GTX 690 vs GTX Titan

[Lepton87]

Which card why you prefer? If you feel like it, write why. I'm curious as those cards are the same price and are somewhat directly competing with each other. Both are from the same manufacturer so brand bias don't come into play here. Disregard SLI entirely, I'm asking only which card would you prefer if you only could have one in your computer.

 

[imported_bman]

I would take Titan over a 690, because of mico-stuttering and the additional latency of multi gpu rendering. If some form of split frame rendering was the norm then I would go with a 690 (correct me if I am wrong, I think that SFR does not have the latency and stuttering issues that AFR does).

 

[zaydq]

Considering I don't care about heat and noise. I'd take the gtx 690. It is faster.

 

[Lepton87]

I would take Titan over a 690, because of mico-stuttering and the additional latency of multi gpu rendering. If some form of split frame rendering was the norm then I would go with a 690 (correct me if I am wrong, I think that SFR does not have the latency and stuttering issues that AFR does).

No, it shouldn't have but I haven't heard of either graphics company taking this approach to multi-GPU in recent times. In the past it was called scissors mode, you could see which half is rendered by which card if you wanted to. I don't know if new drivers even allow this. Performance gain was much less tough. If I remember correctly it was only around 30% speed-up mostly with few exceptions. There was another approach it was ATI's super tiling method where the screen was split into many squares.

 

[tviceman]

I'd rather have Titan and not worry about dual card potential issues.

 

[Zanovar]

Titan

 

[Bill Brasky]

I voted assuming we have to take the cards as is, without any aftermarket cooling.

Having a quiet computer is significantly more important to me that a couple of fps. I'd take Titan between the two, but both would be too loud for my tastes at stock.

If we are allowed add waterblocks for a custom waterloop then I'd take the 690. Is this allowed in your scenario?

 

[Ayah]

I'd go Titan. the lower the number of GPU cores, the better.

 

[nanaki333]

if you're not looking to buy more than 1 $999 card, i would go with the 690. it's a faster card overall.

 

[96Firebird]

Titan. More memory, single GPU, lower power requirements, better compute. 690 may be slightly faster, but I feel Nvidia may be able to optimize the drivers a little more for the Titan.

 

[blastingcap]

I'd rather have Titan and not worry about dual card potential issues.

This. Gimme the single GPU every time.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Titan - never worry about VRAM again.

 

[notty22]

Titan. More memory, single GPU, lower power requirements, better compute. 690 may be slightly faster, but I feel Nvidia may be able to optimize the drivers a little more for the Titan.

Agreed. Titan. Both choices are compelling.
Had slI , it works very well. But, there are always certain games, whether older /and or unique engines that don't play well. You are left with single gpu.

 

[alcoholbob]

Never have to worry about frame variances from SLI.

 

[hawtdawg]

Titan is pretty beast once you overclock it.

 

[Lepton87]

Titan is pretty beast once you overclock it.

Mine can't do +135 offset on the core, right now I'm going to try that with more Voltage. It's 37.5mV but it may be enough hopefully. As for the topic the results surprised me.
I didn't expect such one-sided results. It's a victory by a landslide for Titan. I'm interested in what you think about Titan vs 7990 or a good aftermarket 7970 CF (like Gigabyte GV-R797TO-3GD 1100 MHz/1500MHz default clocks) it might do 1200MHz on the core. (Lightning or ROG are out of the question, they can't be bought where I live, ROG in general can't be bought)
7970CF 1200MHz/1600 would be substantially faster then Titan, how about this one. But if the titan I bought taught me one thing, that would be you can never count on any OC at all.

 

[alcoholbob]

Mine can't do +135 offset on the core, right now I'm going to try that with more Voltage. It's 37.5mV but it may be enough hopefully. As for the topic the results surprised me.
I didn't expect such one-sided results. It's a victory by a landslide for Titan. I'm interested in what you think about Titan vs 7990 or a good aftermarket 7970 CF (like Gigabyte GV-R797TO-3GD 1100 MHz/1500MHz default clocks) it might do 1200MHz on the core. (Lightning or ROG are out of the question, they can't be bought where I live, ROG in general can't be bought)
7970CF 1200MHz/1600 would be substantially faster then Titan, how about this one. But if the titan I bought taught me one thing, that would be you can never count on any OC at all.

