and big set ups its likely needed for in the first place (already a bottleneck for extreme setups) pretty much an expensive collectors item that is also a toy and that people with money to burn will defend and love to their hearts content.

Vault-Tec Administrator Posts: 78 Joined: 2012-05-02

#25023 Posted on: 03.05.2012 15:56:38 Let's face it the price isn't going to matter or put any one off really. Those who bought the 590 Classified paid £750, so £800 is neither here nor there. Whilst I think the card is basically a silicon contradiction at least this time Nvidia have made it properly. Like actually put some thought and detail and expensive materials into it. RE - contradiction. The card would obviously shine for surround gaming. Sadly the 2gb of vram makes it silly. Last thing you would ever need one of these cards for is 1080p gaming. And 3D is easily taken care of by my 480s in SLI so that's no reason to buy one either.

PCplod Administrator Posts: 759 Joined: 2011-10-13

#25027 Posted on: 03.05.2012 17:16:44 The thing is the 590 was still relative value to buying two 580's or 570's at the time and considering its one one PCB using less parts also provided better value, just like all other dual GPU cards. The 590 cost £600 Two 580's cost £800 Two 570's cost £650+ But this? Its mind boggling... its like you can either buy two 680's, or you can buy the 690 for more money and have less performance. It just doesn't add up, its always been that the dual GPU card due to being on one pcb which costs less to manufacture compared to making single cards has cost a little less to what its equal to and actually provided a bit of value. It kind of defeats the entire oject of having a dual GPU card in the first place... This is just extreme price gouging and using a fancy cooler as an excuse.

Vault-Tec Administrator Posts: 78 Joined: 2012-05-02

#25040 Posted on: 03.05.2012 20:07:16 Quote: Originally Posted by PCplod The majority of 7970's max out sliders with ease, minority dont, but still they are clocked very low at stock which is whats being compared to. Even 1Ghz or 1100Mhz I think is achievable by AMD on the 7990 if they pull their finger out and do wonders with cooling/ taming the power on one card. If they do, then it would be neck and neck as clock vs clock the 7970 and 680 are very close, maybe the 690 slightly better at 1080p and the 7990 better at high resolutions. But thats all just speculation, I wont be getting the 7990 because I couldn't play BFBC2 on my 7970 which is one reason I sold it, drivers were non existent for that game online for some reason and only 50% GPU usage, plus I just invested in 3D stuff and am quite liking it. I'll probably just wait till the next round of GPU's are up, like the 685/780, Nvidia are charging way too much because there are too many people willing to pay the price within a heartbeat. Hell even if the 680's were $700 in america I bet they would still be sold out I think you need to take the logistics into account. The 7970 is a far bigger die size and hotter than the 680. Getting them on there at 925mhz is a task in itself, let alone over 1ghz. I can't see it tbh. You're right about America, but I know first hand that there are a disproportionate amount of wealthy people out there with money to waste. The 680 has been out of stock on Newegg since launch and there is still nothing. Bit irresponsible of Nvidia to be releasing more vapourware when they can't even keep their "affordable" card in stock.

Helios1234 Administrator Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#25092 Posted on: 04.05.2012 18:14:35 £779 on Aria atm so not TOOOOO bad compared to the rest. It will be interesting to see how long that price lasts when they are actually in stock.

Vault-Tec Administrator Posts: 78 Joined: 2012-05-02

#25103 Posted on: 04.05.2012 21:05:52 Quote: Originally Posted by PCplod Yep, not TOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad lol. But still ridiculous I think some people are openly accepting it as not that bad because they are comparing it to two 680's. But 680's haven't dropped price and are still drastically overpriced. 680's should be at the most £380 by now, the 7970 is allot better value. Pricing on the 680 is what it is due to a lack of parts. TBH the 7970 could cost £300 new now and it wouldn't affect the prices of the 680. Yields are very low and stocks are even lower. If they go into a price war they will end up with nothing left to sell. I'm not sure how well you guys know Newegg, but basically they are the biggest PC part online retailer in the world. They have not had any 680s since launch day. So that shows to an extent what us Brits think of Nvidia's pricing. IE - we think they are greedy a-holes and are not buying in droves like the yanks. I mean the 680 could be super de duper and do cartwheels before performing oral sex on you. It needs to be in stock, or it's pointless and stupid. That's Nvidia's biggest issue right now. Not AMD, not prices. It's all about availability.

Vault-Tec Administrator Posts: 78 Joined: 2012-05-02

#25105 Posted on: 04.05.2012 21:43:58 Quote: Originally Posted by PCplod I'm well aware of the limited stock of 680's in America, but there have been 1000's in the UK and there is always stock here, this is something that has always confused me. Yet in America every few days one store gets like 5-10 in stock and of course they sell out right away.... There seems to be 100's in the UK in stock all the time and many sell every week all over europe, why don't Nvidia just source more into their most demanding market?????? As apposed to starving it and having 100's in stock over here..... I just dont get it... I don't think there are thousands here at all. I think there are just fewer rich people here in the UK than there is in the USA. Thus we are but a blip on the backside of a country the size of the USA. Plus there are fewer die hard Nvidia fans here. It's the same reason that Mustangs and other crappy American cars are still selling over there yet we would LOL them off the face of our island. Fact is they are not selling as well here. There's no way we got the same amount of 680s as the USA did. I think a lot of people had already taken the plunge on the 7970. I was one. I don't wait for Nvidia releases if I did I would die waiting. Mind you, that said I'm not really a fan of the 7970. It can be as fast as you damn well please but if it doesn't work properly it's not much use. And I would find it hard for my "tighto meter" to allow me to buy what was designed to be a mid ranged card. It's a bad time in the GPU market IMO and the bargains, once again, are to be had in the previous generations. It's only a very small percentage of people who will waste money on the very latest tech tbh. Maybe 5% of a very small percentage who game on the PC in the first place.

Vault-Tec Administrator Posts: 78 Joined: 2012-05-02

#25119 Posted on: 05.05.2012 11:29:24 Because the USA is about a hundred times larger than the UK with a huge population. Not only that, but they have more rich people than we do who will buy 2+ cards instead of being sensible and just getting the one. I can promise you that the USA has had more cards than us. You must remember the OEMs. That is where the cards are going. IE - Dell, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Origin PC etc. They will all be prioritised over retail outlets as they must have them to build computers with. UK? no manufacturers. They're all in Ireland.

PCplod Administrator Posts: 759 Joined: 2011-10-13

#25122 Posted on: 05.05.2012 14:14:05 Yeh I know and I'm not saying its not, and I'm not saying they haven't had more cars than us, they are the biggest market in the world. But what I am saying is surely its just business sense to source more cards in America where there is never any stock as they get sold out straight away, when there is already too many in Europe and 100's in stock all the time.

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Vortez - Computer Hardware News & Reviews » News » April 2012 » NVIDIA Announce The Dual-GPU GTX 690