- PS4 will have 2x HD7990s so AMD has been busy stock piling millions for its launch.
- GTX690 is too power efficient. It has packaged nearly GTX680 SLI level of performance in a jaw-dropping 274W of
peak power, packaged under a quiet magnesium/aluminum shrouded cooler. It's pure sexiness, other than I would have loved to see 8GB of VRAM (4 per each GPU) on a $1000 GPU.
For HD7990 to compete, it would probably need to draw 350-400W of power at 1000mhz each. 925mhz 7970 CF may not be enough to beat GTX690 to compensate for the huge power consumption increase.
Also, NV is selling the 690 as 2x 680 chips for $1000. The only way for AMD to be able to do that is to make a card faster since they are going to lose on power consumption for sure. But it's impossible to make it faster without 1000+mhz clocks which would make it use 350-400W I bet. So how do you design a GPU cooler that can handle that much heat? :sneaky:
The alternative then is to either let an AIB do it (limited run like HD6870 X2 by Powercolor) OR release an 850mhz HD7990 and price it for $800.
I guess AMD decided it's not worth to sell an 850mhz 7990 and lose badly to the 690, so they let AIBs handle it. I bet those 500 units of Devil 13 will sell out right away to bitcoin miners and such. 7970's key advantage is overclocking. Good luck overclocking those 7970s to 1150mhz+ on 1 single 7990 board!
You'd probably need 3x 8-pin power connectors, or 4.
My biggest problem with the 690 is that it
falls apart where the GPU power is needed the most. In a way it's actually a let down since it costs $1000. I'd get GTX670 4GB SLI over the 690 to be honest.