680 2 way SLI or 690?

[Guest Gazzer96]

I've been looking at reviews these two cards and I cannot decide to on what to choose; I could have 2 680s which will run faster than the single 690, but maybe the 690 could be overclocked and be able to beat them? Plus, I could get another 690 in the future for 4 way SLI, while 680s can only work with 3 way SLI. I have also found out that a Asus 690 is £100 less than two 680s...

 

So what path should I take?

[Andi]

what resolution to you want to play on?

[BlackOutCrisis]

Wait until 7xx series comes out and get two 780's.

[Shikarikato]

Well 680s can work in 4 way SLI I don't know what makes you think that they can work in 3 way only, I'll assume it was poor wording and you don't have a case/motherboard that can accommodate 4 way SLI. 3 way SLI+ is useless because scaling is horrendous after 2 and actually sometimes gives a negative impact. 690 is downclocked so it can fit in its thermal envelope, so OCing would be hard unless you go custom water loops. While it may be suggested to go 780 it's going to really matter depending on budget and what they'll release it at. At the beginning people were speculating $500-$600 price range which is great but now there's speculation of $800 per card so really matters  1k and 1.5k are pretty different as you can go custom water with that difference. ( Custom water doesn't give much more performance it's just aesthetics + acoustics but who wants to listen to a jet all day? )

[IceSanity]

I'm running a 680 SLI and its working great for me. I'd suggest getting the 4gb version if you want to run 3 screens @ higher res.

so 680 sli if you want to go surround/be able to sell two cards later on vs 1 highly priced card. 
or 690 if you want to save money for lower performance. (remember that just because a 690 "might overclock" so can 2 680's) 

Going anything above SLI into 3way/4way sli is just pointless...srsly pointless...unless you got tons of money to burn.

[Guest Gazzer96]

what resolution to you want to play on?

At the momment I am going to be using 1080p, but I will get a 1440p monitor maybe after Christmas, or even a 1600p screen depending on the price.

[Andi]

690 sucks with high res because of the 2gb Vram, would buy Titan, or 2 7970 with 3gb, or 2 680 with 4 gb

[Guest Gazzer96]

Well 680s can work in 4 way SLI I don't know what makes you think that they can work in 3 way only, I'll assume it was poor wording and you don't have a case/motherboard that can accommodate 4 way SLI. 3 way SLI+ is useless because scaling is horrendous after 2 and actually sometimes gives a negative impact. 690 is downclocked so it can fit in its thermal envelope, so OCing would be hard unless you go custom water loops. While it may be suggested to go 780 it's going to really matter depending on budget and what they'll release it at. At the beginning people were speculating $500-$600 price range which is great but now there's speculation of $800 per card so really matters  1k and 1.5k are pretty different as you can go custom water with that difference. ( Custom water doesn't give much more performance it's just aesthetics + acoustics but who wants to listen to a jet all day? )

heres where I got the idea from 680 only being able to support 3 way SLI: 'http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680/specifications' look at the 680 support section. The case/motherboard I am going to be using supports 4 way SLI, I know as I used a trusty website to build up my PC.

 

I would go with 2 780s, but I do not know when it will be released and could be high in price.

[tYSON2295]

wait a bit if rumors are true then the 780s should come out around 20th-23rd if you can wait for that then get those if not i'd say the 690 since its basically 2 680s on one card cost 100 less and saves a bit in power and a bit less heat plus only takes one slot so better airflow/no spacing problems

[Guest Gazzer96]

690 sucks with high res because of the 2gb Vram, would buy Titan, or 2 7970 with 3gb, or 2 680 with 4 gb

I wold like to get a Titan, or even 2 of them which would perform better than 2 680s, especial with higher res/muti monitors, unfortunately I do not have the money.

[Guest Gazzer96]

wait a bit if rumors are true then the 780s should come out around 20th-23rd if you can wait for that then get those if not i'd say the 690 since its basically 2 680s on one card cost 100 less and saves a bit in power and a bit less heat plus only takes one slot so better airflow/no spacing problems

I'm getting my PC at August (as hopefully by then prices would come down), so if this is true I will get 2 780s... thats if the price is right.

