The GTX 690 Arrives – Exotic Industrial Design takes the Performance Crown!

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-3770K reference 3.50 GHz/Turbo to 3.9GHz, overclocked to 4.6 GHz and 4.8GHz; Turbo is off and HyperThreading is on.
• Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H (latest BIOS, USB/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x).
• 4 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 1800 Kingston RAM (2×2 GB, tri-channel at 1200MHz; supplied by Kingston)
• GeForce GTX 680, 2 GB (base clocks of 1006/3000MHz and also overclocked, +150/+575MHz), supplied by Nvidia
• GeForce GTX 590, 3 GB reference clocks (607/1707 MHz), supplied by Nvidia.
• GeForce GTX 690, 4 GB reference design and clocks (base clock is 915/3004MHz and also overclocked +150/+550MHz), supplied by Nvidia
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7970, 3 GB with custom cooling at stock clocks (925/1375MHz)
• AMD Radeon HD 6990, 4GB reference design and stock clocked (850/1250MHz), supplied by AMD
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 2 x 240 GB Kingston HyperX SSDs; one for AMD and one for Nvidia
  
• Thermaltake ToughPowerXT 775W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Cooler Master Elite mid-Tower case, supplied by Cooler Master
• Noctua NH-DH14 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD.
• Three ASUS VG236 23-inch 1920×1080 120Hz LCDs supplied by ASUS/Nvidia and used for Surround/Eyefinity 5760×1080 resolution.
• Asus VG278 27″- 120Hz 1080p display and 3D Vision 2 Glasses supplied by Nvidia/ASUS.
  

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia GeForce 301.24 Beta drivers for GTX 590 and for the GTX 680;  301.33 release drivers for the GTX 690. High Quality
• AMD 12.4 WHQL Catalyst drivers; High Quality – optimizations off; use application settings
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• VSync is off in the control panel.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

Synthetic

• Vantage
• 3DMark 11
• Heaven 3.0

• Left 4 Dead 2
• Serious Sam 3 BFE

• Crysis
• Far Cry 2
• Just Cause 2
• World-in-Conflict

• BattleForge
• Alien vs. Predator
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• Metro 2033
• F1 2010
• H.A.W.X. 2
• Lost Planet 2
• Civilization V
• Crysis 2
• Dirt 3
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Batman: Arkham City

Before we get to the performance charts, let’s look at overclocking, power draw and temperatures.