My card only boosts to 979MHz, and does up to +144MHz gpu block offset so it maxes out at 1,123MHz core. How fast were you hoping the Titan would OC to?

 

[DaveSimmons]

I prefer a single-GPU card, but I'm too cheap to buy either of them or the 7990. The GTX 680 was my price limit, and if it had been available at the time I'd had gotten a 670 instead.

 

[hawtdawg]

Mine can't do +135 offset on the core, right now I'm going to try that with more Voltage. It's 37.5mV but it may be enough hopefully. As for the topic the results surprised me.
I didn't expect such one-sided results. It's a victory by a landslide for Titan. I'm interested in what you think about Titan vs 7990 or a good aftermarket 7970 CF (like Gigabyte GV-R797TO-3GD 1100 MHz/1500MHz default clocks) it might do 1200MHz on the core. (Lightning or ROG are out of the question, they can't be bought where I live, ROG in general can't be bought)
7970CF 1200MHz/1600 would be substantially faster then Titan, how about this one. But if the titan I bought taught me one thing, that would be you can never count on any OC at all.

You have to mod the BIOS to get the good speeds. Not anything dangerous necessarily, you just have to up the max TDP to 300w. Doing this with 1.87v, Im able to get a game stable 1180mhz, coupled with a memory offset of +700 that never throttles.

While crossfire 7970 might be faster on paper, it won't match the fluidity you get from a single GPU. I actually came from crossfire 6950's, and I can't get over how smooth games are with the Titan in comparison. Never so much as a hiccup. The 6950's can stay locked at 60fps in most cases, but there's always an occasional stutter or hiccup. You don't get this with the Titan, especially if the framerate is below 60. It's still smooth, crossfire can turn into a juddery mess if the framerate drops too far below 60.

I've had my fill of multi-GPU for a while. I wanted the fastest single GPU solution I could get. And while I still have mixed feelings about spending 1k on GPU's, I feel better about spending it on the Titan than I would about spending it on a multi-card setup. It also seemed like the smartest move for 1600p.

 

[Lepton87]

My card only boosts to 979MHz, and does up to +144MHz gpu block offset so it maxes out at 1,123MHz core. How fast were you hoping the Titan would OC to?

Actually it does +135 offset on the core, I retested it and it works fine other then some strange bug that resets the driver when I leave tropics demo, that's the app I test stability with. I actually tested 165MHz offset and it didn't work, but I can't OC memory almost at all. Strangely with +135MHz offset my clock is exactly the same as yours 1,123MHz I was hoping that I would be able to OC memory at least close to 7GHz but I can't OC memory almost at all.

You have to mod the BIOS to get the good speeds. Not anything dangerous necessarily, you just have to up the max TDP to 300w. Doing this with 1.87v, Im able to get a game stable 1180mhz, coupled with a memory offset of +700 that never throttles.

700MHz memory offset, WOW, mine doesn't do 100MHz, I didn't try less. 7400MHz on the memory is crazy fast. From 6GHz to 7,4GHz that's some seriously high memory OC. 1.87V what's that voltage? Standard Voltage is 1,1625V. How can you even change Voltage? Without modding it only allows 1.2V. 1.87V seems really crazy, very high even with LN2 cooling.

While crossfire 7970 might be faster on paper, it won't match the fluidity you get from a single GPU. I actually came from crossfire 6950's, and I can't get over how smooth games are with the Titan in comparison. Never so much as a hiccup. The 6950's can stay locked at 60fps in most cases, but there's always an occasional stutter or hiccup. You don't get this with the Titan, especially if the framerate is below 60. It's still smooth, crossfire can turn into a juddery mess if the framerate drops too far below 60.

