[AMD] 6990 is World's Fastest Video Card, Nvidia lying about the 590, the slower card

[Grooveriding]

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2011/03/25/2056/

March 25, 2011 by Dave Erskine Share



At AMD we Pride ourselves on both the Excellence of our products, and in the Integrity of our Messaging. Let Me give you a Perfect example. Two Weeks ago we launched our Flagship GPU, the AMD Radeon ™ HD 6990 . We had designed to IT be a game-Changer and we hit the Bull's Eye. The result: The AMD Radeon ™ HD 6990 Achieved the highest default single Graphics Card score of X3303 using the industry standard 3DMark11 Benchmark. And when we launched IT, we issued a press Release in IT which we proudly called the "World's Fastest Graphics Card" and the basis upon which Fully disclosed we made ​​that claim.
Yesterday our Competitor also issued a press Release, announcing the Launch of what they claim to be the "World's Fastest Graphics Card "- the Nvidia GTX 590. We combed through their announcement to Understand How IT was that such a claim could be made ​​and why there was no substantiation based on industry-standard benchmarks, similar to what AMD did with industry Benchmark 3DMark 11 , the latest DirectX ® 11 from FutureMark Benchmark.
SO Now I issue a Challenge to our Competitor: prove IT, don't Just Say IT. Show Us the substantiation. Because as IT stands Today, leading reviewers agree with Us here , here , here , and here that the AMD Radeon HD 6990 sits on the top as the world's fastest graphics card.

 

[tincart]

To be fair to nVidia, the game selection in many of those reviews is part of what led to their conclusions about 6990>590. A slightly different mix of games and a reviewer could easily conclude that the 590 is faster.

 

[Grooveriding]

To be fair to nVidia, the game selection in many of those reviews is part of what led to their conclusions about 6990>590. A slightly different mix of games and a reviewer could easily conclude that the 590 is faster.

True, but per Ryan Smith's own conclusions here at AT where the 590 gets more FPS, both cards are already well over 100FPS. So the lead is useless, but when it comes to truly intensive games where you actually need the horsepower, such as Crysis, Stalker, Metro & etc. The 6990 is the faster card.

Ryan Smith's conclusion:

'If my final thoughts start sounding like a broken record, it’s because once again a set of NVIDIA & AMD product launches have resulted in a pair of similarly performing products.

The crux of the matter is that NVIDIA and AMD have significantly different architectures, and once again this has resulted in cards that are quite equal on average but are all over the place in individual games and applications. If we just look at the mean performance lead/loss for all games at 2560, the GTX 590 is within 1% of the 6990, however within those games there’s a great deal of variance. The GTX 590 does extremely well in Civilization V as we’d expect, along with DIRT 2, Mass Effect 2, and HAWX. Meanwhile in Crysis, BattleForge, and especially STALKER the GTX 590 easily comes up short. Thus choosing the most appropriate card is heavily reliant what games are going to be played on it, and as a result there is no one card that can be crowned king.

Of the games NVIDIA does well in, only Civ V is a game we’d classify as highly demanding; the rest are games where the GTX 590 is winning, but it’s also getting 100+ frames per second. Meanwhile on the games AMD does well at the average framerate is much less, and all of the games are what we’d consider demanding. Past performance does not perfectly predict future performance, but there’s a good chance the 6990 is going to have a similar lead on future, similarly intensive games (at least as long as extreme tessellation isn’t a factor). So if you had to choose a card based on planning for future use as opposed to current games, the 6990 is probably the better choice from a performance perspective. Otherwise if you’re choosing based off of games you’d play today, you need to look at the individual games.

With that said, the wildcard right now is noise. Dual-GPU cards are loud, but the GTX 590 ends up being the quieter of the two by quite a bit; the poor showing of the 6990 ends up making the GTX 590 look a lot more reasonable than it necessarily is. The situation is a lot like the launch of the GTX 480, where we saw the GTX 480 take the performance crown, but at the cost of noise. The 6990’s performance advantage in shader-intensive games goes hand-in-hand with a much louder fan; whether this is a suitable tradeoff is going to be up to you to decide.

Ultimately we’re still looking at niche products here, so we shouldn’t lose sight of that fact. A pair of single-GPU cards in SLI/CF is still going to be faster and a bit quieter if not a bit more power hungry, all for the same price or less. The GTX 590 corrects the 6990’s biggest disadvantage versus a pair of single-GPU cards, but it ends up being no faster on average than a pair of $280 6950s, and slower than a pair of $350 GTX 570s. At the end of the day the only thing really threatened here is the GTX 580 SLI; while it’s bar none the fastest dual-GPU setup there is, at $1000 for a pair of the cards a quad-GPU setup is only another $400. For everything else, as was the case with the Radeon HD 6990, it’s a matter of deciding whether you want two video cards on 1 PCB or 2 PCBs.

Finally, there’s still the multi-monitor situation to look at. We’ve only touched on a single monitor at 2560; with Eyefinity and NVIDIA/3D Vision Surround things can certainly change, particularly with the 6990’s extra 512MB of RAM per GPU to better handle higher resolutions. But that is a story for another day, so for that you will have to stay tuned…'


Also once you get into 3 monitor eyefinity/surround gaming the 6990 leaps ahead of the 590 and is consistently faster in demanding games.

