AMD Radeon HD 7990: Eight Games And A Beastly Card For $1,000

[Fulgurant]

[citation][nom]brucek3[/nom]To the folks (appropriately) suggesting a lower price, my guess is AMD feels it would be self-defeating. The entire point of a flagship card is to suggest your overall brand & tech is superior. Pricing it lower than the competition's flagship would be about the same as saying, yep we're not as good (unless you wanted your primary brand message to be "we're less expensive" but that's not what they're going for.) They can't do it, won't do it. The closest they could come was probably overspending on the game bundle, which I'd guess is how they lined up so many great titles.[/citation]
Yep. The point isn't to sell a gazillion 7990s. The market for extreme-high-end consumer graphics cards just isn't big enough for the release of this card to be a direct-profit decision. It's a symbolic gesture, and I think it's a good one -- except that Crossfire is, ahem, under fire at the moment for its frame-latency problems.

 

[lhowe005]

And what gesture is that ? That for an extra 200 dollars you can get the exact same performance as two of their own crossfire cards that have been out forever. This release is way late and way overpriced. If you read my post you'd see that historically from ati their dual gpu cards dont cost even double of the two gpu's that comprise them. This one is more than double the price of two 7970's and its released so late it its product life its irrelevant. Not to mention i'm sure the next gen amd and nvidia cards will be out way before they ever get this thingy working right driver wise. My 5970 was plagued by all sorts of driver/firmware issues for over a year.

 

[jigawatt]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]If you're looking to game at 1920x1080, I can save you a ton of money by recommending something less than half as expensive. This card is for folks playing at 2560 *at least.* Next time, I'm looking to get FCAT running on a 7680x1440 array[/citation]

You have my attention At the moment, I'm sporting a GTX 275. As it stands, I play iRacing. I would love to do triple screen, however, this is something that is not in my immediate future. The only games that I'm waiting for as it stands: Doom 4 & GTA5 for pc (if it ever happens).

If anyone else wants to chime in, you also have my attention. Just one thing to note, power consumption is a factor, and I do realize that there is "give and take".

Thanks

 

[upgrade_1977]

Nice to see fcat testing in there, but since these are ultra high end cards it'd be nice to see some multi-monitor testing, preferably 5760 x 1080.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]Have you guys considered playing with a different definition of what a runt frame is? 20 lines is 2% of the screen. That is really tiny. Pcper had a decent setup, though it might be less favorable, but covers possible problems as well as being more realistic on what constitutes a frame. They are defining a runt frame as a frame that is 20% the average of the last 10 frames. This allows for extreme FPS, as the more FPS you get, the smaller frames are on average, and is more realistic on what you might consider useful.[/citation]
We certainly have that option. Before I start messing with defaults, I'd actually like to expand the testing I did using gaming enthusiasts (rather than arbitrarily redefine runts, which is frankly what I'd be doing otherwise). This is something we have planned. It's just time-, energy-, and pizza/beer-expense-intensive ;-)

 

[JJ1217]

This is what I don't understand about AMD's pricing.

A 7970 can usually be found for $400 ($380 if you find the right models, and even less for the crap XFX cards), so getting two of those is $800.

A 680 can cost roughly $450, and two of those is $900.

A 7990 is $1000, $200 over the cost of two 7970's.

A 690 is $1000, $100 over the cost of two 680's.

This is probably the biggest pricing fail from AMD, and here I thought they always priced their cards strategically and logically. :/

 

[ddpruitt]

I'm really concerned about the cutoff for the FCAT test. 21 scan lines is awfully specific, especially since it doesn't account for varying resolutions. 20 scanlines is about 2% of a1920x1080 and 1.5% at 2560 x 1440. Most of the time you'd pick a percentage not a hard number. I wonder the distribution of percentages looks like over one of these runs. Seems like Nvidia could have pulled an interesting tweak that they know makes they're boards come out ahead when you drop frames of less than 21 scan lines.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]I'm really concerned about the cutoff for the FCAT test. 21 scan lines is awfully specific, especially since it doesn't account for varying resolutions. 20 scanlines is about 2% of a1920x1080 and 1.5% at 2560 x 1440. Most of the time you'd pick a percentage not a hard number. I wonder the distribution of percentages looks like over one of these runs. Seems like Nvidia could have pulled an interesting tweak that they know makes they're boards come out ahead when you drop frames of less than 21 scan lines.[/citation]

