Official HD6990 Review Thread (*updated* with 21 reviews at this time)

[mnewsham]

This card is fail. I wonder how long before you ruin your hard drives with this thing becoming essentially a hair dryer and toasting your hard drives and whatever else gets in the heat blast. The temps of the drives in anandtech's review went up almost 10c if I remember correctly. I thought gpu manufacturers learned last time around consumers don't like mini furnaces.

Most people willing to drop 700 bucks on GPU's would already have or be willing to drop a few hundred on a waterblock and a full loop.

 

[thilanliyan]

remember the 6990 pulled 500 watts in the Anand review allready.

No, the whole system pulled 500w.

 

[AtenRa]

Most people willing to drop 700 bucks on GPU's would already have or be willing to drop a few hundred on a waterblock and a full loop.

I had a Giga-Byte HD5970 without water-cooling but i would not consider using the HD6990 in my system, not all highend users would like to use water-Cooling.

 

[notty22]

No, the whole system pulled 500w.

No, the system pulled near 700 watts, the reviewer estimatd 500 for the video card :
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/amds-radeon-hd-6990-the-new-single-card-king/18

I don't think anyone should disable PT on a $700 video card, I bet the VRM's were smoking.
edit: its not clear, whether PT is disabled by default ? Possibly on the 2nd bios.

As for our 6990OC, overclocked and without PowerTune we see what the 6990 is really capable of in terms of power consumption and heat. 684W is well above of the 6970CF (which has PT intact), and is approaching the 570/580 in SLI. We don’t have the ability to measure the power consumption of solely the video card, but based on our data we’re confident the 6990 is pulling at least 500W – and this is one card with one fan dissipating all of that heat. Front and rear case ventilation starts looking really good at this point.

 

[DrBoss]

The fastest single card solution is the 580 and whatever aftermarket cooler you decide to have on it. This is an overpriced mini oven.

Wrong, the 6990 is now the fastest single card option.

Just because the 6990 is loud, costly, and hot does not mean your 580 is suddenly christ reborn. Turns out, the 580 is also hot, expensive, and loud (albeit less so than the 6990)... too bad the 580 is 60% as powerful as the 6990.

As far as cost is concerned, anyone expecting this thing to sell at $600 obviously does not understand the economics of supply and demand. The 6990 will sell at $700 to enthusiasts just like AMD plans it to. If it was $600 the market for the 6990 would likely be larger than AMD could fill.

Once a company like Asus outfits the 6990 with aftermarket cooling, Antilles will become even more attractive to people with deep pockets.

Truth be told, i personally don't like the heat or noise associated with the 6990... that doesn't mean it isn't currently the fastest graphics card ever made.




Off topic: Why does Toms Hardware insist on NOT using Crysis in there benchmark tests?!

 

[Zstream]

I hope the market determines this thing falls flat on it's face as it should at current pricing. The fastest single card solution is the 580 and whatever aftermarket cooler you decide to have on it. This is an overpriced mini oven.

You can't be that bad at understanding what you just said. The card 6990 is the fastest single card out. Quit trying to stir the pot...

 

[tincart]

Wrong, the 6990 is now the fastest single card option.

Just because the 6990 is loud, costly, and hot does not mean your 580 is suddenly christ reborn. Turns out, the 580 is also hot, expensive, and loud (albeit less so than the 6990)... too bad the 580 is 60% as powerful as the 6990.

What it does suggest is that dual chip cards may no longer be a viable option for the market.

It seems nV might have gotten it right, at least from the point of view of pure performance. Single monolithic dies are going to give you the best balance between performance, power usage and temperature when compared to dual-GPU cards.

 

[DrBoss]

What it does suggest is that dual chip cards may no longer be a viable option for the market.

I agree this is true now, however; in the future as gpu die size shrinks, more efficient means of cooling will likely increase the viability of multi-gpu cards.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Wrong, the 6990 is now the fastest single card option.

Just because the 6990 is loud, costly, and hot does not mean your 580 is suddenly christ reborn. Turns out, the 580 is also hot, expensive, and loud (albeit less so than the 6990)... too bad the 580 is 60% as powerful as the 6990.

As far as cost is concerned, anyone expecting this thing to sell at $600 obviously does not understand the economics of supply and demand. The 6990 will sell at $700 to enthusiasts just like AMD plans it to. If it was $600 the market for the 6990 would likely be larger than AMD could fill.

Once a company like Asus outfits the 6990 with aftermarket cooling, Antilles will become even more attractive to people with deep pockets.

Truth be told, i personally don't like the heat or noise associated with the 6990... that doesn't mean it isn't currently the fastest graphics card ever made.




Off topic: Why does Toms Hardware insist on NOT using Crysis in there benchmark tests?!

What I meant was it is the single fastest gpu not single card. I wouldn't say it's 60% faster either. I can overclock my 580. You can't overclock the 6990 or even have it run at 6970 speeds and voltage without voiding the warranty.

