Is GTX 690 Quad SLI worth it?

[TheRat62]

If I can get a second 690 for 200$?

[Azza ☠]

For what setup? What resolution you targetting? What motherboard? You using water cooling?

A single GTX 690 is pretty much almost two GTX 680 glued together onto a single graphics card, with a custom cooler. It's a duel GPU.

Therefore 2 x 690's in SLI, that is considered Quad SLI.
You going with 2 right? Not 4 of them?

[TheRat62]

Yeah I already have one. I have a GTX 690 and my CPU is an i5-3470.
Generally, I have been very impressed with this setup however now I am all about the performance. I like to try and keep games:

-totally maxed out
- as much AA as possible without sacrificing performance too much
- constant 60fps
- 1080p resolution on a single monitor
- and sometimes I like installing deamanding graphic mods.

Without mods, there are some games that have these terrible dips such as Crysis 3, or even the original crysis i have trouble maintaining a consant 60fps. Sometimes the dips look like crap.

So basically, I want to make an upgrade and there are 3 routes I could see myself going. Upgrading the CPU, possibly upgrading the GPU (GTX 980ti), or buying a second GTX 690 for Quad Sli (which would be cheaper)

I'm looking too just get that extra boost in frames to help me maintain 60fps in the more demading games thats all.

I'm looking at another GTX 690 right now that is 200$ but I also saw an i7- 3930k I'm wondering what I should do.

[Azza ☠]

A single GTX 690 by itself has some impressive performance.

However, 2x SLI GTX 690 will only give you an additional 6-25% more performance on top of that. This is due to it working as a Quad SLI. Resolutions such as 1080p, will also not be much performance gain (compared to higher).

4GB video memory (each card) is suitable for SLI.
You will also need to consider water cooling or a lot of airflow.
Plus your PSU (Power Supply Unit) should have enough stable wattage output for both (approx 1050-1200W).
Heat, power, and noise levels will increase.

DirectX 12 support (on Win 10) will greatly improve SLI performance, but the graphics cards won't have as much support as later model GTX 9XX series - which has 4 hardware features builtin to support DX12 features.

While it's a great price, it leads to zero future proofing.

If I was you, see how much you can sell it for and then consider if it's worth replacing for the GTX 980 Ti instead. It will use half the wattage of a single GTX 690, be cooler, quieter, and more still performance, with a freebee boost to come.

With a setup like that, it would be surplus 60 FPS at ultra settings. It's completely overkill for 1080p resolution. You would probably move up to 1440p resolution later on down the track if desired, and still run at very high/ultra (specially if the monitor supports G-SYNC and has a 1ms response time, 120/144Hz refresh rate). You should be drooling by then. G-SYNC will help a lot with syncing the monitor refresh rate with the graphics output frame rate, resulting in smooth as stutter-free, even if it's not always maxed out.

I would suggest ignoring 4K UltraHD at this moment of time, unless willing to wait till 2016/2017 for the Nvidia Pascal cards.

Hope that helps, sorry if any crushed dreams with the GTX 690 SLI.
I love that beast of a card and it's a great price for one, but just being brutally honest as I can calculate it in SLI mode.

[TheRat62]

Don't worry no dreams crushed here. I never liked the sound of quad-sli to begin with. I had actually put my 690 up on Kijiji I was thinking about getting the 980ti it sounds like an absolute beast,
Plus, when the price drops on those I can always pick up a second one for dual sli and I bet that'd be a lot better than quad 690s.

[vmystikilv]

I was in your shoes not to long ago, like 2 weeks ago. I got the second card and went quad. ($250 for a second card or $ 699 for a 1080). i have like maybe 5-10 games at the most that support quad. My One 690 was fine but its like a WWiI grandfather. Its not the new cards today but it still performs greatly. Was it worth adding the other card? I mean, I like my benchmark scores. Plus, it lookes really nice in my case. If DX12 ever stacks VRAM I will be a god among peasents. But, do I have regrets, no. Is it worth going quad, I will say this, its not for the faint at heart. You will get psst off, you will be confused at results and having to configure every game. As confusing as this sounds, I did it, I am happy with it, but I would not advise anyone to do it....

To make things hurt worse, not only do i have quad, I also have a 770 for physx. Total of 5 GPU's in one CPU. Batman Arkham CityRuns flawslessly BTW, LOL

[TheRat62]

Haha wow this is such an old post. I just happen to be up right now.
I ended up selling my 690 for 250$ and getting a 980Ti.

Figure it didn't pay off immediately but I think it'll pay off in performance when I pick up a second 980Ti when the price drops significantly enough and put them in SLI

[Bob the Boomer]

Just an FYI about VRAM when using SLi or Crossfire -

Be wary of VRAM capacities in dual GPU cards like the 690. Says 4GB on the front, but it only has 2GB of effective VRAM since each GPU has 2GB, its not a shared pool.