AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database includes two directly comparable benchmark tests for this pairing: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX wins both, and the margins are substantial.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 7900 XTX records a score of 50,465, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 scores 17,399. That represents a 190% advantage for the AMD card. This is not a close contest; the RX 7900 XTX more than triples the GTX 690's compute throughput in this API. The GTX 690's score places it near the AMD Radeon HD 7970M, which averages 17,019, and just below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, which averages 17,208. The RX 7900 XTX, by contrast, sits well above all of its nearest rivals in the database, including the NVIDIA TITAN Xp at 19,177 and the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 at 19,602.

The Vulkan result is even more lopsided. The RX 7900 XTX posts 85,612, against 16,675 for the GTX 690, a delta of 413.4%. The GTX 690's Vulkan score is actually lower than its OpenCL score, highlighting the older architecture's weaker support for modern low-level APIs. The RX 7900 XTX's Vulkan score is more than five times higher, which reflects not only raw hardware capability but also the RDNA 3.0 architecture's native efficiency in this API. For context, the GTX 690's nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA Tesla M4 at 16,932 and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT at 17,083, all within 1% of the GTX 690's average. The RX 7900 XTX, meanwhile, has a percentile rank of 64 against all GPUs, while the GTX 690 sits at 60.

The average benchmark score tells a similar story: the RX 7900 XTX averages 19,410 across all recorded tests, while the GTX 690 averages 17,037. The RX 7900 XTX's nearest rival by average score is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB at 19,334, a difference of only 0.4%. The GTX 690's nearest rival is the AMD Radeon HD 7970M at 17,019, a 0.1% gap. In both cases, the two cards in this comparison are separated by roughly 2,373 points in average score, which corresponds to the large deltas seen in the head-to-head tests.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 7900 XTX wins every recorded benchmark in this comparison. The wins are not narrow: they span compute (OpenCL), modern graphics API (Vulkan), and overall average performance. If a workload relies on Vulkan, the RX 7900 XTX is over four times faster. If a workload uses OpenCL, it is nearly three times faster. There is no recorded test where the GTX 690 takes the lead.

That said, the GTX 690 does have its own context in the database. Its average score of 17,037 places it just above the AMD Radeon HD 7970M (17,019) and slightly below the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (17,083). It also trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 by only 1%. This suggests that, while the GTX 690 is far behind the RX 7900 XTX, it remains competitive with several much newer mainstream cards in average terms, likely due to its dual-GPU design. However, that design does not translate into Vulkan or OpenCL superiority; the GTX 690's Vulkan score of 16,675 is actually its lower of the two recorded results.

For the RX 7900 XTX, the wins extend beyond the two head-to-head tests. Its PassMark G3D score is 31,238, its PassMark GPU Compute score is 17,689, and its Geekbench OpenCL score is 50,465. The GTX 690 has no recorded results in PassMark tests, so the comparison is limited to the Geekbench pair. Still, the pattern is consistent: the RX 7900 XTX dominates in every metric where both cards have data.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the recorded data, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the clear choice for any workload covered by the benchmark suite. It leads by 190% in OpenCL and 413.4% in Vulkan. Its average score of 19,410 is 13.9% higher than the GTX 690's 17,037. The RX 7900 XTX also holds a higher percentile rank against all GPUs (64 versus 60), meaning it outperforms a larger fraction of the database.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, by contrast, should be selected only if the workload is not represented in these benchmarks, or if the user specifically needs its dual-GPU configuration for legacy applications. The data shows that in modern compute and graphics APIs, it is thoroughly outclassed. The GTX 690's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon HD 7970M and the NVIDIA Tesla M4, are all within 0.6% of its average score, which suggests it performs roughly at the level of a mid-range mobile or workstation part from a later era.

For a user choosing between these two cards, the RX 7900 XTX is the only rational pick based on benchmark results. It offers more than double the OpenCL performance and more than five times the Vulkan performance. The GTX 690's only advantage is historical; it was released earlier and belongs to an older generation, but the recorded data shows no scenario where it wins.

FAQ

Q: Which card has the higher Geekbench Vulkan score?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX scores 85,612 in Geekbench Vulkan, compared to 16,675 for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, a difference of 413.4%.

Q: How large is the OpenCL performance gap?

A: The RX 7900 XTX records 50,465 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the GTX 690 records 17,399, giving the AMD card a 190% lead.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each card?

A: The RX 7900 XTX has an average benchmark score of 19,410, while the GTX 690 averages 17,037.

Q: Which card ranks higher among all GPUs in the database?

A: The RX 7900 XTX is at the 64th percentile, while the GTX 690 is at the 60th percentile.

Q: Does the GTX 690 win any recorded benchmark?

A: No. The GTX 690 loses both head-to-head tests (OpenCL and Vulkan) and has no recorded wins in the database.

Q: What are the nearest rivals for each card by average score?

A: The RX 7900 XTX's closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (19,334, 0.4% difference). The GTX 690's closest rival is the AMD Radeon HD 7970M (17,019, 0.1% difference).

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from fundamentally different eras of GPU design. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX uses the Navi 31 chip built on RDNA 3.0 architecture, with a codename of Plum Bonito, and belongs to the Navi III (RX 7000) generation. It is fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 57,700 million transistors on a 529 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 109.1 million per mm². The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 uses the GK104 chip based on Kepler architecture, belongs to the GeForce 600 generation, and is built on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It contains 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, with a density of 12.0 million per mm². The process node difference is enormous: 5 nm versus 28 nm, which explains the massive disparity in transistor count and density.

Memory configurations also diverge sharply. The RX 7900 XTX has 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384 bit bus, with 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 690 has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256 bit bus, with 192.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 7900 XTX offers twelve times the memory capacity and five times the memory bandwidth.

Compute resources are equally mismatched. The RX 7900 XTX has 6,144 shading units, 384 texture mapping units, 192 ROPs, and 96 ray tracing cores. The GTX 690 has 1,536 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, with no ray tracing cores. Pixel rate for the RX 7900 XTX is 479.6 GPixel/s, versus 32.61 GPixel/s for the GTX 690. Texture rate is 959.2 GTexel/s versus 130.4 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 61.39 TFLOPS for the RX 7900 XTX, while the GTX 690 manages 3.130 TFLOPS. The RX 7900 XTX also supports FP16 at 122.8 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the GTX 690 has no recorded FP16 capability.

Clock speeds reflect the architectural gap. The RX 7900 XTX has a base clock of 1929 MHz, a boost clock of 2498 MHz, and a game clock of 2365 MHz. The GTX 690 runs at 915 MHz base and 1019 MHz boost. Memory clock for the RX 7900 XTX is 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective), while the GTX 690 runs at 1502 MHz (6 Gbps effective). Power draw is also higher for the RX 7900 XTX at 355 W TDP, versus 300 W for the GTX 690, but the performance per watt is dramatically better given the score differences.

API support differs as well. The RX 7900 XTX supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The GTX 690 supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The RX 7900 XTX also uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the GTX 690 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are another differentiator: the RX 7900 XTX offers 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, and 1x USB Type-C, while the GTX 690 provides 3x DVI and 1x mini-DisplayPort 1.2. Both cards are dual-slot, but the RX 7900 XTX is longer (287 mm versus 279 mm), wider (51 mm versus 38 mm), and slightly shorter in height (110 mm versus 111 mm). The RX 7900 XTX has a launch MSRP of 999 USD, as does the GTX 690.