nigelmcelwee Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 Would I see much benefit going from a 680 GTX OC to a new 690 in X-plane 10?? Any increase at all?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ntr09 Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 No, little if any at all. The 690 is just two 680s in SLI, which X-Plane cannot benefit from. -NR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboG Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 Great topic! I must have spent an HOUR on Sunday night reading other forums and posts about just this very topic, and I have something for you on this I would like to share - as it makes my mind up 100% It's quite simple actually. Buy a single GTX680 4096GB. Why? XP10 is going to go 64bit "soonish" - sliders to the right time! (Sort of!) What you'll be limited by a lot of the time will be VRAM, so given there will be "no limit" on the X-Plane application's use of RAM means that you'll want to take as much advantage of available VRAM as possible - so that you get more "stuff" on screen. So, this means that a 4096 vs a 2048 will be better yes? Fairly obvious. OK, so why a 680 over a 690? There is a quietish marketing secret about the VRAM on the 690 that is not disclosed. As you already know, it is two GPUs on one card, two cards in SLI on one physical card if you take my meaning. BUT: In order for the SLI-bit to work each GPU has to have it's own local "copy" of the VRAM - which means that each GPU consumes 2048Mb each just for the SLI-bit. This leaves 2048 useable VRAM for the applications, in this case X-Plane. Which means you only get 2048Mb of VRAM to play with. Secondly, X-Plane doesn't support SLI yet, so there is no point getting more than one card - so a single GTX680 4096 it is then! Finally, in terms of performance, if using a GTX680 is like slicing through a log first time with an axe, then a GTX690 is simply going "too hard" and shattering the axe head and then your wrist as a result. What do I mean? TOO much power we ain't gonna use. Not yet. Give me more VRAM today so that I can fill the screen with lovely things. As long as I get 30-50fps I will be as happy as a pig in sh1t. I don't need 120fps, or epilepsy for that matter. I hope that helps - sorry the sarcastic tone, it was not meant that way, more to be playful as I am happy *grins* to post about something I spent quite some time doing some research on and came to happy conclusion - plus I get to save about £250 on the potential purchase of an under-utilised 690!! Cheers James 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelmcelwee Posted February 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 so if I went gtom a 680 2GB to a 680 4GB I would be able to turn up more eye candy with little hit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboG Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 As I understand it - "Yes" - there is obviously more calculation involved to generate the scenery in the first place - which will be a combination of CPU vs GPU - but after that it is held in VRAM just the same as it was before - just more of it..... Think of it this way, did you PC go slower when you added more RAM in the past, or did it just let you run more apps at the same time with little-other noticeable overhead? (This is possibly a moot point these days as desktops ship with at least 4-8GB RAM!! - but go back a few years to get my analogy) Since the 680 was released last year there has been nothing else that has come out that has really challenged it - so you're not going to see a much-improved difference by using a 690 with X-Plane, but I *do* believe you'll get a better bang-for-your-buck with a 4GB 680 - eye-candy wise at least. That's where I'm putting my money. Or the birthday-fairy is at least. Cheers James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelmcelwee Posted February 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 thanks for the reply bud!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ntr09 Posted February 5, 2013 Report Share Posted February 5, 2013 Well put James. I agree. My 460 has 2GB of VRAM but I run out of GPU power before I can use it all. The 64bit version of x-plane has helped this some by being able to stuff more stuff (heheh) into the main system RAM. -NR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris k Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 (edited) No you've got it all wrong. According to a recent forum posting I read elsehwere on the Internet, 690 is a bigger number than 680; and therefore must be better. And now for those of you who actually check your facts: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html......The 680 is considerably faster than the 690. Edited February 6, 2013 by chris k Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ntr09 Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboG Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 Hi Chris, And now for those of you who actually check your facts: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html......The 680 is considerably faster than the 690. Wasn't sure if that was tongue-in-cheek or not, but thought I had done so - to a degree: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-690/performance The 690 apparently pi33ses all over the 680 - according to Nvidia. Very interesting. On Sunday I was trying to justify the cost of the 690 over the 680 more than anything - "was there any real advantage to getting a 690?" Didn't expect the 690 to actually be slower!! Thanks for the link! Cheers James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 I had the same questions back a few months, James. I ultimately ended up with the 680 and cannot say enough good things about it! It runs X-Plane 10 really well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ntr09 Posted February 7, 2013 Report Share Posted February 7, 2013 I'm continually surprised with how well the 460 handles XP10. These rendering options give me around 40 FPS in a moderately urban area: -NR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.