([H]ardOCP) Radeon 6990 vs 590 Quad GPU review

[Zap]

Irrelevant. Quad GPU is still very buggy and the scaling is not worth it.

This was my first thought.

I'm currently using two GTX 285 on a 30" monitor and am considering going to a single GTX 570, GTX 580 or Radeon 5970. Seems like a single high end GPU will give me the performance of my two GTX 285, but with less power used and less overall heat put out. Perfect for me!

Now to find a hot deal. Was tempted by the triple fan Galaxy GTX 580 for around $430 after rebate, but too many complaints of it showing up with missing screws and Galaxy not providing support.

Also was tempted by the Radeon 6950, but now there's no guarantee of unlocking since the reference cards seem to be discontinued.

 

[Jacky60]

so you have 2 6990 gpus for gaming at 1920?

Yes I wanted to go eyefinity but I reckon I'd need 4 6990's and 2 i7 CPU's at 4Ghz or more to really get a good gameplay experience. It's simple Arma 2 requires a vast amount of power and when you're playing online multiplayer with 30-50 players plus loads of AI vehicles troops etc PLUS pretty grass and nice scenery it can get choppy without a lot of gpu muscle. Call me crazy-my girlfriend thinks I am but I play it a lot so think it's worth it.

 

[toyota]

I have a hard time believing what is essentially FOUR 6970 gpus, scales worth a poo at just 1920 though.

 

[Jacky60]

I have a hard time believing what is essentially FOUR 6970 gpus, scales worth a poo at just 1920 though.

Well one 6990 was not noticeably better than 5870 trifire, 2 are VERY significantly better. I had the first for 3 days before pulling trigger on the second and one wasn't enough. I'm clearly cpu limited but 2 allow much better image quality than one and noticeably higher frame rate. GPU usage rarely gets over 50-70% so obviously some scaling issues too.

 

[Makaveli]

6990 x2 for 1920 doesn't not make sense at all.
I'm aware that arma 2 is a very heavy game but $1400 in GPUs with a $400 monitor ????


gonna have to side with toyota on this one.

 

[Jacky60]

6990 x2 for 1920 doesn't not make sense at all.
I'm aware that arma 2 is a very heavy game but $1400 in GPUs with a $400 monitor ????


gonna have to side with toyota on this one.

Yes I'd love 3 30inch Dell's or even one but no matter how good the monitor if the fps drop to 16 or you get dizzy playing then its not fun. A $1400 monitor and $400 graphics card would be unplayable or look pretty turgid so how does that work?
If any $400 graphics card could make it look great and be playable at 1920/1200 then of course that would be a better option but believe me that is not possible. Yes, such a setup would tear through all the other low rent console games and better quality or more monitors would be the obvious choice but its either/or -not both! Go try playing multiplayer with an E8400 and a 4890 or 2 4890's or 3 5870's or 3 5870's and a 920 at 4ghz and then tell me I don't know what I'm doing. I can assure you that reality contradicts your wise but inexperienced words. Other games yes, this no. My rig has enough trouble staying above 40fps at 1920/1200 so how does increasing the pixel number from 2304000 to 3932160 help? I'll have nearly double the pixel count with all the attendant implications for fps and being cpu bound. I await your advice eagerly.

 

[SirPauly]

As long as someone is pleased with their purchase - happy for them.

 

[RussianSensation]

Also was tempted by the Radeon 6950, but now there's no guarantee of unlocking since the reference cards seem to be discontinued.

There are still some to be found. His 6950 2GB for $280. Yesterday, Newegg had the Sapphire card for $255 in stock (it's OOS for now) and same thing for Superbiiz. Put a notification in.

Also, there appears to be a way to unlock ALL 6950 2GBs (regardless if they have the switch or not). This process is described here.

If you are going to spend $430 on a GTX580, and were considering the HD5970, you might as well go for 2 stock HD6950 2GB CF setup.

Other games yes-this no. My rig has enough trouble staying above 40fps at 1920/1200 so how does increasing the pixel number from 2304000 to 3932160 help?

If you really enjoy ArmaII series, you'll be glad to know that Bohemia is working extremely hard to wow us with Arma 3's graphics, and of course making sure nothing less than HD7990 CF series can run it maxed out (so get ready for another $1400 upgrade). For those who wanted Crysis 2's next generation graphics, here it is!

 

[Jacky60]

There are still some to be found. His 6950 2GB for $280. Yesterday, Newegg had the Sapphire card for $255 in stock (it's OOS for now) and same thing for Superbiiz. Put a notification in.

Also, there appears to be a way to unlock ALL 6950 2GBs (regardless if they have the switch or not). This process is described here.

