AMD 6990 Quadfire Scaling - Confirmed! 70-90% Scaling for 3+ monitor Gaming

[Grooveriding]

EDIT: Kitguru has done a 6990 Quadfire review and done some benchmarks of super high resolution 7680x1080 resolutions. The review confirms the attached AMD slide showing incredible scaling once you eliminate CPU bottlenecks. What's more the cards can run max settings and huge amounts of AA due to the 4GB of VRAM.

2x6990 Quadfire is the best setup going for 3+ monitor high resolution gaming.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/his-hd6990-dual-crossfirex-review/

Also some synthetic benchmark craziness

I have seen one review covering the performance of 6990x2 in Quadfire so far. AMD has made claims that Quadfire scaling is near 80-100% across the board with the 6990 cards.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/powercolor_hd6990_crossfire_review/7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTzFGqa9Fd0&feature=feedu

The huge fail of this review is that he only tested at 1920x1200. One of these cards on its own can run anything you throw at it at that resolution. Some of his results are disappointing but he his hitting CPU walls time and again.

The exception is Metro 2033, where 6990 Quad-Fire achieves the promised near 100% scaling in a game capable of pushing the cards hard enough before the CPU choked them up.

 

[Wag]

I'll probably be picking up two of these as well for my 2440x1440 setup.

 

[PreferLinux]

Check Tom's Hardware.

 

[mnewsham]

and Techpowerup

 

[Grooveriding]

and Techpowerup

Thanks that is a good one

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/Radeon_HD_6990_CrossFire/1.html

Seems some games show some nice near 80% gains, some show none at all, some like BFBC2 still shows about 50% of a gain over the single card. Again they may be hitting a CPU wall.

Hopefully there will be some reviews of 2x6990 running 5760x1200 & 5760x1080 etc. I don't think you can get around the CPU bottleneck with almost any game but Metro, Crysis and Stalker using two 6990s until you get up to super high resolutions.

I think 2x6990 is too much power for 2560x1600 And I'm not interesting in 3 monitor gaming until the monitors come out with no bezel at all.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Silverforce11]

Even crysis is CPU limited at 2560 res, very similar result to 1080p and 1650 res. Pure overkill to crossfire 6990s on a single monitor.

Metro is the stand out because DoF kills GPUs hardcore, if they ran with it off, it would be different. Graphics wise, i dislike DoF effects in all games i've tried with it. Silly feature.

 

[sandorski]

Ya I suppose some Eyefinity Reviews might be good to see before drawing a conclusion on the 6990.

 

[Grooveriding]

Even crysis is CPU limited at 2560 res, very similar result to 1080p and 1650 res. Pure overkill to crossfire 6990s on a single monitor.

Metro is the stand out because DoF kills GPUs hardcore, if they ran with it off, it would be different. Graphics wise, i dislike DoF effects in all games i've tried with it. Silly feature.

Depth of Field is awful for performance. Just finished installing Dragon Age 2 and the DX11/high res texture pack.

I just turned everything up/on as I would usually do, depth of field is one of those options.

Getting about 15-20fps on 480 Tri-SLI ... lol.

Hopefully this is just bad nvidia drivers, there are already posts about it on nvidia's forums.

Perhaps AMD has taken a page from nvidia's playbook and this game will only play well on AMD hardware. All the AMD users are saying 'what fps issues' good here.. 6950/70 CF users.

Otherwise this is pathetic because the game looks marginally better than the first one.

 

[Silverforce11]

Just turn it OFF, it's crap for performance and crap for visuals. Thanks for mentioning DA2, i'd forgotten about it..

 

[Borealis7]

in the techpowerup CF review, twin 6990 are CPU bottlenecked by an 3.8GHz i7 in most benchmarks. we lack the CPU to drive this monstrous setup.

 

[Grooveriding]

in the techpowerup CF review, twin 6990 are CPU bottlenecked by an 3.8GHz i7 in most benchmarks. we lack the CPU to drive this monstrous setup.

Yeah this is the problem, any i7 will bottleneck these cards even at 4.2 or 4.4 etc.

I want to see a full benchmark suite at 5760x1200 and 7680x1600 with at least 4XAA in all the benches on full settings. These usually turn up but they take them and never do you find one using a good broad base of games.

2x6990 Quadfire is overkill even at 2560x1600... pretty crazy.

 

[Arkadrel]

"Again they may be hitting a CPU wall."

^this... you need a MONSTER CPU to not be cpu bottlenecked with 2x 6990s.
Even the 4.0GHz+ CPUs bottleneck it.

The place you ll see biggest gains is probably at really high resolutions.

Where are those OC'ers with stable 5.5Ghz+ CPUs when you need them?

