Whats better 2 ASUS GTX690-4GD5, GeForce® GTX 690 vs 4 gtx 690

[JJuuBB]

Hi before I ask my question I'd like to say I'm terribly inexperienced with computer hardware, so forgive me for my poor level of my questions.

So I was just about to order my computer until a few people told me that 4 gtx 680 are better than 2 gtx 690. I want to know what is better according to everything. I'm more inclined to go with the 2 gtx 690 since less cards less problems e.g less power and heat consumption. Plus it looks much more better. Anyway I would go with the one with the best performance and I want to know both pro's and cons of the cards.

Specs;

(Don't judge me I know it's overkill but I really wanted something this great even when I was young I'm 17 so it's not that long ago and still be great in years to come and money is not an issue.)


Power Supply: SILVERSTONE Strider ST1500 Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 1500W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Four 6-pin + Four 8-pin PCIe


Processor: INTEL Core i7-3960X Extreme Six-Core, 3.3 - 3.9GHz TB, LGA2011, 15MB L3 Cache Overclocked 20% and up.


Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, LGA2011, Intel® X79, DDR3-2400 (O.C.) 64GB /8, PCIe x16 SLI CF /4+1*, SATA 6Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 3Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /8, HDA, BT, GbLAN, EATX


Liquid Cooling: CUSTOM Premium 1xCPU + 2xGPU Liquid Cooling Kit, Installed (Dual Loop) Coolant: Koolance Blue.


Ram: CORSAIR 16GB (4 x 4GB) Dominator-GT DHX Pro PC3-17000 DDR3 2133MHz CL9 (9-11-10-27) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC


Sound Cards: HT OMEGA eClaro Sound Card, 7.1 channels, 24-bit 192KHz, PCIe x1, Full-height/Low-profile


Hard Drives (1,2,3,4,5 and 6):CORSAIR 480GB Force Series™ GT SSD, MLC SandForce SF-2281, 555/525MB/s, 2.5-Inch w/ 3.5-Inch Bracket, SATA 6 Gb/s


Raid Configuration: RAID 10


SATA Raid Controllers: HIGHPOINT RocketRAID 640 SATA 6 Gb/s RAID Controller


Card Readers: AFT PRO-57U Black All-In-One Card Reader/Writer Drive w/ USB 3.0 Port, 5.25" Bay


Optical Drive 1: PLEXTOR PX-LB950SA 12x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA


Optical Drive 2: PLEXTOR PX-LB950SA 12x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA


Network Cards: BIGFOOT NETWORKS Killer™ 2100 Network Card, 400MHz NPU, 10/100/1000 Mbps, 128MB DDR2, PCIe x1,

also I want to know is this system fully compatible and what sound card should I get I want the one that will give the best audio.

 

[drums101]

drop the network card man waste of money you really dont need it....and if I were you I would stay away from 4 gtx 680s and go for the 2 gtx 690s....in theory the 4 680s would be faster but that performance is negated by the overhead of having 4 cards in sli...not to mention the amount of issues that you will have with the 4 cards...so in the end 2 690s will probably net you more performance and alot less heart ache...the sound card you have picked out will work in your system but again its not really necessary onboard audio has come along way. unless you are an audiophile with crazy expensive speakers you prolly wont notice a difference between the two

 

[JJuuBB]

drop the network card man waste of money you really dont need it....and if I were you I would stay away from 4 gtx 680s and go for the 2 gtx 690s....in theory the 4 680s would be faster but that performance is negated by the overhead of having 4 cards in sli...not to mention the amount of issues that you will have with the 4 cards...so in the end 2 690s will probably net you more performance and alot less heart ache...the sound card you have picked out will work in your system but again its not really necessary onboard audio has come along way. unless you are an audiophile with crazy expensive speakers you prolly wont notice a difference between the two

Actually I do have crazy expensive speakers :S so is there a better sound card that gives better sound than the e claro and is compatible. BTW MONEY IS NOT AN ISSUE TAKE IT OUT OF THE ANSWERS.

Anyway I decided to go with the 2 690's I wanted to go with them from the start so thats a good thing.

 

[nupe123]

Wow this is an overkill setup for real. If I was you I would go for the SLI 690's. As the others have mentions 4 way SLI will produce heat and noise. You might as well go all out and put 64GB of ram in this thing as well. What kinda case are you putting all of this in? I want to see this Frankenstien when your done.

