Radeon HD 7990 And GeForce GTX 690: Bring Out The Big Guns

Features
By Igor Wallossek
published

EVGA recently lent our German lab one of the GeForce GTX 690s we've had in the U.S. for months. The purpose? To pit against HIS' upcoming 7970 X2 and PowerColor's Devil13 HD7990, both dual-Tahiti boards vying to become the world's fastest graphics card.

Micro-Stuttering: Adaptive VSync (Nvidia)

Normal and Adaptive VSync with EVGA's GeForce GTX 690

Let's first have a look at performance with vertical synchronization enabled. As we can see in the chart below, the driver tries to sync the frame rate to the monitor's refresh.

Nvidia also offers Adaptive VSync as an option in its driver. From our launch coverage of the GeForce GTX 680 (GeForce GTX 680 2 GB Review: Kepler Sends Tahiti On Vacation):

Nvidia’s solution to the pitfalls of running with v-sync on or off is called Adaptive VSync. Basically, any time your card pushes more than 60 FPS, v-sync remains enabled. When the frame rate drops below that barrier, v-sync is turned off to prevent stuttering. The 300.99 driver provided with press boards enables Adaptive VSync through a drop-down menu that also contains settings for turning v-sync on or off.

Nvidia's Adaptive VSync feature works well. In light of this, AMD really has some work to do. The thing is, there's a freeware tool out there able to achieve a comparable (or better) reduction in micro-stuttering. We're going to give that a shot on the next page.

Igor Wallossek
143 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1
    IMHO, the GTX690 looks best. There is something really alluring about shiny white metallic shine and the fine metal mesh. Along with the fluorescent green branding.
    Maybe i am too much of a retro SF buff :)
    Reply
  • Ironslice
    What's the most impressive is that the GTX 690 was made by nVidia themselves and not an OEM. Very nice and balanced card.
    Reply
  • tacoslave
    i wept
    Reply
  • hellfire24
    your test system is sexy!!!!!!!
    Reply
  • willyroc
    You can't really go wrong either way with these generally insane(so to speak) cards.
    Reply
  • amuffin
    Is it just me or do the 7970X2 and 7990 coolers look so fast and fugly? :heink:
    Reply
  • thanks for the in depth analysis with adaptive V-sync and radeon pro helping with micro stutter.

    not to take away anything for the hard work performed; i would have liked have seen nvidia's latest beta driver, 310.33, included also to see if nvidia is doing anything to improve the performance of their card instead of just adding 3d vision, AO, and sli profiles.
    Reply
  • esrever
    can we get some quadfire benchmarks too? :D
    Reply
  • RazorBurn
    AMD's Dual GPU at 500+ Watts of electricity is out for me.. Too Much Power and Noise..
    Reply
  • mohit9206
    2 670's in sli is better than spending on a 690 and 2 7950's in Xfire is better than spending on a 7990. this way you save nearly $300 both ways
    Reply