I agree with tincart. Dual gpu is no longer an option.

 

[tincart]

I agree this is true now, however; in the future as gpu die size shrinks, more efficient means of cooling will likely increase the viability of multi-gpu cards.

Remains to be seen, but I accept the possibility. It is an engineering problem and I'm not an engineer.

It's also an issue of economics. Will the future cooling solutions be cheap enough to make marketable products and will they be acceptable to consumers? There are solutions right now that could provide silent, efficient cooling, such as water-cooling. I don't see AMD making stock water-cooled products anytime soon.

 

[DrBoss]

6990's are now for sale on newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...n+6990&x=0&y=0

 

[Skurge]

Isn't 75db when hearing loss could occur after prolonged exposure?

 

[mnewsham]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102927
$709.99 not too bad, considering they have the others at about 20-50 more.

 

[MentalIlness]

^

lol

 

[KIAman]

What this card has shown me is that AMD has the ability to make a 6" HD6970 using a single 8pin connecter and able to vent 225watts outside of the case.

Is there a market for utlra-high performance HTPC card?

 

[Ryan Smith]

I found this to be very interesting!

Quote from Anandtech article............

". The switch on the 6990 is slightly recessed, not by enough to make it hard to hit but enough that you’ll never accidentally hit it. Flipping the switch would need to be a conscientious action, which makes sense given the fact that doing so would void the card’s warranty"

So if you hit the switch the warranty is void? Thats not good.

Hi guys, I just wanted to make a quick note on this. There was one detail that didn't make it in to the initial publication of the article:

After publication of this article there's been some slight confusion on the matter of the AWSUM switch and the warranty. AMD's official guidance is that overclocking the card voids the warranty, which means that AWSUM/uber mode it warranty breaking. Technically speaking just flipping the switch doesn't break the warranty - it's operating the card that does - but retail cards will come with a sticker over the switch warning users of the potential danger of overclocking and that it violates the warranty. So breaking the sticker to flip the switch will for all practical purposes violate the warranty. Specific policies may differ by partner, however.

Hopefully that makes things clearer.

 

[MentalIlness]

http://www.bjorn3d.com/articles/AMD_HD6990/2020.html

http://www.rage3d.com/previews/video/amd_hd6990_launch_preview/

http://techgage.com/article/amd_radeon_hd_6990_dual-gpu_graphics_card_review/

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/AMD_HD_6990_Antilles/

 

[MentalIlness]

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

This one is a review for 5760x1080 resolution.

 

[Ryan Smith]

To be far, Anandtech did open up the card, and take the cooler off, with those thermal pads not working as well after such.

That said yeah... cards are noisy... aprrently they make more noise than the 480 did, its not just 1 site its many sites that have 6990>480 when it comes to noise.


The 6990 needs to have a Custom Cooler designed by Asus, or oneone, so it ll be less hot, less noisy, then this card would be a huge win.


at 699$ price tag, and being like ~65% faster than 1 x 580, that usually costs ~500$.
Value wise... its a better buy than a 580.

Just so that we're clear, we did not open our card. AMD was very good sports about it and took all the disassembled pictures you see so that we would not have to open ours (since we need it for future articles). All the results you see are with a mint condition card.

 

[Elfear]

I agree with tincart. Dual gpu is no longer an option.

I disagree. I think Nvidia/AMD will just have to use a pair of gpus that aren't the top of the line. So instead of being 60% faster than the single card champ it would only be 30-40% faster. Similar to what we saw with the 5970.

 

[tviceman]

Probably the loudest card ever tested at Anandtech. By far the highest power consuming card ever tested. No doubt the gtx580 will challenge the power consumption, and probably be pretty damn loud too. These dual GPU solutions are now absolutely ridiculous. A pair of cards is a much, much smarter solution on so many levels.

Despite the performance gains, this dual solution regresses the video card field in every other front. The shrink to 28nm can't come soon enough.

 

[sandorski]

Techpowerup only tested with 4xAA? with 6990 Xfire?

It looks like CPU limit to me. Maybe the AMD slides were done with Bulldozer.

The card is way to loud though, thats just inexcusable. Im sure they could have come up with a better cooler design, maybe drop the shroud and get a triple slot or something.

Hmm, you never know. Would be interesting if they did.

 

[tincart]

I disagree. I think Nvidia/AMD will just have to use a pair of gpus that aren't the top of the line. So instead of being 60% faster than the single card champ it would only be 30-40% faster. Similar to what we saw with the 5970.

The point is not so much the speed of the card as the other features involved in making an attractive product: Heat and noise.

 

[sandorski]

Hi guys, I just wanted to make a quick note on this. There was one detail that didn't make it in to the initial publication of the article:

Hopefully that makes things clearer.

Hehe, like God in the Garden of Eden, AMD has put the Forbidden Fruit to be picked, but not eaten.

 

[sandorski]

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

This one is a review for 5760x1080 resolution.

Very interesting. Looks best used as an Eyefinity card.