With the recent release of the GTX 980 it got me thinking. For quite a while the old GTX 690 had been an incredibly fast card, however, it has not been compared to the GTX 980, yet. Is it slightly faster, or slightly slower.
It would still be slightly faster than a 980, but less consistent and more of a hassle.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1184?vs=1351
Usually the 980 wins out. It will also use less power and create less heat and noise.
You need to remember that the 690 is a dual GPU card much like the 7990 or R9 295X2 (Minus the liquid cooling of course). It is two 680s on one PCB.
I'd imagine it would be close and win in some games where SLI scaling works well but in others where it doesn't it won't be much faster than a single 680 or 770. Both of which are slower than a 970.
I'd recommend the 970 or 980 depending on your budget and needs.
I will kinda argue that the 690 is a bit faster taking into consideration if Scaling was Ideal but overall i'd go with the GTX 970. for $320+ you get a 1440p Gaming Card. that Efficient and has impeccable price to performance.
Thanks