GTX 690 or wait?

SammyAl7

Honorable
Jul 1, 2013
86
0
10,640
Hi everyone,

As you can imagine with the new generation of NVIDIA and AMD cards, a lot of people are selling their 600 series and 7000 series NVIDIA and AMD cards. I plan on building a PC at the end of the month, and I came across an ad for a GTX 690 for $600 CAD (obviously no tax, and price is negotiable as well). It has been used for a year and the owner is willing to test it as well so i'm not worried about the condition. Is it worth going after this card or should i get a 700 series NVIDIA card, wait for the R9 cards with aftermarket coolers, or even wait a few months to pick up the Maxwell architecture NVIDIA cards? (I have a 6870 in my PC right now). Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!
 
I'm going to assume 13% tax (e.g. Ontario):

GTX 690: $600, no tax
GTX 780 Ti: $904 including tax
R9 280x: $711 including tax
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=065750
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_558&item_id=065245

Perfomance-wise, GTX 690 > 780 Ti > 280x
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/11/27/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/3

GTX 690 is the fastest and the cheapest. However, it is used/no warranty. It also may stink in games that don't support SLI well, since it's 2 GPUs on a PCB.
GTX 780 Ti is less fast, but still very fast. Very expensive. New/with warranty.
R9 280x is the slowest of the 3. Not the cheapest, but close. New/with warranty.

It's really hard to say. Personally I'd be too worried about the lack of warranty and I'd end up with the 280x or the 780 Ti. If you're willing to take a chance, and you're lucky, the GTX 690 is the best and cheapest card of the set. I guess it really depends on your preferences.


 

SammyAl7

Honorable
Jul 1, 2013
86
0
10,640
Apparently it only has 2gb VRAM which is a problem, I like to mod my games to add high-res textures (such as Skyrim) and I also plan on getting a 1440p monitor... The dual 770's sound great but vram is the issue as well
 

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