780 vs 690

[Witt]

I'm looking to buy a graphics card, and I've been looking at the 780 since it came out.

 

But at the same pricepoint I could get a used 690.

 

Performance wise; shouldn't there be much of a difference. I just can't decide.

[Panda of the Shadow]

690 is more powerful the the 780. Still get the 780. 

[paulsterio]

690 is much more powerful than the 780. Keep that in mind. 

[Jvagle875]

690 is considerably faster than 780, but with a 780 you don't have to deal with sli and all those fun ailments.

[BallaTheFeared]

780 if you OC.

 

780 Ti GHz already beats the 690, if you get a 780 GHz or OC a 780 you can get pretty close to the same without the downsides of MGPU.

 

690 can OC too, but you're talking about two mid-range chips on the same PCB, it won't have a ton of noise headroom.

[felixbearpig]

690 becuase sli isnt that bad, and it costs the same as the 780, but its a long card so keep that in mind. think about it as 2 770 vs 1 780

[Panda of the Shadow]

690 becuase sli isnt that bad, and it costs the same as the 780, but its a long card so keep that in mind. think about it as 2 770 vs 1 780

SLI is a piece of shit. I use it and it's a pain in the ass. 

[BallaTheFeared]

690 becuase sli isnt that bad, and it costs the same as the 780, but its a long card so keep that in mind. think about it as 2 770 vs 1 780

 

It's more like two 670s vs one 780.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2364955&highlight=

[Thecrazyswede]

690 if small case without the ability to upgrade to sli

[BrightCandle]

It also is going to depend on the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor. The 690 starts to loose its performance advantage as the resolution increases. Its probably the limited memory bandwidth causing it but its also worth mentioning that there is less VRAM available on the 690 as well which has the potential in the future to cause problems with that amount of computation performance.

 

I personally don't think the 780/780 ti competes to well with SLI setups like the 690 or a pair of 680's. The 780 is only about 28% quicker single card to single card which considering the cost increase isn't that fantastic. I have been using SLI for about 18 months now on a pair of 680s and while its not perfect its not a problematic setup. 99% of the time it works wonderfully. The way Nvidia releases profiles and drivers mostly ahead of game releases really makes things a lot better. I have had 1 game that had real problems and that is about it, but then it also just problems in general anyway and still isn't fixed (X rebirth).

 

If you were looking at a 690 that was a lot more expensive then its a harder decision, but at the same price the 690 will have better FPS considerably. If you target the same FPS as the 780 with it then you'll have more latency due to the SLI and more variance but also better visuals. However if what you do is target a higher FPS with the same settings as the 780 then you'll get similar latency, similar variance but a smoother frame rate. So it goes back to my original point, which is best on other qualities than FPS in todays games is going to depend on your monitor.

[Gauzl]

If I was you I would go for the 780 and later if you're not happy with it get a 2nd one.

[Mao_Zedong]

If I was you I would go for the 780 and later if you're not happy with it get a 2nd one.

wtf? That would be WAY more expensive than what he said!

[Witt]

@BrightCandle Thanks for the input. I'll probably buy a new monitor in the future, but I've got a Acer P246H (5ms and 60hz)

 

EDIT: I would be able to buy a 690 and a full waterblock(also used) for a little less than the cost of a 780.

[NBKJOKER732]

I am running 780's in SLI and I have a good friend who is running dual 690's in SLI. The 690 is a great card, no doubting that. But there are limitations to it.

 

First is the fact that it only has 2GB of usable VRAM. It may say 4GB on the package, but only 2GB are usable since it is 680's mirrored on a single PCB.

 

The second limitation is the fact that a 690 is really just two 680's. If you come across games that aren't optimized for SLI or worse, don't support it at all.. I'm looking at you Company of Heroes 2 and Total War: Rome II. You are then stuck with just a single 680, and lets face it, a 680 is a fairly mid-range card at this point in time. Especially when you are talking about throwing down a $1000 for a 690.

 

In my opinion, your best bet is to get a 780 and then add a second one down the line if you have a need. The 3GB of video memory is nice to have and if you are running SLI and come across a game without ideal support, its not that big of a loss to game on a single 780, since it is a beast of a card to begin with!

 

Here are some benchmark numbers comparing 770's, 780's, and my friends dual 690's. Hope this helps you make your decision.

 

[Witt]

@NBKJOKER732 Thanks for the numbers, it definetly helps my decision. ATM I'm pretty sure I'll go with a 780(just got tempted when I saw the prices of used 690's)