 

[drums101]

Actually I do have crazy expensive speakers :S so is there a better sound card that gives better sound than the e claro and is compatible. BTW MONEY IS NOT AN ISSUE TAKE IT OUT OF THE ANSWERS.

Anyway I decided to go with the 2 690's I wanted to go with them from the start so thats a good thing.

I dont really know too much about soundcards but I have a creative labs x-fi titantim fatality pro sound card and I like it alot....they have a new version of the card out but it only supports 5.1 surround sound so in my book its a downgrade. Even with the nice speakers I wouldn't get a sound card if I could do it all again when I built my rig I wouldn't have bothered and saved the 150 for something else and I have crazy nice speakers too.

 

[ahnilated]

I would stick with the 2X 690's. Less room and heat issues unless you are going to do water cooling.

The only thing about doing quad video cards is they have proven you only get about 7% FPS gain from the 4th card. The 3rd card gives you much more of a gain and hence is more cost effective.

I say if you have the money and want to do it have at it!

 

[firedice]

A waste of money means a waste of many other things. The 3rd GPU barely adds anything to performance. The 4th adds very close to nothing. If I were you and had SO much money to throw in the garbage can (which is what you're doing), I'd give to charity. We're not talking about "something great" here. We're talking about thousands of dollars in a 1% performance increase and on things you won't even notice.

 

[kevin83]

If you have no monetary constraints then go for the 2 690s and ignore the crap about getting rid of a sound or network card. If it fits and doesn't block airflow to the graphics card it can't hurt.

 

[zakattak80]

A waste of money means a waste of many other things. The 3rd GPU barely adds anything to performance. The 4th adds very close to nothing. If I were you and had SO much money to throw in the garbage can (which is what you're doing), I'd give to charity. We're not talking about "something great" here. We're talking about thousands of dollars in a 1% performance increase and on things you won't even notice.

i absolutely agree, throwing more money isnt going to make this system last any longer then a 1,500 to 2,000 dollar system. understand your saying money isn't a issue, but your going to buy something thats going to break much easier, and if your inexperience in hardware your just asking to have 5000 bucks go down a drain when something goes wrong. I hope you know how to maintain and clean a water loop.

 

[stickg1]

If you have no experience with high end hardware then you need to ditch the water cooling system. They have to be maintained. Hope you're comfortable with changing the coolant in your $5000 system. Hardware doesn't like to get wet. Get two 690s and lose the network card and sound card, if you get a high end motherboard you don't need it. Plus this will add extra space between and around the cards to cool these behemoths.

 

[vmem]

Ok, I get that money isn't an issue for you, but there's a reason people call a set up overkill, YOU WON"T NOTICE A DIFFERENCE! now I get spending top dollar for something nice, but this is like buying a Ferrari dressed up in a honda civic's shell... reasoning? one 690 is more than enough to top out just about anything you have, and if you want to use a six monitor set up or use this machine to max out games in 5 years or so, well, the 2GB of memory per card on the 690 won't be enough...

If I were you, I'd get 2 or 3 680s, and spend the extra on a nice watercooling set up. you'll get better performance, and learn how to build a waterloop and overclock like a pro, both are useful skills to have

 

[pezonator]

If you have the money and are using a 3 monitor setup, surely it would be better to go for 2 or 3 - 4GB 680's. I agree that if you don't know how to do water cooling, then don't do it as it's complicated. I must agree with using a sound card, it makes a huge difference! Having used my X-Fi Fatality Gamer Pro for a few years, trying the onboard on the new Z68, I just had to go back to the card.

 

[vmem]

If you have the money and are using a 3 monitor setup, surely it would be better to go for 2 or 3 - 4GB 680's. I agree that if you don't know how to do water cooling, then don't do it as it's complicated. I must agree with using a sound card, it makes a huge difference! Having used my X-Fi Fatality Gamer Pro for a few years, trying the onboard on the new Z68, I just had to go back to the card.

no one knows how to run water loops when they're born. he has a good opportunity to learn here. and I see a 680 card burned because of a badly managed water loop as a much better "waste" than running it as a 4th card in a quadfire set up running a single or even 2 monitors

 

[zakattak80]

no one knows how to run water loops when they're born. he has a good opportunity to learn here. and I see a 680 card burned because of a badly managed water loop as a much better "waste" than running it as a 4th card in a quadfire set up running a single or even 2 monitors

why would you learn to do something on the most expensive configuration possible? i taught myself to overclock on a much cheaper configuration then i have now.

