HD 6990 reviews and discussion

[Maziar]

Here are the reviews around the web
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6990-antilles-crossfire,2878.html
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/07/amd_radeon_hd_6990_antilles_video_card_review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/amds-radeon-hd-6990-the-new-single-card-king
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20537
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1089
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=29430
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1127/pg1/amd-radeon-hd-6990-graphics-card-review-introduction.html
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeon-HD-6990-Review-Antilles-Has-Arrived/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/03/08/amd-radeon-hd-6990-review/1
http://www.techpowerup.com/141743/AMD-Extends-Graphics-Performance-Lead-Launches-World-s-Fastest-Graphics-Card%E2%80%A6-Again-.html
http://legitreviews.com/article/1566/1/
http://www.bjorn3d.com/articles/AMD_HD6990/2020.html

 

[Maziar]

Honestly,I was expecting a little from it.I though we would see a true successor to 5970.
Performance-wise,its about 20% faster but it's quite loud and pricey.
I guess aside from things like not having enough room for 2 cards, other options such as 2 6950's offer the same performance and cost less.

 

[Carc369]

Usually I say my unlocked 6950 beasts every game but Metro 2033 beasted my 6950. I was averaging about 30fps with AAA (not 4xMSAA) and had its points where I was getting 13-20 fps.

I wish I had that 6990 for that game but its much too pricy ($700) and my 6950 fits in my case with like 1/4 inch to spare. Other than that game, I feel the only reason to get a card of that magnitude is just to make your e-peen bigger. Games play perfectly at 60fps and a 6970+ and 570+ can provide that with the exception of Crysis and maybe a couple RELEVANT DX11 games.

I'm just hoping that my GPU is good enough for Dragon Age 2 and Crysis 2. I pre-ordered my games on Newegg so I'll find out soon enough.

 

[darkphox]

I plan to purchase a 6990, but not for the 'epeen extenstion' many people seem to associate this card with. My reasoning:

it looks to typically outperform sli'd 570s (possibly due to the larger vram), at the same price point. 580's are a lot better, but IMO not worth the extra $300 ($500 for 3gb versions).

the 6990 outperforms GTX 560s that come in the 2gb flavor (palit 560 ti's), without being *much* higher in price (about $100-$150). I think the px increase in this scenario is worth the extra cost.

And the final pin in my cushion: as tempting as 6950's or 6970's are, the 6990 offers me an eyefinity setup with the same output going to all 3 monitors. This 'solves' the vsync screen tear problem experienced when mixing dvi w/ dp on the 50/70 cards.

All in all, it is capable of beating the GTX 570s, and has more vram for AA/textures and such. In my opinion, it also has better price/px than SLId 580s or 2gb 560s... On the AMD side of the fence, the $60 premium, and 5% to 10% performance reduction against xfire 6950/70s is an acceptable trade when considering there is no screen tear to deal with when enabling vsync. I understand this is a 'halo' product, and many people do not have a need or desire for it. On the other hand, I am one of the seemingly few where it fits what I've been looking for to the letter. I hope this helps detract from the "e-peen" mentality many people have towards this card

 

[Rollo]

I don't think you need to worry about "epeen" with this card darkphox.

The hairdryer noise it apparently makes is going to make it very affordable, very soon methinks.

With the GTX590 allegedly launching this month, you might do well to wait a few weeks and see if NVIDIA can engineer a dual gpu card that doesn't wake the neighbors.
If their card is a dustbuster as well, you can always still buy this one.






NVIDIA Focus Group Member
NVIDIA Focus Group Members receive free software and/or hardware from NVIDIA from time to time to facilitate the evaluation of NVIDIA products.
However, the opinions expressed are solely those of the Members.

 

[jjb8675309]

after reading the review, the card seems to be a bit underwhelming the huge amount of vram really, imo offers very little advantage over 1 gig or 2 gig models 6950s, (at least price/performance wise) personally I will not be budging from my 6870 crossfire setup anytime soon...

 

[fazers_on_stun]

According to the reviews the card also exhausts both inside and outside the case. The last thing I need is more hot air blowing into my case, esp. onto the disk drives which is where it would go in a typical tower setup.

