Nvidia had a big new announcement last Sunday and although it probably wasn't exciting enough to have warranted the teasing they were doing, it is still one beast of a graphics card. Their new GeForce GTX 690 uses the same Kepler architecture as the recently released GTX 680, but like the older 590 it packs two GPUs on the one board. This detailed blog article from Nvidia shares some benchmarks that purportedly rank it almost twice as fast as a GTX 680 in several games.

For those that didn't catch the live-stream on the weekend, Nvidia has now released video footage from the event, which among all of the expected marketing hyperbole, features an appearance from Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli giving a new CryEngine 3 technology demo to show off what the extra power affords them -- claiming to be able to achieve a fidelity previously only seen in CG animations in real-time.

The 30 minute presentation also features some gameplay from the Unreal Development Kit powered mech combat game Hawken and you can watch it in its entirety embedded below or here in our video library.

Due to hit retail outlets on May 3rd 2012 and boasting 3072 CUDA parallel processing cores, chromium-plated aluminum body with a magnesium alloy fan housing and nickel-plated fins it all sounds rather opulent, with a US$999 price tag to match (we're not sure on local price point just yet, but graphics cards don't generally get marked up as steeply in Australia as other IT products).

While I would love this. More keen on the 670/660's.

Who wants to pay a grand for a graphics card though? Maybe in six months.

didnt the ps2 already do this?

there are a few reasons you might drop a lazy k on this, power, both processing power, and the amount it uses

it costs less than two high end cards, yet has equal or greater performance

and you'll be unlikely to need an upgrade for 4 - 6 years, during which you'll be able to play all the games on highest detail settings anyway

Game graphics advancements do seem to be slowing down compared to the rate the hardware technology is improving. The big releases such as Battlefield 3 and StarCraft II are also designed to cater to older machines.

^^ Because GOOD game developers know that gameplay and plot (for single player) are more important than having the best looking graphics if you have a s***ty plot and so resource hungry no one can play it (lol crysis lol).

chromium-plated aluminum body with a magnesium allow fan housing and nickel-plated fins it all sounds rather opulent

Magnesium allow? or alloy?

As I said in the other thread, my 2 570's are so heavy the end with the power connector sags down under their own weight so I've had to prop them up with paddlepop sticks. The last thing we need is all this fancy (and heavy) shrouding on them.

Cards for posers, IMHO.

and you'll be unlikely to need an upgrade for 4 - 6 years, during which you'll be able to play all the games on highest detail settings anyway

That has only been true because consoles have stagnated the push for better graphics in gaming with each big new iteration of a franchise. New consoles are due 2014 which may finally see some movement again.

However it may also just be a case of catching up to where we should be rather than pushing the limits of what's possible again.

Either way I don't think putting down a large amount of money on a graphics card at the moment is a good move either way. Even cheap cards can handle anything you throw at them at 1080p resolutions and by the time anything comes out that will even test this card it'd be out performed by a new low end card that costs a quarter of the price.

May deadly, is the question. There is only so much a set piece of hardware can do when it can't be upgraded, especially when rumours are running around of 6670's in the Xbox 360 which are quite laughable now.

Game graphics advancements do seem to be slowing down compared to the rate the hardware technology is improving. The big releases such as Battlefield 3 and StarCraft II are also designed to cater to older machines.

...

^^ Because GOOD game developers know that gameplay and plot (for single player) are more important than having the best looking graphics if you have a s***ty plot and so resource hungry no one can play it (lol crysis lol).

Rubbish.

The reason is because most games are developed with consoles in mind. There is little point to spending extra $'s creating graphical content when 3/4's of your user base will never see it due to current Gen console graphical limitations.

When the next gen consoles are released is when we will see a significant upgrade to graphics for non-PC only games.

^^ Because GOOD game developers know that gameplay and plot (for single player) are more important than having the best looking graphics if you have a s***ty plot and so resource hungry no one can play it (lol crysis lol).

No it's about market maximisation.

May deadly, is the question. There is only so much a set piece of hardware can do when it can't be upgraded, especially when rumours are running around of 6670's in the Xbox 360 which are quite laughable now.

Yeah but it's still a certainty that a card at a third of the price now will still smash anything levelled at it and in 2 years time, when you find out just how worthwhile it will be to upgrade you could get a $200 card at that time, better than this $999 card is now.

Not that this card won't be awesome, it's just a s***ty gaming investment for the cost. You think about this card when you already have the best monitor money can buy, all the SSD's you could ever need and the smallest penis on the planet.

It's awesome, shut up.

Only people with small penis's have envy for things that other people buy.

If they didn't have a small penis, they wouldn't give a s***.

My reaction to this was as follows:

Quit bitching about the price, it's the ultimate in luxury/unnecessary/indulgent gaming kit.
If you have the free cash to throw at it, good for you - DO IT!
It's like 680s in SLI but less heat and cheaper.

And the reason graphics aren't as good as they should be is, as many of you have pointed out, consoles. A dude from Crytek came out over a year ago saying if PCs had the market share consoles do we'd be seeing ILM quality visuals in games within five years. He's right.

Consoles max out at 512mb of VRAM, therefore that's what people develop for! Whatever GFX card you had in 2004? That's what is developed for, because that's what holds the market share.

Another reason is, who is going to keep upgrading their PC if you *have* to have the best of the best graphics card and everything just to run the game, a lot of the most successful games have been way under the high end requirements of the PCs of their time to play games.
Its just simple maths they just wont end up selling enough copies if the requirements of games are so high, because guess what not as many people have the specifications on their computer.

whilst it's true that these are unnecessary for most but don't forget that some gamers will want a couple of these in their machines so they can get constant frame rates above 120 on their 120Hz monitors... gaming at 120+ fps on a 120Hz LCD is the f***ing shiznit!

id get it.. i threw down 1k for a 5970 a few year ago, its still good and can play all games on full detail.

gaming at 120+ fps on a 120Hz LCD is the f***ing shiznit!

Bloody oath.

There's also people who are rocking the 3 screens too. They need some amazing graphics power to rock that res with detail.

for guys keen on this puppy, it was officially released today and sold out straight away on PCCG for a arse reaming price of $1599 a unit. I have never seen a gaming card this expensive. pricing will settle when the 7990 is released.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1385&products_id=20169

Holy f***

Hahaha. That's more than my entire new build!

Jesus!! $1599 is a lot of money in any ones books I bet.

Especially just for one single piece of hardware.

It does sound enticing, however this card I will probably never obtain!

I am still lurving my gt240 haha

the GTX670 still looks like its gunna be the best for bang for bux

Umar'ts prices

NVIDIA GTX690

Asus GTX 690 PCI-E 3.0 4GB 512-bit DDR5, Base:915 boost:1019/6008 MHz, DVI-I x 2, DVI-D x 1, Mi PreorderETA $1720.00 $1771.60

Gigabyte GF GTX 690 PCI-E 3.0 4GB 512-bit DDR5, Base:915 boost:1019/6008 MHz, DVI-I x 2, DVI-D Instock $1699.00 $1749.97

i bought the GTX670 on the weekend for $469 best buy ever!

Yeah, I think once/if they make it down to around $500 I'll considering upgrading from my GTX460 - or something similar that is by nvidia at that price point depending on what is around at the time.

$1700, chuckle.