Pcper is using a percentage, and it makes Nvidia look more favorable. They are calling a runt frame any frame that is less than 20% of the average of the last 10 frames. As a result, they show crossfire with far more issues, and SLI is still unaffected.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7990-6GB-Review-Malta-Gets-Frame-Rated

 

[mayankleoboy1]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]We certainly have that option. Before I start messing with defaults, I'd actually like to expand the testing I did using gaming enthusiasts (rather than arbitrarily redefine runts, which is frankly what I'd be doing otherwise). This is something we have planned. It's just time-, energy-, and pizza/beer-expense-intensive ;-)[/citation]

i would buy you a pizza/bear to get my hands on a HD7990 and a 3 display setup

 

[abitoms]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]Power is the one thing I didn't have time for. We already know the 7990 is a 375 W card, while GTX 690 is a 300 W card, though. We also know AMD has Zero Core, which is going to shave off power at idle with one GPU shut off. I'm not expecting any surprises on power that those specs and technologies don't already insinuate.[/citation]

chris, since i felt you might be working on (or planning to work on) the power consumption, I thought I will put in a request as to the type of tests you can include in that.

We know the 7990 is much faster compared to others in compute. This means, it will finish the work faster and return to idle faster, resulting in less overall energy consumed. Could I request you to look at this?

This approach I remember is similar to the study of total energy consumed values your website does for CPUs

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]abitoms[/nom]chris, since i felt you might be working on (or planning to work on) the power consumption, I thought I will put in a request as to the type of tests you can include in that.We know the 7990 is much faster compared to others in compute. This means, it will finish the work faster and return to idle faster, resulting in less overall energy consumed. Could I request you to look at this?This approach I remember is similar to the study of total energy consumed values your website does for CPUs[/citation]
Is there a specific workload you're interested in?

 

[gburke]

In response to 1920x1080 res. testing, I think the game software FPS would most likely be capped by all the cards. No point in testing at 1080. I love my GTX680 for 1080. Everything runs great and I can really enjoy the games mostly maxed out if not all maxed. Crysis 3 is the only one where I turn down the AA so it will play completely smooth.

 

[gburke]

It will be interesting to see if NVidia comes out with a dual GK110 GPU Titan card.

 

[softplacetoland]

Amazed by how many people so suddenly talk nothing about anything other than "stuttering issue". Well, must be a deep freezing hell playing games on AMD for them so far. Spinning was incredibly successful, green team.

 

[bystander]

Amazed by how many people so suddenly talk nothing about anything other than "stuttering issue". Well, must be a deep freezing hell playing games on AMD for them so far. Spinning was incredibly successful, green team.

Other than smooth game play, what else is there to talk about? Isn't that way we all buy graphics cards, for smooth game play?

I guess quality could be compared, but they are pretty much the same, so there isn't much to discuss. Maybe PhysX, FXAA, MLAA, 3D Vision, HD3D or some other special case feature? What do you want to talk about?

 

[Fulgurant]

[citation][nom]lhowe005[/nom]And what gesture is that ? That for an extra 200 dollars you can get the exact same performance as two of their own crossfire cards that have been out forever. This release is way late and way overpriced. If you read my post you'd see that historically from ati their dual gpu cards dont cost even double of the two gpu's that comprise them. This one is more than double the price of two 7970's and its released so late it its product life its irrelevant. Not to mention i'm sure the next gen amd and nvidia cards will be out way before they ever get this thingy working right driver wise. My 5970 was plagued by all sorts of driver/firmware issues for over a year.[/citation]
The gesture is as brucek3 described it: AMD wants to release a flagship card to compare with Nvidia's 690 and Titan. It's a prestige thing.

If AMD were to lower the launch price of the 7990, then they would effectively proclaim their flagship card inferior to Nvidia's. My only point is that I don't believe AMD should make that admission for the sake of increasing sales' volume on an item that'll only appeal to a fraction of a percent of the consumer market regardless.

I agree that the 7990 is overpriced, but it's overpriced by design. Just like Intel's Sandy Bridge-E. Just like Titan.

 

[17seconds]

Amazed by how many people so suddenly talk nothing about anything other than "stuttering issue". Well, must be a deep freezing hell playing games on AMD for them so far. Spinning was incredibly successful, green team.

