GTX 690 vs 780 Hydro Copper

[Rayss523]

Both of these cards can currently be gotten for about 700$ but from what I can tell the air cooled 690 will outperform the water cooled 780. I like the water cooled feature as it would be a lot quieter than my current setup of 2 GTX 460 SE in SLI. I'd like to run Skyrim moded like crazy and I just upgraded to a triple monitor setup so I can't run the 460s in SLI if I want to use all 3 monitors.

Would 2 690s outscale 2 780s or vice versa?

If I got the watercooled 780 I'd buy an 140mm rad for after the cpu and before the vid card.

My rig
i7-950 @ 3.5Ghz
12GB Ram Gskill
2x GTX 460 Se 1GB in SLI
4x WD 7200rpm 2TB HDs
Corsair 800D case with a 360mm water cooling setup
750w Corsair PSU

 

[GhostRyder]

The 690 is essentially just 2 GTX 680s on one PCB so you will get the max performance from one GTX 690 versus buying a GTX 780. However in the case of 2 780s versus 2 690s I would go with 2 780's. The synthetics of 4 GPU's with 2 690s will look a bit better than 2 780s, however in most games 2 GPU's is all you will really benefit from (3 really is the max in games that give you much of a benefit). The single GPU performance will be better and crisper with 2 780s than with relying on 4 GPU's with the 690 since scaling on the 3rd and fourth GPU normally drops off to about 20% (Many times GPU scaling ranges on the 2nd card in the range of 60-80%, 3rd card 30-50%, 4th GPU 15-30%).

You will be better off with the 780s IMO.

Also since your going to 3 monitor setup, the extra VRAM on the 780 will be beneficial. You do not get the full benefit of the 4gb on the 690 because its really 2gb per GPU and having at least 3gb in this day and age is a necessity.

 

[Rayss523]

O wow, I did not know they were calling the 2GB per card 4GB, the extra VRAM was why the 690 was even being considered. Thanks

 

[GhostRyder]

O wow, I did not know they were calling the 2GB per card 4GB, the extra VRAM was why the 690 was even being considered. Thanks

Well its misleading but essentially all a 690 is is a pair of GTX 680s on one card so you still are going through SLI to run them. Same with a card like the 7990 from AMD, its jut a pair of 7970s on one PCB so each GPU only can use 3gb per GPU even though its labeled as a 6gb card.

In a multi-monitor setup (3 to be specific like you said) 3gb is enough for the highest setting on a pair of 780s (Though you keep mentioning 700 bucks, are you sure you don't mean the 780ti because the 780 is 500). 2gb is not really enough anymore for some of the extreme games (Metro, BF4, etc) if your running beyond 1080p on games mid 2013+. So I would definitely stick with 780's or 780ti's over 690s at this point for your setup.

 

[LNCPapa]

FYI - all cards that are dual gpu combine the VRAM for each GPU when they sell/advertise them. This applies for all the nVidia GX2 cards and the x90 cards. The same is true for the ATI/AMD X2 series, the 5970, and the x990.

 

[Rayss523]

The 780 GTX HYDROCOPPER is 700$, it'll let me avoid any heat issues from my pcie slots being kinda close for a dual-width card in sli.

 

[GhostRyder]

The 780 GTX HYDROCOPPER is 700$, it'll let me avoid any heat issues from my pcie slots being kinda close for a dual-width card in sli.

Yea forgot you were looking at the Hydro Copper edition sorry my bad.

Either way its still the better deal.

 

[Rayss523]

Installed the 780 hydro today and ran some tests. It is actually SLOWER when using the old GTX 460 SE as a dedicated video card. I used the Unigine benchmark to determine if it was better or worse and it was worse with the 460... very slightly worse

BTW the hydrocopper barely hit 50C after 4 benchmark tests back to back, my old 460 would hit 90C when really pushed like that

 

[GhostRyder]

Installed the 780 hydro today and ran some tests. It is actually SLOWER when using the old GTX 460 SE as a dedicated video card. I used the Unigine benchmark to determine if it was better or worse and it was worse with the 460... very slightly worse

BTW the hydrocopper barely hit 50C after 4 benchmark tests back to back, my old 460 would hit 90C when really pushed like that

If your trying to use the 460 as a Physx card its probably going to hold it back at this point because of changes and updates in architecture. At this point, I would just use the 780 to do everything.