 

[anti-painkilla]

If $$ is no issue, then water cooling is OK because it isn't a huge deal if/when he screws something up and has to replace parts.

Agreed, if you have the money why not. However, you (OP) will need to learn about all the components on a computer, how to build one and how to make and maintain a custom waterloop. There is a lot of help on toms relating to this. I would love to do this but lack the funds and the time.

Personally go with the 2 x 690's, drop the network card and keep the sound card. Enjoy your beast.

 

[vmem]

why would you learn to do something on the most expensive configuration possible? i taught myself to overclock on a much cheaper configuration then i have now.

never said he had to do it on his main rig. and I'm sure he can buy a few parts at $2-300 to test on if he needs to.

anyway, my main point is that he's young, lucky enough to have the enormous budget, and should take the opportunity to educate himself with it

 

[vmem]

@OP as for watercooling, if you're serious about going water cooling, that kit you're buying isn't enough, for starters it's only got 2 GPU blocks, and two 690 cards have 4 GPUs and consequently will need 4 GPU blocks

also, forgive me but I'm not used to totaling power usage that high, but can someone verify that a 1500W is enough to run his whole system underwater? especially given that he wants to overclock

 

[anti-painkilla]

Are you putting this computer together yourself or getting someone else to do it?

Sorry if this was mentioned before, kinda skim reading...

 

[bystander]

Since I can't find where you may have mentioned your monitor setup, could you post what monitor setup you have? You may find that if you are using a single monitor, that 2 690's will slow you down, because of the extra overhead. On the other hand, if you are running 3D surround or something like that, it may give good performance increases.

 

[dkcomputer]

I build systems like the one you list for myself everytime nvidia releases a new flagship gpu. You have to go water-cooling for 4x sli. Its not the kind of build you do your first go-around though. You want to setup redundancies in your water-cooling. If you're not trolling and your budget is that big, have it custom built with a warrenty by someone who builds custom computers. I quit doing repairs after everyone came to me with crap they blew up that took me years to figure out what stupid thing they did, like mounting a motherboard without standoffs. There should be someone like me close to where you live, just search your phonebook and google.

 

[Guest]

Go read the toms hardware article on quad sli, and how the input lag generated from quad sli is very noticeable and how for them, it makes games "unplayable".

For gaming, you only need 8gb of ram. It could be debated that 4gb is enough. It could also be debated that 3gb is enough. Most games are 32bit, which has a hard limit of 2gb unless patched.

Graphics cards - anything over SLI bring about very noticeable input lag. You should also go read all the articles on "Tech Report" about microstuttering in dual graphics card configurations. Their graphs on frame time really generates a much clearer picture on the gains you're getting with SLI vs just looking at raw frames per second.

You really need to do some research. And I really hope you're not planning on running this ridiculous system on a 60hz monitor, are you?

 

[JJuuBB]

A waste of money means a waste of many other things. The 3rd GPU barely adds anything to performance. The 4th adds very close to nothing. If I were you and had SO much money to throw in the garbage can (which is what you're doing), I'd give to charity. We're not talking about "something great" here. We're talking about thousands of dollars in a 1% performance increase and on things you won't even notice.

As I said before I'm going with the 690's and btw money is no no no way an issue at all so it's okay for me to spend this much if I have more than I need I might aswell have the best.

PS I have given to charity I mean loads, it's funny how people judge others just because they have more money than they know what to do with. The even more funny thing was I just gave to charity 3 days. I give to charity every month so I'd like to see what you've done.

 

[JJuuBB]

All of you I'm not building this myself!!! why would I do that if I'm inexperianced also for watercooling my bestfriend is a computer engineer so he'll do the watercooling and teach me. Plus I have a 5 year parts which basically means if better hardware comes out in a period of 5 years they'll replace my current parts so I'm good for about 5 years.

 

[JJuuBB]

Wow this is an overkill setup for real. If I was you I would go for the SLI 690's. As the others have mentions 4 way SLI will produce heat and noise. You might as well go all out and put 64GB of ram in this thing as well. What kinda case are you putting all of this in? I want to see this Frankenstien when your done.

64gb will negatively effect my overclock and won't make a difference in gaming the dominator is the fastest right now for gaming.

 

[JJuuBB]

So fatal1ty champion or the eclaro