It's pretty hard to ignore when a reviewer devotes 14 pages to the issue in a very technical review and finishes with this conclusion:

Quote:
"Where AMD has definite issues is with HD 7970s in CrossFire, and our Frame Rating testing is bringing that to light in a startling fashion. In half of our tested games, the pair of Radeon HD 7970s in CrossFire showed no appreciable measured or observed increase in performance compared to a single HD 7970. I cannot overstate that point more precisely: our results showed that in Battlefield 3, Crysis 3 and Sleeping Dogs, adding in another $400+ Radeon HD 7970 did nothing to improve your gaming experience, and in some cases made it worse by introducing frame time variances that lead to stutter."
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Dissected-Full-Details-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Tes-12

 

[softplacetoland]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]Other than smooth game play, what else is there to talk about? Isn't that way we all buy graphics cards, for smooth game play?I guess quality could be compared, but they are pretty much the same, so there isn't much to discuss. Maybe PhysX, FXAA, MLAA, 3D Vision, HD3D or some other special case feature? What do you want to talk about?[/citation]


So, stutter made all a living hell for you, I pressume? Bandwagon effect. I bet you even didn't know you have sucha experience breaking issue until this FCAT campaign pointed that out.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]softplacetoland[/nom]So, stutter made all a living hell for you, I pressume? Bandwagon effect. I bet you even didn't know you have sucha experience breaking issue until this FCAT campaign pointed that out.[/citation]
Stuttering gave us less than satisfactory experiences. I've gone through two Crossfire and two SLI setups in the past several years. My first two setups were crossfire. When I switched to SLI, I noticed a definite improvement.

The whole reason we look at reviews is to see what will give us the best experience. Microstutter, runt frames, and uneven frame delivers are just as important to the experience as FPS.

Why on earth would you not want this information? Is it just so you can feel better about your graphics cards? Just use a FPS limiter and get smooth game play as well. You'll lose FPS, but you'll get smooth game play at least.

Reviewers have hinted at the difference for years. They just couldn't come out and say it in unbiased reviews, as they never had a way to quantify it. Now they do. Here is what used to be mentioned on a common basis: http://hardocp.com/article/2012/12/04/gtx_680_vs_radeon_hd_7970_multidisplay_showdown/7#.UXmmscqTltB

 

[17seconds]

Tom's Hardware covered it in 2011, and HardOCP has been harping about it for 10 years.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995-5.html

 

[doogansquest]

The 690 has been out for considerably more time. Wait until a few 3rd party vendors get into a 7990, and a few drivers come out. Like the 7970 now handily beats the 680, the 7990 will beat the 690.

This is a stupid war, however, as the releases are staggered. Once AMD claims GPU superiority, NVidia will release their 7xx line, and AMD will follow 6 months later with their 8xxx line.

 

[silverblue]

I'm no expert, but I am of the opinion that the only 7-series cards NVIDIA will be releasing over the course of the next few months will be Kepler rebadges, and that the true successor cards will be towards the end of the year.

I remember for ages seeing CrossFire scaling being inferior to SLi. Perhaps, when the 6xxx cards appeared with their vastly improved scaling, it wasn't so much better performance as more erratic rendering? How bad is the latency on, say, a 5970 compared to the 6990 and 7990?

The Titan is a VERY attractive card despite its price, though for gaming I would always opt for the 690 - it performs in line with the amount of power it uses and the practical framerate is dead on the indicated framerate. I know AMD are making progress, but it's becoming harder to defend them when it comes to drivers.

The price of the 7990 may seem step, but how much is that game package really worth, and how many games would you play? That's the main question that you'd have to ask yourself before making a decision. It's still far cheaper than some custom dual GPU cards have been historically.

 

[silverblue]

Steep, rather.

 

[xlim3y]

Great article guys, I have a 2nd 7970 coming in this weekend, so I was excited to see how the benchmarks played out. Hopefully AMD will get those prototype drivers out the door quickly to resolve some of the issues you guys noted.

As another user mentioned, not everyone rocks a 2560 monitor, so I was hoping you might include some 1080p benchies as well, as I have a 120hz monitor, and for me, the bigger more expensive CF solutions are a means to achieve a steady 120hz framerate at 1080p.

I know I'm a niche market, but then so are the 27 and 30 inch monitor crowd.

Cheers, keep up the good work.

 

[abitoms]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]Is there a specific workload you're interested in?[/citation]

nope ... just felt some users might find it interesting and useful.

i'm rocking an old ATI HD integrated 4200, and am not a computing user, so it is more to satisfy my own curiosity and perhaps throw a bit more light on this battle between three behemoth cards (690, Titan and 7990)

that's it