[tYSON2295]

I'm getting my PC at August (as hopefully by then prices would come down), so if this is true I will get 2 780s... thats if the price is right.

yeah i'm waiting myself for a 770 im getting a 650 just for now because the intel hd 4000 sucks a**  i did have a 640 like 1 week ago but it had artifacts out of the box so i returned it but it did play bf3 on ultra lol with msaa off was quite suprised although in bf3 i didn't get the artifacts that bad only from afar 

[Shikarikato]

Yeah this all falls into budget, regardless of 780 pricing, the 680 pricing will take a hit due to 780 so that extra saved money can always go toward your monitor selection. 2x 680 will be always superior to a 690 in performance especially considering you can grab 4gb if you plan to go to higher resolutions. Anything above 3 way SLI doesn't mean anything unless you want to benchmark with LN2. 680 SLI works, people do it all the time driver support is pretty bad though if you want to scale in games.

[Guest Gazzer96]

yeah i'm waiting myself for a 770 im getting a 650 just for now because the intel hd 4000 sucks a**  i did have a 640 like 1 week ago but it had artifacts out of the box so i returned it but it did play bf3 on ultra lol with msaa off was quite suprised although in bf3 i didn't get the artifacts that bad only from afar 

I've currently got a Laptop with a 445M and 3GB of VRAM and this does a very good job for a Laptop; I can get around 35fps with modded hi-res textures and DX11 enabled, but now it is starting to struggle with newer games which have come out. It used to get about 150+fps on Minecraft, but now for some reason I can barely get near 60fps which is quite odd, since I can get 60fps on Darksider 2.

[tYSON2295]

the 650 is going off to my little bros build when i buy the 770

[Shikarikato]

Heat is a big thing with clock speeds, if its getting too hot ( summer is rolling around wee! ) it'll downclock. Though I don't think it matters very much as I don't know of a laptop that has over a 60 Hz display.

[Guest Gazzer96]

Heat is a big thing with clock speeds, if its getting too hot ( summer is rolling around wee! ) it'll downclock. Though I don't think it matters very much as I don't know of a laptop that has over a 60 Hz display.

My 445M reached 90oC quite often and was still running at the full 720Mhz while at those temps, so I had to buy an external fan and run the laptop off the mains and enable adaptive Vsync with triple buffering, which dropped it to 80oC while gaming, so now it runs as hot the i7 inside the laptop. It is still hot, but it stops it from reaching 100oC; I got the BSOD at one point to stop the GPU from completely melting and from just feeling the surface of the laptop it nearly burnt my hand!

[Shikarikato]

Adaptive V-Sync or V-Sync in general will cap your frame rates at 60 FPS to prevent tearing this is more or less better for the gaming experience as long as you don't face 20-30 fps dips but adaptive v-sync does a good job at trying to regulate that.

[Maverik5124]

get 2x 680 4gb. The 4gb is important for playing at high resolution. Or get a titan :)

[Guest Gazzer96]

get 2x 680 4gb. The 4gb is important for playing at high resolution. Or get a titan :)

Would love to get 2 titans but haven't get the money for it or even for a single titan for that matter.

[Guest Gazzer96]

Adaptive V-Sync or V-Sync in general will cap your frame rates at 60 FPS to prevent tearing this is more or less better for the gaming experience as long as you don't face 20-30 fps dips but adaptive v-sync does a good job at trying to regulate that.

The triple buffer helps as well, but it is said that it uses up VRAM, but I have 3GB of it so it should be fine.

[xToFxREAPER]

i would say the 2 680's with 4gb option is probably your best, you get 4gb of usable vram instead of 2gb with the 690.. itll perform much better at higher res then a 690 would

[Guest Gazzer96]

i would say the 2 680's with 4gb option is probably your best, you get 4gb of usable vram instead of 2gb with the 690.. itll perform much better at higher res then a 690 would

After reading all of the comments I will get 2 680s. If the rumors are true then I will get 2 780s instead.

[ARod]

At the momment I am going to be using 1080p, but I will get a 1440p monitor maybe after Christmas, or even a 1600p screen depending on the price.

 

 

Woa, stop right there.  You don't need dual cards.  Single 680 will do you fine.

[killerx525]

Dual 680 are needed if the OP wants optimal FPS.