Nvidia’s $1,000 graphics card is beginning to trickle into India and ZOTAC are amongst the first to get this card into the retail channel. The ZOTAC GTX 690 is based on Nvidia’s flagship design, which combines two GTX 680 GPUs onto a single PCB. Similar to the GTX 590, the GTX 690 is Nvidia’s latest dual-GPU graphics card that builds upon the latest Kepler architecture. This is easily the most expensive graphics card we’ve seen in a really long time, but is it really worth the money? Let’s find out.
Design and Build
Rather than just slapping a sticker onto Nvidia’s reference design, ZOTAC haven’t done anything to the card and left it as is, and that’s a very good thing. This is by far the best looking and built reference card we’ve come across by Nvidia or even AMD for that matter. The materials used and attention to detail is simply amazing and it’s a crying shame that you’ll never get to see it all its glory once it’s inside your chassis. This is a massive card, so make sure you have a good mid-tower or full-tower chassis to accommodate it.
The rear connectors include three DVI ports and a display port. Since the card is closed off from all sides, hot air is channeled through the rear itself, directly outside the case. There’s even support for SLI, should you be mad enough to get two of them. The “Geforce GTX” logo on the sides is the only thing you’ll get to see in a windowed case and the best part is that it lights up! The two GPU cores are connected to each other via a PLX bridge and cooled with vapor chambers. This has allowed Nvidia to use just a single fan in the center, which is enough to cool the card. Since it relies on vapor chamber and not air cooling, the fan doesn’t have to spin very fast either, which means it’s quiet. Nvidia recommend a 650W power supply as a bare minimum, so make sure you have the necessary components before going for it.
The bundle includes two 8-pin to Molex power adapters, DVI-to-VGA adapter, driver disk and Assassins Creed 3-game pack.
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