I just lost a RAID0 drive (Seagate of course) which I suspect was due to not getting enough airflow from the front case fan (bottom of the stack). Luckily I'm semi-conscientious (semi-conscious?) about backing up to an external drive, so I only lost a little data.

So my preference would be a pair of 580s in SLI or wait for the 590 (unless it too blows like a hair dryer onto my drive bay).

 

[plznote]

Well I think it's swell if you are okay with noise.

 

[hunter315]

This beast is going to kill off power supplies with that little switch at the top, and anyone who has a slightly corroded pair of 8 pin PCI connectors is going to start melting some plastic once they start pushing that much power through them, there was a reason that no card exceeding 300W can bear the PCI-E logo, now the design specs all PSU manufacturers have been using for those 8 pins have been thrown out the window because AMD got desperate for power. If you cant do it in the limits then its time to get better tech, dont ignore the limits and just shove crap in.

I checked on newegg, the XFX version is the only one with a power supply recommendation at the moment and its only recommending a 650W unit, considering AMD says the card can pull up to 450W with that switch flipped i dont think 650W will be enough for these guys and there are going to be some very sad people out there with some very dead PSUs. Im rather disappointed in AMD with this one.

 

[Glacier]

Even if I could afford a 6990, I would never put one in my PC. It's too hot and WAY too loud. I will keep my trusty HD 5850.

 

[Rollo]

at least it's better than 2 GTX480s

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/24

70.2db for GTX480 SLi

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/amds-radeon-hd-6990-the-new-single-card-king/18

70.2db for HD6990, the new single card world champion of noise output.

 

[jjb8675309]

^pathetic

 

[Anik8]

The only way this card will ever survive in the market is if card manufacturers install better cooling system and do some bios tweaking with the card.

 

[jjb8675309]

Either way its not a gpu that will ever, imo, come with a high recommendation to buy, there are just better options out there.

 

[plznote]

Anyone here own one yet?

 

[plznote]

Yep, But people will buy them for the same reason as the 5970 when it was released.
E-peen.

 

[Maziar]

Yep, But people will buy them for the same reason as the 5970 when it was released.
E-peen.

Not exactly.
I bought 5970 instead of 2 5850s because it was cooler,quieter and had less power consumption and offered the same performance.
However,6990 is different.It performs like 2 6950s but it's louder.

 

[plznote]

I guess, But I live in Canada and the 5970 was well over 800 bucks when it was released.
What makes me sad is our dollar is worth more than the American now.

 

[plznote]

The overclocking the 6990 easy with the reference design?
There is already noise/power/temp issues..
Can it be overclocked to about 6970+ levels?

 

[manu 11]

my god.4GB,EVEN CROSSFIRE IS NOT REQUIRED
a little noisy as in reviews but this is the powerfull card in the world
oc is also easy with this

 

[plznote]

That's good.

 

[herpity]

my god.4GB,EVEN CROSSFIRE IS NOT REQUIRED
a little noisy as in reviews but this is the powerfull card in the world
oc is also easy with this

Why would an OC be easy with a card that runs hot and loud at stock?

 

[herpity]

^ it has a bios switch that turns it into a true HD6970x2 in a flick of a button ?

I know that.


You're argueing that the defintion of "easy to overlock" is a switch that retruns the card to STOCK SPEEDS.

The card is nearly impossible to OC. Even returning it to stock settings makes the thing nearly impossible to live with.


Cards that are easy to OC are cards like the HD 5870, that ran cool and had plenty of headroom coupled with low power useage.

 

[herpity]

yea, ths bioss switch enables HD6950 to HD6970 unlock on HD6990s

I'm starting to think you have no idea what youre tlaking about.

The HD 6950=/= 6970 at lower clocks.

There are disbaled shaders.

The HD 6990= 2 6970 chips at lower clocks.

 

[TheViper]

I know that.


You're argueing that the defintion of "easy to overlock" is a switch that retruns the card to STOCK SPEEDS.

The card is nearly impossible to OC. Even returning it to stock settings makes the thing nearly impossible to live with.


Cards that are easy to OC are cards like the HD 5870, that ran cool and had plenty of headroom coupled with low power useage.

That doesn't mean easy, that means efficient.

The flick of a switch is as easy as it gets.