If you are going to spend $430 on a GTX580, and were considering the HD5970, you might as well go for 2 stock HD6950 2GB CF setup.



If you really enjoy ArmaII series, you'll be glad to know that Bohemia is working extremely hard to wow us with Arma 3's graphics, and of course making sure nothing less than HD7990 CF series can run it maxed out (so get ready for another $1400 upgrade). For those who wanted Crysis 2's next generation graphics, here it is!

Oh Lord not Arma 3, that's insane. A rig that can play that well won't be available for months but I reckon probably years. Thanks for the heads up, anyone who doubts the hardware requirements of Arma 2 should actually try playing it. If you check the forums from that link you'll see that its difficult to build a rig Today that can run it consistently above 30fps. It isn't Crysis gentlemen although due to its insane hardware requirements people think its in the same ballpark-it's in a much bigger tougher ballpark. No PC yet built can run arma 2 with all settings maxed at anything like 60fps. Put simply its massive maps, uber detailed/textured models, fully destuctible environments, loads of AI, loads of players, loads of sounds explosions etc. Unless you've tried it you're simply whistling wishfully into the wind.

 

[OCGuy]

The ARMA series is the most intense, immersive series out there, and is one of the only reasons I upgrade.

It is not a best-seller because the learning curve is high, and most kids want the run-and-gun treadmills like COD and CS:S.

 

[Zap]

Also, there appears to be a way to unlock ALL 6950 2GBs (regardless if they have the switch or not). This process is described here.

Is there confirmation that it works? The OP doesn't seem to mention specifically that his has the switch or not (unless I missed it). He just said "it should work."

If you are going to spend $430 on a GTX580, and were considering the HD5970, you might as well go for 2 stock HD6950 2GB CF setup.

I'm also interested in power savings. Looks as if the single GTX 580 still edges two 5950 for power consumption, temperature and noise. However, would consider it. Looks like the two cards in Crossfire would fall between my two GTX 285 and one GTX 580 for power/noise/temps, so I can probably justify it by the big performance increase. Alternately a single 6950 would suffice for similar performance as the two 285 (less in some, hair better in other games?) with a much lower power profile.

 

[Madcatatlas]

I'm currently using two GTX 285 on a 30" monitor and am considering going to a single GTX 570, GTX 580 or Radeon 5970. Seems like a single high end GPU will give me the performance of my two GTX 285, but with less power used and less overall heat put out. Perfect for me!

I'm also interested in power savings. Looks as if the single GTX 580 still edges two 5950 for power consumption, temperature and noise.

You and AMD cards arent good friends or what Zap?
Confused? must be frustrating

 

[Jacky60]

so you have 2 6990 gpus for gaming at 1920?

If all 4 gpu's are at 84% what does that tell you? And thats at 35-45fps.
So try believing for a minute.

 

[Makaveli]

yes I'd love 3 30inch Dell's or even one but no matter how good the monitor if the fps drop to 16 or you get dizzy playing then its not fun. A $1400 monitor and $400 graphics card would be unplayable or look pretty turgid so how does that work?
If any $400 graphics card could make it look great and be playable at 1920/1200 then of course that would be a better option but believe me that is not possible. Yes such a setup would tear through all the other low rent console games and better or more monitors would be the better choice but its either/or -not both! Go try playing multiplayer with an E8400 and a 4890 or 2 4890's or 3 5870's or 3 5870's and a 920 at 4ghz and then tell me I don't know what I'm doing because I can assure you that reality contradicts your wise but inexperienced words. Other games yes-this no. My rig has enough trouble staying above 40fps at 1920/1200 so how does increasing the pixel number from 2304000 to 3932160 help? I'll have nearly double the pixel count with all the attendant implications for fps and being cpu bound. I await your advice eagerly.

You never mentioned anything about getting dizzy so this is new.

And my point is the setup sounds unbalanaced.

"A $1400 monitor and $400 graphics card or $1400 gpu setup and $400 monitor" is the same both don't make sense

Like buying a single GTX 580 to play at 1680x1050.

Granted you are playing a vew heavy game that is very taxing online, but what are your fps like with just a single 6990 in game and what settings?

Obviously its your money and your build and your eyes so I cannot pretend to know what your experience is so no need to get snippy.

Just when I read about the setup it just seems off to me and toyota i'm sure thought the same thing.

 

[Timmah!]

amd does support gpgpu...

