The new (official) 7990 or GT690?

Hardware Hub GPU
1

Hello you guys,

I'm new on the forum but have been following the feed for ages. I got this big question for all of you.

Recently AMD did an official launch of the 7990. When I looked at the benchmark, I saw it destroys. When I look at the price tho, I also saw it destroys bank accounts.

I however maybe have an account ready to be destroyed. But we're talking alot of money here. What should i get? a 690 or a 7990?

I've read several reviews, but I saw alot of questionmarks. Generally they acknowledge the fact that the 7990 its not a bad card, but there are some bummers.

I saw reviews complaining about the power usage. It consumes way more than the GT 690.
And in some cases even about the noise, throwing in this reason:

Tom's Hardware found that the 7990's power-related vibrations actually created more sound than the whirring fans themselves. Still, others like Hot Hardware say that noise is a "non-issue" with the HD 7990 despite its high power consumption.

So it does make a lot of noise? or not? I dont know anymore.

Also the 7990 seems to have a exhaust problem. It dissipates the heat into the case instead of exhausting it out the case. If this is true, the 690 has his things better together. There is no use stacking up heat in your case, even if its ventilated at some point.

Also alot of reviews claim the 690 'feels' better. I am guessing theyre aiming at microstuttering. Is this true? Is the 7990 still diseased with them low micro-second frames?

I don't know what to choose anymore. When I look at the numbers, the 7990 is faster and doesnt have a bigger price tag. But when I look at the words, I get words of caution all over the place, saying 690 is the more safe option.


I also understand a Titan offers a more "stable" framerate, but I do not think im willing to give 1000$ to a card that gets beaten almost every time (again very generaly speaking, which is ofc, always the problem)


Unless some of you guys have good arguments. What do you think? I know its a rather hard question. The 7990 is still very very fresh on the market. I'm simply hoping that this topic gets updated while time goes on, and more of you guys dare to take the step to compare it to the already available gt690.

Would love to hear more from you guys!

2

The benchmarks and reviews that i have read have all discouraged getting the 7990. They all say that the 690 performs almost equal, but with less heat, power, and noise. Or, 2 7970's in crossfire will almost always beat out the 7990 for around $200 less, but for the extra heat and power.

3

I would get a Titan, instead; a single poweful card (single GPU) is always better that dual GPUs, which are individually weaker (or, in this case, 2 weaker GPUs on the same PCBs). If you are going to be mining Bitcoins, Litecoins, etc., then the 7990 is the way to go; however, if you are gaming, the Titan is better. I think the 690 is a joke; 2GB of VRAM for $1000? That's terrible. If you don't want to get a single card, then 7970 CF will both be cheaper, and offer better performance than the 7990 in most situations, if not all. If you need a single card solution, then Titan or 7990. For dual card solutions, I would go 7970 CF.

 

4

7970 xfire is definetly a good solution aswell. Im embarassed I didnt include it in the options.

 

Thanks so far guys.

5

I am actually in the process of pondering this question. On one hand you have the 690 which as you said is both less power hungry (300W vs 375W for the official 7990) and it can be got somewhere around 800 bucks on ebay. However the 7990 is closer to the 7970 crossfire (you can debate the boosting though, as the 7990 under load is not going to hit its max boost clocks) with that higher base clock. The 690 sure as hell looks nicer too. The titan's story is the same as the 7990 ( you are gonna have to pay close to the MSRP) and it really depends where you fall in the single/ double gpu argument. I personally haven't had many show stoppers with dual gpu settups, and AMD is getting closer to releasing that major driver overhaul which should finally kill those random framerate drops. 

6

WTF?????????

THE 690 doesn't have 2GB, it has 4GB!

7

If your looking at a 690 or 7990, I would personaly get a titan. Single GPU, Much more VRam for multiscreen and you can get technicly 3 more if need be in the future. I would even get a single 680 before I get a 7990 or a 690. The share fact that you get more bang for your buck with a 680 and a titan has more potential. Not to mention you can disbale sli when dealing with games like Trials. 690 or 7990, your out of luck. 

8

It has 2GB per GPU, but since you can only utilize the VRAM on one GPU in multi-card / multi-GPU setups, it has 2GB of usable VRAM.

9

if your going nvidia wait for the 780 (two weeks or less) or wait till the 8xxx, wait for all the old inventory to be taken off the shelves then go nuts.

10

imo 7990, it is red and fancy. Every benchmark they showed outperforms 690. Still waiting for more data