ASUS Radeon HD 6990 4 GB

[HalfAHertz]

AT state that the card is incredibly loud and Guru3d say that the card is loud as in moving large amounts of air loud but not in an annoying kind of way. What do you think W1z? Would you use this as an everyday gaming card?

For the card in IDLE we measure 38 DBa which hardly can be heard really. And fully stressed... 46~47 DBA. Now that might sounds (and is) on the high side but I really do need to make a remark here. Explaining sounds pressure is a hard thing to do. Sometimes 44 DBa can be annoying and 46 pretty acceptable. That's the case with the R6990 as you are not hearing the fan whirring or anything, no it's pure airflow that you hear. So while the card obviously is noisy, it's not at a frustrating level.

 

[Melvis]

Thanks for the review W1z.
Well the card is really impressive from an engineering pov but as a consumer i think that the only people that should be interested in this card is those upgrading from a 4870x2. (or 4870x2x2 lol)

Nope, im good

 

[W1zzard]

Would you use this as an everyday gaming card?

never, i switched to the asus gtx 580 direct cu ii recently and i'm very happy with it because it's quiet. i dont have much time for gaming anyway

 

[HalfAHertz]

never, i switched to the asus gtx 580 direct cu ii recently and i'm very happy with it because it's quiet. i dont have much time for gaming anyway

That says it all. Thanks. And hope you find more time for games soon.

 

[Praetorian]

Hungry card is hungry and noisy! And long!

 

[Fourstaff]

I think AMD has a winner here. Not in terms of price/perf, no of cards it can sell etc, but to create a beast of a card which is 30% faster than GTX580 (which itself is already a beast), I hope the halo effect will make more people sit up and take notice of AMD.

 

[Animalpak]

A real monsta ! Now the 590 plz

 

[Zubasa]

That's on Furmark which is irrelevant. It's artificial and they have measures to fake power consumption under stress tests like this. You have to look at how much it consumes under real games which are represented by the peak numbers on the charts.

Compared to GTX580 which does not have the best consumption to begin with, peak power consumption is 75w higher, which is 33% higher. And if you compare it to the HD5970 you can start crying already.

The same can happen now, because despite being underclocked, at 301w peak, the power consumption is horrible compared to HD6970 (+63% higher), let alone the 6950 (+135%).

It is funny that people are attacking a dual-GPU monster with power consumption figures.
It is not like the intended customers of these cards give a damn anyways.

The early Fermi (GTX480) looks like shit performance/watt compare to even the GTX 295,
and yet if performance is what they are after they will buy such product.

FYI the 6990 is still slightly better performance/watt than the GTX580 at high resolutions.

 

[Benetanegia]

It is funny that people are attacking a dual-GPU monster with power consumption figures.
It is not like the intended customers of these cards give a damn anyways.

The early Fermi (GTX480) looks like shit performance/watt compare to even the GTX 295,
and yet if performance is what they are after they will buy such product.

FYI the 6990 is still slightly better performance/watt than the GTX580 at high resolutions.
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Radeon_HD_6990/images/perfwatt_1920.gifhttp://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Radeon_HD_6990/images/perfwatt_2560.gif

That does not make it any good. The idea was Nvidia catching up with AMD on perf/watt, not AMD failing miserably compared to HD5000. And it's not the fact that it consumes a lot, that's not the problem I have. The problem for me is how badly it scales compared to the HD6950 and even HD6970 and the fact that it is by far the most power hungry card ever made.

Even then, that's not what kills it for me. It's the fact that AMD seems to not be able to keep their promises for more than 1 year if at all, which is comparable to what politicians do. They said they would never sell a card for more than $500 ever again. A few months later bam: HD5970 for $700++. They said they would never break the PCIe standard limit and bam a few months later we get this.

 

[wahdangun]

That does not make it any good. The idea was Nvidia catching up with AMD on perf/watt, not AMD failing miserably compared to HD5000. And it's not the fact that it consumes a lot, that's not the problem I have. The problem for me is how badly it scales compared to the HD6950 and even HD6970 and the fact that it is by far the most power hungry card ever made.

Even then, that's not what kills it for me. It's the fact that AMD seems to not be able to keep their promises for more than 1 year if at all, which is comparable to what politicians do. They said they would never sell a card for more than $500 ever again. A few months later bam: HD5970 for $700++. They said they would never break the PCIe standard limit and bam a few months later we get this.

we don't know how GTX 590 efficient is, until nvdia release it its a moot point


$700 was e-tailer price gouging and because ther are no competition until GTX 580 was out so ? ???

 

[TheMailMan78]

Great review W1zz! As always thank you.

 

[Benetanegia]

we don't know how GTX 590 efficient is, until nvdia release it its a moot point

Ok that's true, we can't be sure of anyting. But based on previous dual cards we can guess and everything favors Nvidia on that front. Every previous dual card from AMD has consumed more or less 2 times the single card solution with the same clocks. HD6990 is much worse than that this time.

9800 GX2 and GTX295 on the other hand only consumed ~25% more than the flagship single GPU card and they still mantained the same performance lead over their competition that single GPU cards had. IMO it is safe to assume a similar behavior this time, although I conceed it's not something guaranteed, but you'll see how come the day of the release the GTX590 is obviously going to beat the HD6990 by a fair bit (it's safe to assume a 50% over the GTX580) and will not break the PCIe standard by a lot, putting it close if not below 6990's power consumption. But we'll find out soon.