Unfortunately not enough, as probably 90 percent of GPGPU apps are CUDA based
Not to mention GTX590 beats 6990 in OpenCL apps by huge margin as well

 

[Jacky60]

I appreciate you mean well but I can't realistically build a rig that plays Arma 2 much better without going dual cpu. My monitor should be better but if I have all my gpu's at 84% and I'm getting 30-60fps at 1920/1200 with halfway decent settings then I'm getting close to the maximum in game performance for my pound/dollar. Maybe 3 6950's would have been cheaper but I still don't see how I can get any better performance/value than 4 overclocked 6970's at 84% (we're at 890 core now ). Tell me how at 1920/1200 (I get dizzy if fps drops below 25-30 fps) I can do better? I still don't think you've the remotest idea of what I'm talking about, we aren't talking hundreds of fps here were in 20's and 30's sometimes.
I'm sure a sata 3 ssd would improve things but the game scales enormously, is a military sim and used by USMC etc (virtual battlefield) and was clearly designed to run on unlimited budget uber powerful military servers.

It's so unlike buying a 580 to play at 1680x1050 it is untrue, because you're assuming there's more performance there than required for the resolution. That is certainly the case for EVERY other PC game I own. You think its unbalanced because quite simply you don't know what you're talking about in this context. Now I'm being snippy!

 

[Makaveli]

I appreciate you mean well but I can't realistically build a rig that plays Arma 2 much better without going dual cpu. My monitor should be better but if I have all my gpu's at 84% and I'm getting 30-60fps at 1920/1200 with halfway decent settings then I'm getting close to the maximum in game performance for my pound/dollar. Maybe 3 6950's would have been cheaper but I still don't see how I can get any better performance/value than 4 overclocked 6970's at 84% (we're at 890 core now ). Tell me how at 1920/1200 (I get dizzy if fps drops below 25-30 fps) I can do better. I still don't think you've the remotest idea of what I'm talking about we aren't talking hundreds of fps here were in 20's and 30's sometimes.
I'm sure a sata 3 ssd would improve things but the game scales enormously, is a military sim and used by USMC etc (virtual battlefield) and was clearly designed to run on unlimited budget uber powerful military servers.

It's so unlike buying a 580 to play at 1680x1050 it is untrue, because you're assuming there's more performance there than required for the resolution. That is certainly the case for EVERY other PC game I own. You think its unbalanced because quite simply you don't know what you're talkning about in this context. Now I'm being snippy!

Is arma 2 cpu limited or more GPU limited or both?

You keep telling me I don't know what i'm talking about and you are free to believe what you will but I don't think spending $1400 to play a single game at 1920 res makes sense and nothing you have mentioned has changed that fact.

 

[Timmah!]

I appreciate you mean well but I can't realistically build a rig that plays Arma 2 much better without going dual cpu. My monitor should be better but if I have all my gpu's at 84% and I'm getting 30-60fps at 1920/1200 with halfway decent settings then I'm getting close to the maximum in game performance for my pound/dollar. Maybe 3 6950's would have been cheaper but I still don't see how I can get any better performance/value than 4 overclocked 6970's at 84% (we're at 890 core now ). Tell me how at 1920/1200 (I get dizzy if fps drops below 25-30 fps) I can do better? I still don't think you've the remotest idea of what I'm talking about, we aren't talking hundreds of fps here were in 20's and 30's sometimes.
I'm sure a sata 3 ssd would improve things but the game scales enormously, is a military sim and used by USMC etc (virtual battlefield) and was clearly designed to run on unlimited budget uber powerful military servers.

It's so unlike buying a 580 to play at 1680x1050 it is untrue, because you're assuming there's more performance there than required for the resolution. That is certainly the case for EVERY other PC game I own. You think its unbalanced because quite simply you don't know what you're talking about in this context. Now I'm being snippy!

Buy i7 970 or higher then and OC the s***t out of it. Its a heresy anyway to run 2 most powerful cards alongside lowly 920 :biggrin:
If you had money for those cards, surely you find 600 dollars/EUROs/pounds/whatever for 970.

 

[Jacky60]

I never said spending $1400 or £1050 to buy gpu's to play a single game made sense any more than I said spending $100,000 or $500,000 to buy a car does or doesn't make sense. Few consumer decisions 'make sense' in the grand scheme of things. It's been the only game I've really played in the last couple of years and given time spent and enjoyment had it's been pretty good value on a dollars per hour basis.
It's horribly GPU and CPU limited -as in it crushes conventional framerate and performance expectations. That's because its enormous but it is absolutely brilliant. I'd never of heard of it but came across it by accident after a chance encounter with a youtube arma 1 video.

 

[Jacky60]

Buy i7 970 or higher then and OC the s***t out of it. Its a heresy anyway to run 2 most powerful cards alongside lowly 920 :biggrin:
If you had money for those cards, surely you find 600 dollars/EUROs/pounds/whatever for 970.

