GTX 690 or GTX 680 SLI?

[k1ngm4c1u51]

You will probably not even notice the change from 660ti to 680... Why are you so set on upgrading?

I have spare £££ to spend at the moment and 660ti in sli are fine but when AA comes in games too high FPS drops down unfortunately so it looks 680s in sli what I can and its cheaper than 690 at the moment.

 

[seumasbeathan]

I have spare £££ to spend at the moment and 660ti in sli are fine but when AA comes in games too high FPS drops down unfortunately so it looks 680s in sli what I can and its cheaper than 690 at the moment.

I really find that hard to believe, could you give examples of some of these frame drops?

 

[k1ngm4c1u51]

I really find that hard to believe, could you give examples of some of these frame drops?

Battlefield 3 multiplayer when settings are on ULTRA and AA is x4 and when it gets busy FPS getting down dramatically, I need to lower quality level or disable MSAA, 4xA MSAA will cost me 1/3 of my FPS, search for 660ti and AA problems.

 

[Drakkonen]

Could this simply be a case of V-sync misuse? My 670 pretty much runs BF3 multiplayer at 60fps constantly, maxed out at 1920x1200. If this does turn out to be an issue with 660ti and AA incompatibility, which I can't really see why it would be as its the same architecture as the 670 and 680 then it's most likely down to the drivers and will probably get fixed soon. If you have enough money for a 690 and you want to upgrade something, I'd go with water cooling rather than new GPUs.

 

[seumasbeathan]

What kind of fps are you getting when you turn the settings all the way up?

 

[k1ngm4c1u51]

What kind of fps are you getting when you turn the settings all the way up?

Caspian Border 32ppl server all settings max ultra whatever all to the max 1920 x 1080 vsync off 120Hz 70 FOV frames are 80+ most of the game stays around 100+- but when I get shot by heli FPS went down to 60 when heavy fire, ofc FPS will go higher when looking at sky or grass but I'm talking about more smooth gameplay.

Singleplayer: Operation Swordbreaker same setting beginning mission when they sit in LAV FPS are 103 - 105, when I jump off from LAV 83 FPS and walk to first corner FPS 100 and turn right FPS 86 I walk behind soldiers FPS are 80-89 when Im close to the table where we stop FPS are 92 when we stop and we listen this guy FPS are 103

 

[NRG!]

If this does turn out to be an issue with 660ti and AA incompatibility, which I can't really see why it would be as its the same architecture as the 670 and 680 then it's most likely down to the drivers and will probably get fixed soon.

It's not drivers. the 660ti has a gk104 with the same number of operation cores as the 670 but with a faulty memory controller/ROP. Since it's fused off to allow the chip to function the 660ti has 3 memory controllers and a 192bit memory bus.

quote from Hexus:

GTX 660 Ti needs to be different, obviously, and NVIDIA focusses on the back-end of the GPU - ROPs, memory partitions, memory size - in an effort to reduce costs and, in turn, to sufficiently hobble performance. The GPU overview, right, shows Kepler in its fullest form, also known as GTX 680. GTX 670 lops-off one of the SMX units but keeps everything else intact. GTX 660 Ti further gets rid of one of the four 64-bit memory-controllers and, understanding that memory partitions and ROPs are linked in together, eight of the 32 ROPs and one-quarter of the L2 cache also disappear. In effect, then, GTX 660 Ti trades back-end muscle - useful for managing image-quality enhancements such as antialiasing and anisotropic filtering - for product differentiation and segmentation purposes.

edit: tbh regardless of my comments above I don't think it's worth upgrading atm. When I was at 1080p I could not tell the difference between a 680 and 680 SLI without an fps counter. 2xmsaa is fine anyway imo.

 

[seumasbeathan]

Caspian Border 32ppl server all settings max ultra whatever all to the max 1920 x 1080 vsync off 120Hz 70 FOV frames are 80+ most of the game stays around 100+- but when I get shot by heli FPS went down to 60 when heavy fire, ofc FPS will go higher when looking at sky or grass

Are you actually serious? All they go down to is 60? 60 is amazing framerate, personally if I was getting 40 all the time I would be perfectly happy

 

[k1ngm4c1u51]

all I want to say is: I'm more confused now than before when I posted this thread don't get me wrong guys this PC is only for games nothing more and I just like to have 99999999999 FPS I know I know its sounds crazy but I want to have gameplay in any game as smooth as possible - now You guys will say "you have enough FPS to max out your games and even on ultra your gameplay is smooth, no need for upgrade"

So what? Put £££ on savings account and wait for next generation of Nvidia graphics cards? I don't want to go with 3 screens and I don't need 6 cores to play games only and I will not change my screen for 2560 resolution too.

PS. If I can get 690 new for £700 is it worth it to buy because of price or still you will say no to upgrade?

 

[Rich_]

people who do get 690's are reporting things such as stuttering, and only 3gb of effective v-ram. So if this is true the only benefit ur getting from a 690 with the extra $ tag, is the space saving benefit.

From what you said in your above post, i'd venture to say that going with 2 7950's or 2 670's, then spending that saved money on an Asus 1080p 144hz monitor would be a viable option. It would give you near identical performance to a 690, but cost significantly less, and you'll be able to use a 144hz monitor (280$ expected retail). The monitors release in february. Another thing to keep note of, the amd 8000's release in march, for desktops, and there are some big name intel architects that have been managing their development. If i was you i'd be saving the next 2 months and goign all out with 2x 8950's + asus 144hz monitor.

