NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Video Card Features

Benchmark Reviews previews the world's most powerful graphics solution

Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Product Name: GeForce GTX 690
Suggested Retail Price: $999.99 MSRP

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by NVIDIA.

NOTE:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Benchmark Performance Test Results will be available on 03 May 2012.

Admit it: you knew the GeForce GTX 690 was coming ever since the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 video card launched back on 22 March (2012). It didn't take long for the engineers at NVIDIA to find the right combination of speed and power before they could successfully fit two 28nm GK104 Kepler GPUs onto the same printed circuit board. A mere six weeks later, and now you find yourself reading all about it. So here's a spoiler alert: it's awesome and you'll want it... and this article gives you something to dream about at night.

Of the many platforms available for gamers to enjoy video games, there's no question that the highest quality graphics come from PC. While game developers might not consider PC gaming as lucrative as entertainment consoles, companies like NVIDIA use desktop graphics to set the benchmark for smaller more compact designs that make it into notebooks, tablets, and smartphone devices. NVIDIA's Kepler GPU architecture is an example of this, delivering unprecedented performance while operating cooler and consuming less power in relation to performance than all previous flagship graphics processors.

In this article Benchmark Reviews inspects the features available on the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, a double-slot graphics card equipped with a pair of Kepler GPUs. Featuring NVIDIA's cutting-edge GPU Boost technology, the GeForce GTX 690 video card can dynamically adjust power and clock speeds based on real-time application demands. Using EVGA Precision-X, the GeForce GTX 690 has both GPUs overclocked beyond 1200GHz to produce ultimate graphical performance in PC video games.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 690 is the first dual-GPU graphics card designed around their next-generation Kepler architecture, which adopts key aspects from the previous Fermi architecture. Building from the 32-core Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) from Fermi on the GeForce GTX 580, NVIDIA optimized Kepler GPUs with twice the performance per watt using an innovative 192-core streaming multiprocessor (referred to as SMX) that exchanges a double speed processor clock for more processor cores. Utilizing eight SMXs per Kepler GPU, the , the GeForce GTX 690 boasts 3072 total CUDA cores which manage shader, texture, geometry, and compute tasks. A reengineered memory subsystem reduces pipeline penalty for these many cores, and enables the 4GB GDDR5 resident on the GTX 690 to reach memory speeds up to 6.0 Gb/s.

In addition to dual GPUs using the freshly released Kepler architecture and NVIDIA's new GPU Boost technology, the GeForce GTX 690 video card includes several refinements to the user experience. Smoother FXAA and adaptive vSync technology results in less chop, stutter, and tearing in on-screen motion. Overclockers might see their enthusiast experiments threatened by the presence of NVIDIA GPU Boost technology, but dynamically adjusting power and clock speed profiles can be supplemented with additional overclocking or shut off completely. Adaptive vSync on the other hand, is a welcome addition by all users - from the gamer to the casual computer user. This new technology adjusts the monitor's refresh rate whenever the FPS rate becomes too low to properly sustain vertical sync (when enabled), thereby reducing stutter and tearing artifacts. Finally, NVIDIA is introducing TXAA, a film-style anti-aliasing technique with a mix of hardware post-processing, custom CG file style AA resolve, and an optional temporal component for better image quality.

GeForce GTX-Series Product Family

First Look: GeForce GTX 690

NVIDIA has built the GeForce GTX 690 for the ultra-performance hardware enthusiast and hard-core gamer wanting to play PC video games at their maximum graphics quality settings with the highest screen resolution possible. It's a small niche market that few can claim, but also one that every PC gamer dreams of enjoying.

The outer dimensions for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 give this 1.5" tall double-bay, 3.9" wide, 11.0" long graphics card a similar profile to their last generation GeForce GTX 590 dual-GPU graphics solution, yet offers a more compatible length compared to the AMD Radeon HD 6990 that reaches 12.0" long.

NVIDIA engineers went overboard tweaking the design on GeForce GTX 690, such as the cast aluminum shroud frame that is protected with (Chem-101 alert!) trivalent chromium plating. This special highly-bonded trivalent chromium plating gives the GeForce GTX 690 a sleek look while also being highly durable. The fan housing on GeForce GTX 690 is made from injection molded magnesium alloy, which takes advantage of magnesium's light weight, superior heat dissipation, and improved acoustic dampening properties. By positioning a clear polycarbonate window above each cooling unit, NVIDIA gives this video card an added design dimension.

Specified for 300W Thermal Design Power output, the GeForce GTX 690 dramatically outperforms NVIDIA's previous generation dual-GPU solution. Because TDP demands have been reduced from 365W TDP for the GeForce GTX 590 to 300W TDP, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 690 runs cooler and has move power available for overclocking. NVIDIA has added a "GeForce GTX" logo along the exposed side video card, and the LED backlit letters glow green when the system is powered on. GeForce GTX 690 requires two eight-pin PCI-E connections, and NVIDIA recommends a 650W power supply for computer systems equipped with one of these video cards.