Not to mention the 6990 extends its lead once you account for overclocking where it is stable and reliable. Whereas the 590 explodes once you start trying to tweak it and overclock it.

I feel AMD's claim is 80% accurate with 20% left for those games where the extra FPS is useless.

 

[Qbah]

Man, I hate marketing... There are games where the GTX590 soundly beats a HD6990. So neither is "World's Fastest Graphics Card" right now, as both of them can only claim this title depending on the game.

Now, when the HD6990 launched, then yeah - in every single game it was the fastest card regardless of settings used. But now? Not so much.

 

[Keysplayr]

I disagree Grooveriding. Of course we can scour the web for reviews that favor our arguments, but at this stage of the game, why bother. Nothing has changed in the last two decades in that respect. I don't have a 6990, but I guess it's a fine card in it's own right. I do have a GTX590, and I don't have to guess. It's very fast (as is 6990), it's relatively cool (runs in the 80's under load depending on game 84-88C) (don't know how warm 6990 runs, too many conflicting reports from reviews). It's very quiet (6990 was reported the loudest card to be produced with the only exception of possibly the FX5800Ultra.) A single 590 runs 4 monitors, or 3 in NV surround or 3D surround.
I don't know why you are continuing to brow beat Nvidia like this though. They just came out with another great product but you still create threads like this. As long as you are sated, I guess we can all relax and wait until you're done. Carry on.

 

[Grooveriding]

I disagree Grooveriding. Of course we can scour the web for reviews that favor our arguments, but at this stage of the game, why bother.

For the sake of resolving this, I would think reviews and benchmarks are the way to resolve it.

If you are getting 150fps in a UE3 engine game and the 6990 is getting 130fps yet in Crysis you are getting 45fps while the 6990 is getting 55fps, I think it's obvious which card is the better choice :thumbsup:

Not to mention you can actually safely overclock and treat the 6990 as an enthusiast would, rather than treat it like a fine piece of china the way you have to with a 590, the exploding marvel.

 

[WelshBloke]

Its not a big deal but its hard to argue that the 6990 isn't the faster card.

 

[Keysplayr]

For the sake of resolving this, I would think reviews and benchmarks are the way to resolve it.

If you are getting 150fps in a UE3 engine game and the 6990 is getting 130fps yet in Crysis you are getting 45fps while the 6990 is getting 55fps, I think it's obvious which card is the better choice :thumbsup:

Not to mention you can actually safely overclock and treat the 6990 as an enthusiast would, rather than treat it like a fine piece of china the way you have to with a 590, the exploding marvel.

It's resolved already. The cards trade blows on one site, 6990 is overall faster on another site, and the 590 is overall faster on another site.

As for the exploding 590s, why be intentionally daft about that? You know (YES YOU DO KNOW NOW) that updated drivers have full protection in that regard. So I really do think you should surrender that playing card at this time. It only makes you look like you're ignoring it and using it as some sort of ammunition in your propaganda thread here.

 

[apoppin]

For the sake of resolving this, I would think reviews and benchmarks are the way to resolve it.

If you are getting 150fps in a UE3 engine game and the 6990 is getting 130fps yet in Crysis you are getting 45fps while the 6990 is getting 55fps, I think it's obvious which card is the better choice :thumbsup:

Not to mention you can actually safely overclock and treat the 6990 as an enthusiast would, rather than treat it like a fine piece of china the way you have to with a 590, the exploding marvel.

Utter nonsense

Here is what AMD is basing their claim of "world's fastest" on.

The result: The AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 achieved the highest default single graphics card score of X3303 using the industry standard 3DMark11 benchmark.

How do you like playing 3DMark11 benchmark? i get tired of it.

i have BOTH cards - and they are technological marvels. It is like comparing a Viper to a Turbo Carrera. Which car is "faster"?
:whiste:

 

[Keysplayr]

Its not a big deal but its hard to argue that the 6990 isn't the faster card.

No, it really isn't for the exact reasons I mentioned above.
All depends on where you look or where one "wants" to look.
You know this by now bud. :thumbsup:

 

[Keysplayr]

Utter nonsense

Here is what AMD is basing their claim of "world's fastest" on.


How do you like playing 3DMark11 benchmark? i get tired of it.

i have BOTH cards - and they are technological marvels. It is like comparing a Viper to a Turbo Carrera. Which car is "faster"?
:whiste:

Very nice article by the way Mark. One of the best I've seen lately. Well done.

And which one is the 590? The Viper or the Carrera? J/K.

 

[Firestorm007]

Who even cares about who thinks which card is faster anymore? It's all negligible at a certain point with both these monsters. They're both great in their own right and can pummel any game out there with relative ease. One may win a benchmark, the other may win another.... So, I prefer AMD, Keys prefers NVIDIA. So what? We're arguing over semantics here. Just enjoy the cards for what they offer and what side you prefer, be it red or green.

