Final Thoughts and Rating
We've spent the past week playing games on an quad-GPU PC hooked up to three full-HD monitors, but the £4,500 configuration has somehow left us with mixed feelings.
It's easy to be blown away by the sheer spectacle of it all and there's no denying the wow factor, but dig deeper into benchmark results and you'll find that the dual-card, quad-GPU configuration doesn't always provide a significant boost in performance.
In a perfect world, adding a second GeForce GTX 690 to a high-end rig would result in a 100 per cent in-game performance increase. But in reality, the bump in frames per second typically ranges from 10 to 50 per cent.
Running two GeForce GTX 690s is still jaw-droppingly quick, but the vagaries of four-way SLI scaling can lead to diminishing returns in some of today's latest games, and it's worth noting that certain games provide a better NVIDIA Surround experience than others. DiRT Showdown would be our pick of the bunch; it looks and feels immersive at a 5,760x1,080 resolution, and more importantly, it scales well too.
Bottom line: We remain enamoured by the GeForce GTX 690 - it's the best enthusiast card currently on the market - but pairing two together in SLI doesn't quite live up to the expectations laid by the £1,800 entry fee. It's an insane proposition and one that's only suited to the gamer with ultra-deep pockets and a couple of high-res displays.
The Good
Makes light work of the latest games at 5,760x1,080
Gives you four GPUs via two PCIe slots
Lots of wow factor
The Bad
SLI scaling can be hit or miss
Costs £1,800
HEXUS Rating
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 in SLI
HEXUS Where2Buy
A wide range of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 graphics cards are available available to purchase from Scan Computers* and the 3XS Carbon SLI PC is available to purchase from 3XS.Scan.co.uk.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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