The standard GTX 690 reference design offers four simultaneously-functional connections: three dual-link DVI (DL-DVI) ports and a mini-DisplayPort 1.2 connection. Add-in partners may elect to remove or possibly further extend any of these video interfaces, but most will likely retain the original engineering. Only one of these video cards is necessary to drive triple-display NVIDIA 3D-Vision Surround functionality. Each of these video interfaces consume exhaust-vent real estate, but this has only a minor impact on cooling performance because each 28nm Kepler GPU generates less heat than past GeForce processors, and also because NVIDIA intentionally positions the heatsink far enough from these vents to equalize exhaust pressure.

A slightly reward 80mm (3.15") cooling fan mounted with a small above-surface offset takes advantage of the chamfered depression to draw cool air into the angled fan shroud, allowing more air to reach the intake whenever two or more video cards are combined in close-proximity SLI configurations. To create the intricate geometries required for the fan housing, NVIDIA used a form of injection molding called thixomolding, in which liquid magnesium alloy is injected into a mold. It's unlikely that add-in card partners will offer cooling solutions that surpass the benchmark of this reference design.

As with past-generation dual-GPU GeForce GTX series graphics cards, the GTX 690 is capable of a two-card "Quad-SLI" configuration. Because GeForce GTX 690 is PCI-Express 3.0 compliant device, the added bandwidth could potentially come into demand as future games and applications make use of these resources. Most games will be capable of using the highest graphics quality settings available using only a single GeForce GTX 690 graphics card, but multi-card Quad-SLI configurations are perfect for gamers wanting to experience high-performance video games played at their highest quality settings with all the bells and whistles enabled across multiple monitors.

In our next section, we disassemble the GeForce GTX 690 for a more detailed look and inspect the internal component technology that NVIDIA used to build this dual-GPU video card...

NVIDIA Kepler Dual-GPU Details

On prior dual-GPU video cards, compromises had to be made in order to produce a final product that performed well while still delivering excellent acoustics. In the past, GPU power has been the largest gating factor. For instance, clock speeds had to be lowered dramatically for GeForce GTX 295 and GTX 590. However, thanks to the GTX 690's robust board design and Kepler's tremendous power efficiency, the GeForce GTX 690 largely overcomes this issue.

To best deliver optimal cooling performance in the smallest footprint possible, each GPU has its own dedicated cooling unit consisting of a self-contained copper vapor chamber and a dual-slot heatsink. These two heatsink rest atop an aluminum baseplate, which provides additional cooling for the PCB and board components. Channeling cool air through the GPU coolers is a center-mounted 80mm axial fan, which NVIDIA optimized to use the most ideal fin pitch and fan angle at which air from the fan hits the fin stack to maximize air movement while minimizing noise output.

Low-profile airflow channels are molded into the aluminum baseplate section directly below the 80mm cooling fan, which encourage smooth airflow all the way to outer edges. All of the components located under the cooling fan are made low-profile, so that they won't cause turbulence or obstruct airflow. NVIDIA acoustic engineers fine-tuned the GeForce GTX 690 fan control software so that changes in fan speed would occur gradually, rather than in noticeable and annoying audible steps.

With both heatsinks removed, two NVIDIA graphics processors are exposed as illustrated below. Armed with 3072 CUDA Cores and 4GB of GDDR5 memory, the GeForce GTX 690 offers performance similar to that of two GeForce GTX 680 cards running in SLI. However, the GeForce GTX 690 boasts a number of key advantages over GeForce GTX 680 SLI: the GTX 690 only needs one PCI Express graphics slot, and the GeForce GTX 690 board runs cooler and quieter than GeForce GTX 680 SLI while also consuming less power. Finally, two GeForce GTX 690 cards can be combined together to support Quad SLI.

An onboard PLX bridge chip provides independent PCI Express 3.0 x16 access to both processors for maximum multi-GPU throughput. Two independent 28nm NVIDIA Kepler GPUs combine to offer 16 SMX units, equal to twice the amount available with GeForce GTX 680. The memory subsystem on GeForce GTX 690 remains similar to the GTX 680, consisting of four 64-bit memory controllers (256-bit) with 2GB of GDDR5 memory per GPU operating at 6008 MHz data rate. The base clock speed of the GeForce GTX 690 is 915 MHz with a typical Boost Clock speed of 1019MHz, which is only 3.9% below the GeForce GTX 680's 1058 MHz Boost Clock.

NVIDIA engineers have used the top-quality electronic components across the entire board, which has been designed for maximum efficiency in order to properly power and cool the twin GPUs at the heart of GeForce GTX 690. Featuring a 10-phase power supply with a ten-layer 2-ounce copper PCB provides the GeForce GTX 690 video card with high-efficiency power delivery with less internal resistance, lower power consumption, and less heat generation.

Lower power and less heat also enhances the board's longevity, while the added PCB layers provide maximum signal integrity. The result of these efforts is not only lower noise output, but also a less-perceptible noise. By eliminating board clutter, high-frequency sounds are removed. When you listen to the fan alone, it's clean and smooth.

Examining the outer-exposed printed circuit board (PCB) on the underside of the video card reveals a few small differences compared to GeForce GTX 590, namely the absence of aluminum heatsink plates covering the backside of each GPU, and the inclusion of a Richtek Technology Corporation RT8802A multi-phase synchronous PWM advanced digital power controller with over-volting capability.

Now that you've seen what this video card offers for hardware features, make sure to read our NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Benchmark Performance Test Results (available 03 May 2012).

So what do you think of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Kepler graphics card, and are you planning to buy one?

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