 

[nanaki333]

lets see those gtx 590 benches that nvidia promised when AMD revealed theirs.

 

[wahdangun]

to be honest I didn't expect we will hit CPU bottleneck this fast, I mean even 4 Ghz core i7 can't handle this beast, man gaming now days really have become stagnant its really sad and cruel reality

 

[mnewsham]

"Again they may be hitting a CPU wall."

^this... you need a MONSTER CPU to not be cpu bottlenecked with 2x 6990s.
Even the 4.0GHz+ CPUs bottleneck it.

The place you ll see biggest gains is probably at really high resolutions.

Where are those OC'ers with stable 5.5Ghz+ CPUs when you need them?

I want to see a review using the i7-2600k OC'd to 5Ghz paired with these and see if it is still bottlenecked. (and i suspect it will be)

 

[MentalIlness]

lets see those gtx 590 benches that nvidia promised when AMD revealed theirs.

Link to promise ?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Yeah this is the problem, any i7 will bottleneck these cards even at 4.2 or 4.4 etc.

I want to see a full benchmark suite at 5760x1200 and 7680x1600 with at least 4XAA in all the benches on full settings. These usually turn up but they take them and never do you find one using a good broad base of games.

2x6990 Quadfire is overkill even at 2560x1600... pretty crazy.

I have to wonder what CPU AMD used to get those internal benches, then. If an i7 @ 4.2GHz is likely to be a bottleneck, yet AMD still got that scaling, I guess they must have used the power of the Phenom 2.

AMD probably isn't too likely to have used an Intel CPU. They still got fantastic scaling at 2560x1600... so something isn't completely adding up unless the games in the OP slide are carefully selected.

 

[mnewsham]

I have to wonder what CPU AMD used to get those internal benches, then. If an i7 @ 4.2GHz is likely to be a bottleneck, yet AMD still got that scaling, I guess they must have used the power of the Phenom 2.

AMD probably isn't too likely to have used an Intel CPU. They still got fantastic scaling at 2560x1600... so something isn't completely adding up unless the games in the OP slide are carefully selected.

It IS AMD if they have an ES of bulldozer i think they might use it.

 

[Grooveriding]

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=2020&pageID=10306

Good 3 monitor gaming review here on the 6990

 

[Grooveriding]

Kitguru has done some quadfire 6990 surround benches.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/his-hd6990-dual-crossfirex-review/

6990 Quadfire proves to show about 70-90% scaling depending on the title :thumbsup:

 

[happy medium]

OK , so we recommend 2 6990's to people with 3 24 inch monitors, at least 12gb of ram, and a 2600k at 5 ghz, that narrows it down.:thumbsup:

 

[Lonyo]

OK , so we recommend 2 6990's to people with 3 24 inch monitors, at least 12gb of ram, and a 2600k at 5 ghz, that narrows it down.:thumbsup:

The fact that two cards costs over $1400 kinda narrowed it down anyway. If you can afford $1400 in graphics cards, you can probably afford $600~$1000+ in 3~5 monitors as well.

 

[happy medium]

The fact that two cards costs over $1400 kinda narrowed it down anyway. If you can afford $1400 in graphics cards, you can probably afford $600~$1000+ in 3~5 monitors as well.

When I say narrows it down ,I mean to the .05% of people who meet these requirements.
It's cool to see the cpu finally become the bottleneck, but honestly it does not make our games play any better. It might be great for next years games on a 30 inch monitor though, but by that time, we will have 28nm cards.

 

[Grooveriding]

The fact that two cards costs over $1400 kinda narrowed it down anyway. If you can afford $1400 in graphics cards, you can probably afford $600~$1000+ in 3~5 monitors as well.

I think that's the right of it there :thumbsup:

Right now today for anyone gaming at 1920x1200 or less, you don't need to worry about not having enough power. You can buy a couple cheap $200 midrange cards slap them together and max everything out there.

If you're like me and use a 30" monitor, grab two 580s or 6970s and again you can play anything.

These cards are the bastion of people who have decided to game on 3 monitors AND want to turn everything up all the way. Right now the 6990 is tailor made for that. This card is not for your 1080P panel

Thought that was obvious.

What is awesome and worth discussing is that finally a GPU vendor has gotten quad gpu scaling to work. Yes it's only viable for someone using 3 monitors or more and wanting the best IQ. But at least it is finally here.

So now in the current state of things, if you want the fastest setup on the planet, it's 2x6990s not 3x580s.

 

[waffleironhead]

OK , so we recommend 2 6990's to people with 3 24 inch monitors, at least 12gb of ram, and a 2600k at 5 ghz, that narrows it down.:thumbsup:

Its a niche card for a niche market.
too bad my wallet doesnt allow me to be part of that niche :'(