 

[Keysplayr]

Who even cares about who thinks which card is faster anymore? It's all negligible at a certain point with both these monsters. They're both great in their own right and can pummel any game out there with relative ease. One may win a benchmark, the other may win another.... So, I prefer AMD, Keys prefers NVIDIA. So what? We're arguing over semantics here. Just enjoy the cards for what they offer and what side you prefer, be it red or green.

Very well said. :thumbsup:

 

[Firestorm007]

Very well said. :thumbsup:

Thanks! I'm trying to be better at seeing both sides.

So, what are your impressions thus far coming from your SLI'd 480's. Have you noticed a big difference in any of the games you play? How's the heat output and noise levels?

 

[tigersty1e]

Nvidia screwed up royally.

They should have made a dual gpu based on either 460 or 570. Using 2 cores with full 512 core was just for "bragging rights"... just that it's not really.

 

[bryanW1995]

Utter nonsense

Here is what AMD is basing their claim of "world's fastest" on.


How do you like playing 3DMark11 benchmark? i get tired of it.

i have BOTH cards - and they are technological marvels. It is like comparing a Viper to a Turbo Carrera. Which car is "faster"?
:whiste:

Viper is WAY faster. According to wikipedia, the 2008 edition viper has a 0-60 time of 3.4 seconds, while the 911 turbo is 4.5 seconds. Diamond is an AMD board partner. As everybody knows, Diamond's signature card is the Viper, so clearly AMD is riding the fastest horse in this race.

 

[mnewsham]

Nvidia screwed up royally.

They should have made a dual gpu based on either 460 or 570. Using 2 cores with full 512 core was just for "bragging rights"... just that it's not really.

EVGA 2win is 2 GTX 460's and it is already out (directly from EVGA) for $430

 

[Grooveriding]

As for the exploding 590s, why be intentionally daft about that? You know (YES YOU DO KNOW NOW) that updated drivers have full protection in that regard.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=341338

The cards are blowing up at stock.

Reviewers and now users are all recommending not to even bother trying to overclock the card.

It's turning out to be a dud.

Enthusiast class card, unsafe to overclock. Wonderful.

Do yourself a favor and ebay that 590, get yourself a faster and properly engineered 6990 :thumbsup:

Or just plug in your 480 SLI setup again, it's faster than the 590 as well :thumbsup:

 

[SirPauly]

When one argues semantics as lying is like banging one's head against the wall. Marketing is a double edged sword -- semantic and even disingenuous to some degree but the key that is so important is try to garner awareness. Both do it, both do 180's, but awareness is much more important and if nVidia or AMD don't take care of nVidia or AMD, well, who will? Intel!

 

[Grooveriding]

Nvidia screwed up royally.

They should have made a dual gpu based on either 460 or 570. Using 2 cores with full 512 core was just for "bragging rights"... just that it's not really.

I agree. They could of slapped a couple 560 cores on a card, clocked them up really high and had the performance of this card. Or used a couple 570s.

If the 590 was actually safe to overclock and got good results it would of been a good card, but seeing as it's unreliable and blows up, why bother with it.

Stuck at stock it's a pointless card, unless they drop the price to make it more inline with its performance.

 

[Firestorm007]

Viper is WAY faster. According to wikipedia, the 2008 edition viper has a 0-60 time of 3.4 seconds, while the 911 turbo is 4.5 seconds. Diamond is an AMD board partner. As everybody knows, Diamond's signature card is the Viper, so clearly AMD is riding the fastest horse in this race.

LOL! But, one is German engineered and the other is American engineered. I'll gladly pick the 911...Our german friends certainly know how to make a quality car...

 

[bryanW1995]

@grooveriding: Dude, I know that you have this serious anti-Nvidia campaign to orchestrate, but did you even read the title of that thread you linked? "GTX 590s blowing up prematurely with small voltage increase" If you had just said that it still gets the point across. Any reasonably unbiased potential end user isn't going to touch a gtx 590 with a 10 foot pole right now anyway, but when you exaggerate claims like this it just shows that you are pushing an agenda.

 

[apoppin]

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=341338

The cards are blowing up at stock.

Can't find any evidence beyond *another BS* forum thread and quotes from AMD PR using 3DMark11 to substantiate their claims?

 

[Grooveriding]

Can't find any evidence beyond *another BS* forum thread and quotes from AMD PR using 3DMark11 to substantiate their claims?

Make sure you pick up one of these badboys. I hear EVGA is going to start adding them into their 590 bundles.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/3/HouseHome/SafetySecurity/FireExtinguishers.jsp

 

[bryanW1995]

LOL! But, one is German engineered and the other is American engineered. I'll gladly pick the 911...Our german friends certainly know how to make a quality car...

I owned an m5 for 9 years, I know about german cars. One day I swapped cars for a couple hours with a good buddy of mine who owned a 911 (non-turbo however). I know that 911's are great track cars, but it honestly felt slow on the highway. I guess I would say that somebody wanting the epitome of speed there are a LOT of better street cars out there, for somebody wanting to go to road course the 911 is excellent. However, vipers are about 20k cheaper and still significantly faster on a track as well.