Nvidia GeForce GTX 690chat_bubble_outlineFrom real comments

Performance impressed most owners who upgraded from older cards. Multiple users who moved from a GTX 590 or SLI 670 setup reported the GTX 690 felt like a genuine leap, running smoother in titles like BF3 with less FPS drop during intense multiplayer. Owners also highlighted strong overclocking headroom, reaching speeds close to stock GTX 770 levels, and appreciated that it fits quad-SLI-class performance into a single dual-slot card rather than requiring four separate cards.

Price and VRAM confusion were the most common complaints. Many commenters flagged the card's steep cost, ranging from roughly 900 to 1700 dollars depending on the source, arguing that two GTX 680s in SLI could match its performance for less money. Confusion also persisted around VRAM: although the card lists 4GB total, that's 2GB per GPU, so in SLI configurations only 2GB is effectively usable, which several users found misleading or frustrating.

Build quality and cooling drew praise, though a few reliability issues surfaced. Several owners called the card's design beautiful, comparing its aesthetic to exotic sports cars, and praised its quiet single-fan cooling for housing two GPUs, with noise levels compared favorably to less powerful cards. However, a handful of users reported problems including crashes to desktop in demanding games, HDMI and boot complications, and at least one RMA after the card stopped working properly.