Yeah but doesn't overclocked sandybridge equal or get close to single threaded 970/980/990 performance (disabling HT radically improves framerate in Arma 2). I'm holding out for Ivybridge or bulldozer or something that puts the hurt on this mother.
Not only that but I haven't seen convincing evidence it utilises 6 cores very effectively (yes it should but it didn't unless things changed recently).
Didn't mean to derail to arma 2 discussion but apart from it and metro 2033 there doesn't seem much else out there to justify 6990 x2.

 

[RussianSensation]

Is arma 2 cpu limited or more GPU limited or both?

You keep telling me I don't know what i'm talking about and you are free to believe what you will but I don't think spending $1400 to play a single game at 1920 res makes sense and nothing you have mentioned has changed that fact.

To 99.99% of us it won't make sense. But we don't know his discretionary income. Besides, what if he really likes that game? Why did Crysis 1 justify hundreds of dollars for GPU upgrades but Arma 2 cannot for some gamers?

To me it makes 0 sense to spend $15 a month to play WOW, but I won't necessarily tell others it's a waste of their money, especially if it's their #1 most played game. I know some people who have been paying that for 5 straight years (15x 12 x 5 = $900).

That game is both GPU and CPU limited. It's one of the few games I can think of (perhaps Starcraft 2) where the Phenom II architecture just falls flat on its face. Phenom II X4 @ 3.5ghz is 31% slower than a Core i7 920 @ 3.5ghz with a meager HD4890.

 

[Timmah!]

Yeah but doesn't overclocked sandybridge equal or get close to single threaded 970/980/990 performance (disabling HT radically improves framerate in Arma 2). I'm holding out for Ivybridge or bulldozer or something that puts the hurt on this mother.
Not only that but I haven't seen convincing evidence it utilises 6 cores very effectively (yes it should but it didn't unless things changed recently).
Didn't mean to derail to arma 2 discussion but apart from it and metro 2033 there doesn't seem much else out there to justify 6990 x2.

Oh, did not know about the HT part and yeah, the multi-core support is good question...anyway you are right that Sandy at 5GHz is probably a better choice here (and cheaper). Depend really on the number of cores Arma can use.

Yeah and the life of hardware enthusiast is tough, my machine cost me almost 3000 EUROs as well, it was bloody expensive. I can partially justify it, that i use it for work - CAD, Max, Octane, Photoshop...but really as i mostly work at office on my office machine, i can make money with this computer only on the odd side jobs here and there, so it will probably take years to earn those money back... simply i wanted it more than i needed it.
But i dont regret it, its basically my only "hobby", which requires any money, i do not drink, do not smoke, do not go to holidays... i am basically no-lifer:biggrin:

 

[Makaveli]

After reading the rest of the Hardocp review and all the glitches and issues that's a mighty big investment for a setup that doesn't seem that stable (referring to both Quad SLI and Crossfire)

 

[Makaveli]

I never said spending $1400 or £1050 to buy gpu's to play a single game made sense any more than I said spending $100,000 or $500,000 to buy a car does or doesn't make sense. Few consumer decisions 'make sense' in the grand scheme of things. It's been the only game I've really played in the last couple of years and given time spent and enjoyment had it's been pretty good value on a dollars per hour basis.
It's horribly GPU and CPU limited -as in it crushes conventional framerate and performance expectations. That's because its enormous but it is absolutely brilliant. I'd never of heard of it but came across it by accident after a chance encounter with a youtube arma 1 video.

i've played arma 1 on a dualcore rig with a radeon 4890 and that was rough. i do actually have arma 2 but it still sitting in a box haven't had time to install it and play very busy last few months.

 

[Makaveli]

To 99.99% of us it won't make sense. But we don't know his discretionary income. Besides, what is he really likes that game? Why did Crysis 1 justify hundreds of dollars for GPU upgrades but Arma 2 cannot for some gamers?

To me it makes 0 sense to spend $15 a month to play WOW, but I won't necessarily tell others it's a waste of their money, especially if it's their #1 most played game. I know some people who have been paying that for 5 years straights (15x 12 x 5 = $900).

That game is both GPU and CPU limited. It's one of the few games I can think of (perhaps Starcraft 2) where the Phenom II architecture just falls flat on its face. Phenom II X4 @ 3.5ghz is 31% slower than a Core i7 920 @ 3.5ghz with a meager HD4890.

I agree russian,

i've been asking questions because I was trying to understand his reasoning for the build. I'm not telling him what to do with his cash if he is happy with his rig that is all that matters.

*I would have posted the same thing for Crysis is that was the game in question*

And I think wow is a waste of time more so than money that game is just boring

But $900 for 5 years worth of game play for a game you like actually sounds like a good deal to me.