 

[ObscureParadox]

all I want to say is: I'm more confused now than before when I posted this thread don't get me wrong guys this PC is only for games nothing more and I just like to have 99999999999 FPS I know I know its sounds crazy but I want to have gameplay in any game as smooth as possible - now You guys will say "you have enough FPS to max out your games and even on ultra your gameplay is smooth, no need for upgrade"

So what? Put £££ on savings account and wait for next generation of Nvidia graphics cards? I don't want to go with 3 screens and I don't need 6 cores to play games only and I will not change my screen for 2560 resolution too.

PS. If I can get 690 new for £700 is it worth it to buy because of price or still you will say no to upgrade?

I honestly think it would be a massive waste of cash to spend £700 on a 690 or 680 sli system when you could just get a decent 2560x1600/1440 monitor and a watercooling setup for that sort of money.

I mean if you're really hell bent on getting a new graphics card set up then I think it would be best for you to go down the 7970 route. It's currently faster in the most of the games you play (BF3 and FC3) + it has 3GB of ram so it's more future proof.

Don't know why I suggested that as that would also be a stupid upgrade given that your current graphics setup is fine and next gen graphics aren't that far round the corner

 

[k1ngm4c1u51]

In the past I had so many problems with ATI cards well not cards but drivers issues so I'm done with ATI, I read on forums that new drivers helped a lot but I'm with nvidia, I'm not a fan or something but I want to buy something, install and enjoy and have 0 problems. Also I don't want to change my screen and I don't want to do any watercooling. This PC is simple and only for gaming and its fine with AIR only. If I want to keep this PC forever and never upgrade yeah why not I would do custom loop for CPU and 2nd for graphics but I wont keep these parts long enough to put water on them

 

[nikhiljudge]

no real need to upgrade but I would say 2 680's with a decent power supply make sure each card is on a different power rail.

 

[k1ngm4c1u51]

I think I will back off with graphics cards upgrade, I have watched more than 20 vids on YT with 680SLI or 690 even 7970 in CF and my FPS are not that far behind ofc if we do benchmarks they are behind but some sources saying new Nvidia GPUs should be available in few months July/August. Probably GTX 780 model will appear later on but spending £700 now to gain 22 FPS more sounds well maybe not stupid but £350 for 11FPS? I think I will wait for Nvidia next generation GPUs

 

[Rich_]

In the past I had so many problems with ATI cards well not cards but drivers issues so I'm done with ATI,

I always hear this in defense of nvidia. But only experience the opposite. In fact, i remember having to use an entry level 6750 instead of my 560 for the first couple weeks of BF3 release, because guess who's drivers were functioning properly? Not nvidias.

edit- come to think of it, i've never seen even an example of an nvidia driver working better.... just amd's being more solid.. but the rumors are always the opposite?


Also to your above post, - good call. Lots of new tech at excellent projected $ points is coming out very very soon. Best to passively observe for a couple months and go from there, right now is a very questionable time to make a massive investment in gpu upgrade.

edit: And jumping to an upgrade at this moment would negate the investment you made on sli 660ti's, that's extremely solid right now. 2x 660ti's = you can afford to passively observe newly releasing tech, get a great judgement, and not act as a guinea pig like the rest of us will be doing for you

 

[k1ngm4c1u51]

I always hear this in defense of nvidia. But only experience the opposite. In fact, i remember having to use an entry level 6750 instead of my 560 for the first couple weeks of BF3 release, because guess who's drivers were functioning properly? Not nvidias.

edit- come to think of it, i've never seen even an example of an nvidia driver working better.... just amd's being more solid.. but the rumors are always the opposite?

well, you meet bad side of nvidia but I never experienced any problems from cards or drivers but I had problems with ATI so its always 50/50

 

[Robi_G]

I've observed that AMDs drivers are worse right at the start of a launch but then once they get their act together they're better than Nvidia's.
Wait 'till the next range of GPUs come out for more of a performance gain. Or get a higher res. monitor as the 660tis can handle it.
Are you sure the framedrop isn't in fact micro-stutter?

 

[Vlada011]

No if you have money my advice is NVIDIA. I have no advice for your you can choose. If you have watercooling than best is some cards with blocks out of box

690 Hydro Copper look great.
I would stay with 2xGTX680.
For 1920x1080 is enough one good GTX680. For more than that if you want smooth play with all filters and everything in 5-6 games you need little more than one GTX680. Off course you buy card for future not for now and not for next 6 months only. Than I would stay with 2xGTX680 HydroCopper.
My favorite is 680 Classified, 2x 4GB Video Memory if you want SLI, super boost and everything under Swiftech full cover water block. Look much better and far better than any block today and probably give best and lowest temps.
If you need over 1920. 1920x1080 you are fine with one card.
You are fine than 2-3 years more power than any single NVIDIA graphic card.

 

[Murphyslaw]

just read the few pages... and really all i could work out is you want max frame rates in bf3. In which your 660's won't giving. really find it odd when i play bf3 on 2 6870's still and get very decent fps.


seems like you just want the cards because you have the money, in this case go for it... if it's there to buy... but i would say it's a waste of money really.

 

[Damien c]

I am running 2 GTX680's in SLI and I hit anything from 100fps to 150+fps in Battlefield 3 at 1080p with max settings, but it depends on what area of the map etc I am in as to what FPS I get.

With a single GTX680 at the same settings I was getting around 70fps to 90fps.

Go with what ever you want really because it's you that has to look at it really but if I was you I would stick to what you have now.

Some screenshots I took last night all around the same area but, those are basically the same frame rates that I get all the time.

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/2079/bf32013012317470283.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7818/bf32013012317473314.jpg
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/8277/bf32013012317480823.jpg
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7840/bf32013012317530937.jpg