GeForce 690 GTX hits the Market

[SpiritFlyer 987]

http://www.evga.com/articles/00679/#GTX690

 

Won't likely help FSX, but serious double engined horsepower!

 

Kind regards,

[Kosta 122]

The price, LOL: €1033. That's how much I pay for my whole computer upgrade usually.

 

But I wouldn't say no help to FSX... check my/Howard's SLI results.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/373069-sli-test-results/

[JohnFromCO 15]

Newegg sold out in minutes at a price of $1200.00 each.

 

It is definitely an enthusiast card aimed at games like BF3 or Skyrim.

 

Unfortunately we are getting to a point with hardware where FSX performance cannot be helped due to its poor coding/optimization.

[styckx 1,872]

Even at $1000 it sounds like price gouging to me. I paid $700 for my 6990 brand new on release day. The GTX 590 went for the same exact price at launch.. Technology did not advance that much in just over a year to justify a $300 inflation.

[JohnFromCO 15]

Even at $1000 it sounds like price gouging to me. I paid $700 for my 6990 brand new on release day. The GTX 590 went for the same exact price at launch.. Technology did not advance that much in just over a year to justify a $300 inflation.

 

From reading the reviews this card is not like the 6990 or 590 when they launched. NV apparently designed the card with enthusiasts in mind and made it accordingly. It was designed with engineering priorities rather than budget. So it is not in the same league as the 590 or 6990.

 

Example: "The frame of the cover is made of cast aluminum, and is protected with trivalent chromium plating. Trivalent chromium gives the GTX 690 a sleek, yet powerful look and is highly durable. The fan housing of the GeForce GTX 690 is made from injection molded magnesium alloy. Magnesium alloys are used throughout the automotive and aerospace industry (including the engines of the Bugatti Veyron and F-22 Raptor) for their light weight, heat dissipation, and acoustic dampening properties - which are the same reasons we use it in the GTX 690."

 

According to the editors at HardOCP it will be a limited production card. Plus it is the same price as 2 680's so it is hardly price gouging.

 

Also price gouging in the US only applies to rapid price increases immediately prior to or during civil emergencies.

 

I think the bottom line in the review says it all with regards to the $1000 MSRP:

 

"The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 is the finest looking, best performing, most efficient dual-GPU video card in the world with unsurpassed design and engineering. The GeForce GTX 690 not only performs in terms of framerate, but also performs in terms of thermals, TDP, acoustics, and aesthetics. This is the "most perfect" dual-GPU video card we've ever experienced."

 

 

Oh and it comes in a cool metal box! :Big Grin:

[MarkW 1,494]

How incredibly frustrating that we don't have another version of Flight Simulator that is coded properly. All we can do is hope that Flight fails and MS goes back to the old model.

[JohnFromCO 15]

How incredibly frustrating that we don't have another version of Flight Simulator that is coded properly. All we can do is hope that Flight fails and MS goes back to the old model.

 

Rumor among the pilots on the MS campus is they are working on a true successor to FSX.

[JohnsonPBX 8]

The problem is, if the rumor is even true, how long will we have to wait until that happens.

[Kosta 122]

I believe, sooner or later, a successor is going to come. No matter where.

[kvk1 2]

Rumor among the pilots on the MS campus is they are working on a true successor to FSX.

 

Whoa, wait, what? That's outstanding.

 

From where/who did this rumor originate?

 

Apologies if this is obvious news. Been away from the forums for a long time.

[Ben Cap 89]

All we can do is hope that Flight fails and MS goes back to the old model.

 

If Flight fails, MS is completely abandoning the hobby. We are much too small for them to spend millions to develop an enthusiast class simulator.

 

Rumor among the pilots on the MS campus is they are working on a true successor to FSX.

 

Says who?!?! :o

[Rocky_53 1,588]

Rumor among the pilots on the MS campus is they are working on a true successor to FSX.

 

 

Nonsense!

[Noel 4,536]

We are much too small for them to spend millions to develop an enthusiast class simulator.

 

I know this is the conventional comment in here, and I think that is because the 'we' you are referring to is well, mainly the folks inin here! Just look at how big avsim alone is, let alone the other FS forums, and the large group of very established 3rd party developers. And these, mind you, are developers for VERY aged platform! Flight simulation is a potentially very large and durable market! What's more, M$ already have vast experience in development of flight simulation already in FS & Flight. They just need to rethink who their real market it, and it is for a quality enthusiast market. It's easy to envision building a modern core platform w/ the proper SDKs that allow 3rd party developers to know in advance that have a super product to develop for, and for a very long time. What makes this so much more profitable than your average game is just that: properly built, it could have years and years of service life. We can already guess higher clock speed is not where to put the bulk of your money in for scaling because the headroom there has reached diminishing returns. Parallel, multicore multithreaded processing is the direction hardware continues to go, and so build the core for that. I think the whole concept around how FSX evolved could be exploited in a much better way.

 

Where M$ or whomever must go however, is in building this right from the get go: you don't want this core to be buggy, require endless tweaking and community beta testing to make the thing work! You will shrink the market to much.

[Noel 4,536]

I believe, sooner or later, a successor is going to come. No matter where.

 

You are right Word Not Allowed--the market is potentially much larger than one might guess if based just on the current FSX market. The core developer will make their return from providing . . .

1. A durable, scalable core built around DX11+, multicore/parallel processing.
   
2. Cloud-based, streaming realtime 3D scenery
   
3. A monthly subscription fee -- it WILL be very worth the subscription fee, and that's where the money is, plus in selling the core platform which could literally have 10 years of service if built well
   
4. An ATC component which trumps FSX's--just think how well they did FSX's, and now polish it.
   
5. A robust SDK program to allow for the continued expansion of 3rd party support: this is why 10yrs is possible with a platform such as this.
   
6. Finally: the quality control must be extraordinary in order to get the platform to be stable w/o the need for advanced inside knowledge to get the thing to work as it should. Market share will increase dramatically if you do not need to have constant tweaking and hardware knowledge to get decent performance.
   

Nay sayers to this I believe are restricting their vision to what they know about FSX. FSX was the precursor to what could be, and that is all it is!

[cgbart 7]

With the level of hardware now available for the masses at a truly low cost, relatively speaking, why would'nt they re-think their simulation stance? Also, ever wonder why the code wasn't released to a trusted third party to bring it up-to-date hardware wise? Maybe (hopefully) there are still plans besides the new Flight, for the franchise! Third-party work continues and is growing for other sims. Maybe someone is noticing?