I came from 6990+2x6950 (quad fire) and I don't see any positive change in fluidity when at 60fps. It looks more fluid at 30fps but with all cards I see a considerable slow-down, so low fps look slightly more fluid but I always want to be at V-sync limit (60fps) and I only tolerate very occasional drops from 60fps. I also had 7970CF for two weeks but returned them because coil whine was unbearable, I didn't actually game on them. Quadfire worked well when it actually used all cards, but it had so many problems with working correctly that I was often forced to disable CF at all and just play on a single card which was VERY frustrating.

 

[hawtdawg]

700MHz memory offset, WOW, mine doesn't do 100MHz, I didn't try less. 7400MHz on the memory is crazy fast. From 6GHz to 7,4GHz that's some seriously high memory OC. 1.87V what's that voltage? Standard Voltage is 1,1625V. How can you even change Voltage? Without modding it only allows 1.2V. 1.87V seems really crazy, very high even with LN2 cooling.

lol, I meant 1.187. Strangly, going to 1.2 or even 1.212 (after bios mod) doesn't get me so much as another 5 mhz on the core. I would hit the TDP limit with anything higher anyway though. 265w is pretty limiting on these things, but upping it to 300w will give you some nice headroom. I don't know what to tell you about my ram overclock, I guess I'm just lucky? Strangely enough, I have the cheapest EVGA card.

I came from 6990+2x6950 (quad fire) and I don't see any positive change in fluidity when at 60fps. It looks more fluid at 30fps but with all cards I see a considerable slow-down, so low fps look slightly more fluid but I always want to be at V-sync limit (60fps) and I only tolerate very occasional drops from 60fps. I also had 7970CF for two weeks but returned them because coil whine was unbearable, I didn't actually game on them. Quadfire worked well when it actually used all cards, but it had so many problems with working correctly that I was often forced to disable CF at all and just play on a single card which was VERY frustrating.

The issue I have with crossfire, isn't that 60 fps "feels" different necessarily, but that there is just occasional stuttering or hiccuping from time to time, especially if you don't stay locked at 60fps. Drops in framerate seem like they're exaggerated in crossfire configs. I'm pretty anal about that kind of thing though, and I think I've just become hyper-sensitive to it, as my last 2 GPU setups were both crossfire (I had 4870's prior to 6950's). Crossfire configs definitely don't age like a single GPU. They're great as long as they can keep your FPS at 60, but once they reach the point where they can't, the stuttering can become pretty irritating.

Another thing I really like about the Titan is that it stays nice and quiet.

 

[alcoholbob]

Actually it does +135 offset on the core, I retested it and it works fine other then some strange bug that resets the driver when I leave tropics demo, that's the app I test stability with. I actually tested 165MHz offset and it didn't work, but I can't OC memory almost at all. Strangely with +135MHz offset my clock is exactly the same as yours 1,123MHz I was hoping that I would be able to OC memory at least close to 7GHz but I can't OC memory almost at all.

700MHz memory offset, WOW, mine doesn't do 100MHz, I didn't try less. 7400MHz on the memory is crazy fast. From 6GHz to 7,4GHz that's some seriously high memory OC. 1.87V what's that voltage? Standard Voltage is 1,1625V. How can you even change Voltage? Without modding it only allows 1.2V. 1.87V seems really crazy, very high even with LN2 cooling.

Yeah, I can't overclock my memory at all. If I start Crysis 3 with any overclock (I've tried 30, 60, 100 MHz), the game just flat out crashes trying to load a level, but runs perfectly fine otherwise. I can overclock up to 50MHz on 3dmark13 without it crashing, at 60MHz it does like half of Firestrike then the test fails.

Some people seem to have a lot more success with memory, but as far as I can tell Titan isn't memory starved so you probably won't even see 1 fps increase in performance unless you do at least 500MHz mem OC.

 

[Grooveriding]

Overclocking memory on Titan is deceptive. You can run a massive overclock and pass a lot of tests then find one where it fails quickly with that overclock and much lower ones.

Far Cry 3 tends to be one of the best games for exposing bad memory overclocks.

 

[f1sherman]

90% for Titan <3 <3

WOOF

Someone oughta show this to NVIDIA... and AMD

 

[sontin]

Titan with a mod bios.

I don't want to pay $1000 and life with problems like missing profiles, bad profiles, less than 100% scaling, more input lag and microstuttering.