 

[cyriene]

Why are they no data from the other 69XX cards? Would have been nice to compare this new card with crossfire 6950s or 6970s just to see...
Not all games deal with single card dual gpus the same as two separate cards.

 

[mdm-adph]

You know, I honestly expected the 6990 to use a lot more power than that. I'm honestly surprised.

I guess I'll take back what I said about AMD and Nvidia's power-throttling technology.

 

[CDdude55]

Awesome review W1z!

Looks like a nice card for those with fat wallets and have multiple monitors.

 

[runnin17]

It's a decent card, but IMO SLI'd 580's still win easily. Not suprising. The 590 will probably not be much faster than the 6990 since the clocks will be much slower than a stock 580. Overclocking headroom will always be much better with an SLI or crossfire setup. I'll stick with my two 580's and be happy for the next year or two.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

not very impressed really. with that i think the 590 is going to beat it.

Now if i had 3 24" monitors. id get this card!

 

[HalfAHertz]

Ok that's true, we can't be sure of anyting. But based on previous dual cards we can guess and everything favors Nvidia on that front. Every previous dual card from AMD has consumed more or less 2 times the single card solution with the same clocks. HD6990 is much worse than that this time.

9800 GX2 and GTX295 on the other hand only consumed ~25% more than the flagship single GPU card and they still mantained the same performance lead over their competition that single GPU cards had. IMO it is safe to assume a similar behavior this time, although I conceed it's not something guaranteed, but you'll see how come the day of the release the GTX590 is obviously going to beat the HD6990 by a fair bit (it's safe to assume a 50% over the GTX580) and will not break the PCIe standard by a lot, putting it close if not below 6990's power consumption. But we'll find out soon.

Can you please define :by a fair bit"? Because from what I see SLI 580 ain't all that much faster overall:

We're looking at 10-15% at most and that is for two full-blown 580s in SLI. And nothing short of a miracle or a die shrink will permit two fully enabled 580 dies running reference speeds on the same PCB. So I think it is safe to assume that the GTX590 will perform worse than a pair of 580s in SLI

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Can you please define :by a fair bit"? Because from what I see SLI 580 ain't all that much faster overall:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4209/35796.png

And nothing short of a miracle or a die shrink will permit two fully enabled 580 dies running reference speeds on the same PCB. So I think it is safe to assume that the GTX590 will perform worse than a pair of 580s in SLI

jeez with that post id rather just get 2 HD6950 for the price

 

[GSquadron]

700$?! Well, i am going to buy half of it

 

[blibba]

Does anyone have power consumption fogures with the bios switch flicked?

 

[hardcore_gamer]

A real monsta ! Now the 590 plz

For what ? To play some dumbed down console ports ?

 

[yogurt_21]

700$?! Well, i am going to buy half of it

yeah powerconsumption is good (people seem to forget this is dual card, the 590 will undoubtably consume more, likely 100w more based on the fact it uses dual 580 cores)

performance is good (people need to read w1zzard's conclusion to the crossfirex review, too little challange for high powered gpu's these days so scaling will change as the market puts out more intensive games)

price is bad. lower perfomance than dual 6970 at a higher cost? I see 2gb 6970's going for 340$ being that the 6990 has less performance than dual 6970's it should be prices at 650$ or less, really it should be 600$.

 

[HalfAHertz]

yeah powerconsumption is good (people seem to forget this is dual card, the 590 will undoubtably consume more, likely 100w more based on the fact it uses dual 580 cores)

performance is good (people need to read w1zzard's conclusion to the crossfirex review, too little challange for high powered gpu's these days so scaling will change as the market puts out more intensive games)

price is bad. lower perfomance than dual 6970 at a higher cost? I see 2gb 6970's going for 340$ being that the 6990 has less performance than dual 6970's it should be prices at 650$ or less, really it should be 600$.

Why are you so sure that it will use 580 cores? :} My guess is that it will use 560Ti cores and will get the same performance as CF6950 but at 300W TDP while at the same time providing 3D surround with excellent heat and noise characteristics. I bet Nvidia didn't expect Ati to go over the PCI-e standard and were much more conservative than them. Then they'll price it at 599$ and blow Ati out of the water at their own game - price/performance.

 

[yogurt_21]

Why are you so sure that it will use 580 cores? :} My guess is that it will use 560Ti cores and will get the same performance as CF6950 but at 300W TDP while at the same time providing 3D surround with excellent heat and noise characteristics. I bet Nvidia didn't expect Ati to go over the PCI-e standard and were much more conservative than them. Then they'll price it at 599$ and blow Ati out of the water at their own game - price/performance.

why would they use 560 cores to compete in a dual card market? an overclocked 580 will suffice for that.

use the 5970 as a reference, 560 sli isn't even close and remember 2 cards in sli/crossfire are always faster than adual gpu card.


no all news we have point to dual 580 cores which by default leads to greater power consumption than the 6990. (580 consumes more power than the 6970 so dual 580 cores will consume more power than dual 6970 cores simple logic)