AMD HD 6990 (Photos!!)

[jeremyshaw]

Seriously... cause it's power density. Yeah, ATX gunners can get away with running four cards, but those of us building around mATX or mITX, we have a bit less slot space for free

[zalbard]

whoever wants max perf and not semi braindead is on a quad vga capable board already, so they will upgrade to 6970 or 6950 quad or switch to sli, why would anybody go 6990?

It will probably be cheaper than 2x 6970... And you need only one waterblock instead of two, too. Not to mention that not everyone is on a 'quad vga capable board', they require pretty retarded cases (9-10 expansion slots)...

[Apokalipse]

If you're air cooling, 2 x 6990 would be easier to cool than 4 x 6970 given that quad cards block airflow to each other.

[Kimofil]

Will be good to see specs...

[antiacid]

and yeah, you can watercool two 6990, but you can do the same with 3 6950s, probably spend the same on watercooling, but pay less for the cards and get the same perf out of it...

even if you could get 3 good 6950s to unlock to 6970s, watercooling 3 cards is more expensive in terms of blocks and fittings!

I personally went with a 5970 over 2x 5870 because the performance difference was minimal and I saved 150$. Had there been a game which made me want to upgrade, I could've dropped in anything from a 5850 to a 5970, which would

Assuming they keep the same pricing scheme, whereas a single 6990 can be had for about 2x 6950, it will be an attractive option for people who don't want to have to buy many blocks.

[Duniek]

sorry, excuse my bluntness, but whats the point of a 6990?
quad 6970 will be much faster, probably even 6950s in tri xfire...
its not going to cost less than 700$, so it will have worse price perf than xfire or quad xfire as well...
and even if it WOULD cost less than 700, thats only justified as its slower than 2 350$ 6970s...
its going to run hotter than 2 cards in sli as well...

really, i dont get it, whats the point?
its pure marketing of claiming the "fastest card" which nobody cares about except for whoever happens to have the "fastest card" at the point in time, isnt it?

bcoz that is ONE CARD

if gtx480 almost handle my 15screen eyefinty
so 6990 or maybe dual 6990 should handle my next rig with 21 screens

pointless? maybe, but fun for me lol

[570091D]

thing looks like the old PS2 fats

ROFL

i thought the same thing, looks like a red PS2

can't wait to see how it performs, given the delays, i expect good things.

[M.Beier]

sorry, excuse my bluntness, but whats the point of a 6990?
quad 6970 will be much faster, probably even 6950s in tri xfire...
its not going to cost less than 700$, so it will have worse price perf than xfire or quad xfire as well...
and even if it WOULD cost less than 700, thats only justified as its slower than 2 350$ 6970s...
its going to run hotter than 2 cards in sli as well...

really, i dont get it, whats the point?
its pure marketing of claiming the "fastest card" which nobody cares about except for whoever happens to have the "fastest card" at the point in time, isnt it?

I'd pick 2 GPU's on one PCB over 2 PCB's with a GPU each every day...
I dont even know where to start....
So starting from the motherboard point.... You can get away with almost any motherboard for 4x GPU, unlike with 4x PCI-E slots...

[tajoh111]

The one thing that doesn't seem so good with the 6xxx series so far is benchmarking ability. I haven't seen any records being made with them. The best thing they have a record in is 3dmark05 but anywhere else, especially single GPU, they are not even close.

With these monster power cards, I hope AMD can atleast be a benching monster because that will be one of the only reasons to spend this much on a card.

[iddqd]

Wonder if it will unlock?

to what? hd7000?

[[XC] hipno650]

to what? hd7000?

no it goes: 6990 unlocking into a full Cray XMT system of 8024 CPU's....

[Jaivan]

whoever wants max perf and not semi braindead is on a quad vga capable board already, so they will upgrade to 6970 or 6950 quad or switch to sli, why would anybody go 6990?

I need the slots for my raid card and other add on cards.

[Lanek]

whoever wants max perf and not semi braindead is on a quad vga capable board already, so they will upgrade to 6970 or 6950 quad or switch to sli, why would anybody go 6990?

This is a bit more complicate, if you wantr Quad SLI, you need a board who have 2x NF200 chips on it ( Evga quad SLI, the Gigabyte UD9, and modded Rampage ) with AMD you can use anyboard with any configuration who have 2 -3 - 4 slots ....
Thoses cards are too really interessant for Tri CFX, the most tri fire System i have seen running, was a 5970 + 5870 ... not 3x 5870. Outside of this you can do Quad CFX just with 2x PCI ex slots so any 3 PCI ex or 2x PCI ex motherboard will work for it.

It's not a bad solution if you have a 6970 allready ( or 6950 ) of add just a 6990 for TRI CFX without the need to buy a 400$ motherboard or buy a 6990 and then just add a 6970 - 6950 when prices drop. Specially for gamers when Tri SLI or CFX is scaling better of quad anyway ( and without the need to have a 5ghz+ CPU ). the system will cost less of 3 cards, will consume less power, and will be easier to cool, easier to manage.

This said, im not really a fan of thoses dual cards, first cause i have allways buy new generation cards by 2 ( for SLI or CFX ), quadfire or quadSLI don't interest me outside bench ( ask a friend who use 2x580 and let's go, Im sure he will happy to test quad. ) . But im sure some want CFX like that, or want a single powerful card ( even if there's 2 gpu inside ), or will buy them cause they fit better there budget..

[Neova]

to what? hd7000?

Historically, x2 cards were 2nd to top of the line chips so was wondering if the 6990 would literally unlock from 2x 6950 chips as I've yet to see any official specs for it.

5970 was 2x 5850 chips, not 5870.

[Lanek]

Historically, x2 cards were 2nd to top of the line chips so was wondering if the 6990 would literally unlock from 2x 6950 chips as I've yet to see any official specs for it.

5970 was 2x 5850 chips, not 5870.

You do a mistake, 5970 are 2x 5870 core, but the core run at the 5850 clock speed... HD5870 1600SP, 5970 = 2x 1600SP . They just lower the clock speed on " standard models " for maintain better temps and power draw.

And ofc it was really easy to make run them @ 5870 speed, outside ofc the 5970 Black edition, Sapphire models and Asus Ares who was run allready respectively at 850mhz and higher for some models.

Actually we don't have the spec of the 6990. Maybe this time, AMD for power and thermal purpose could have use 6950 core with less SP . So ofc i can't speak for the 6990.

[tajoh111]

Actually looking at power consumption numbers. The dual version of this card is going to be vastly castrated so I can completely see what Saaya is getting at. According to techpowerup's test, the 6970 consumes more power than a gtx 280. Considering how well that card worked out(it fell on it's face), they are going to have to make huge cut backs. I.e the amount of shaders as a 6950 at 6950 speeds. Not bad at all but far from the potential that two 6970's at full speed. And before people talk about overclocking, the component that failed the most on a 4870x2 was its VRM's overheating and breaking. The 48xx series used quite a bit less power than the 6970. Bringing these cards back to full overclocks and if AMD is somehow able to keep 1536 shaders, I expect a lot of broken cards when people overclock this baby.

Performance per watt of the gtx 570 and 6970 are pretty similar.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/H...D_6970/27.html

So the difficulty of making dual GPU version of both cards is going to be a barrel of compromises for both companies. And If powertune is implemented to keep power under control, I can see alot of erratic frame rates from throttling.

[Lanek]

I don't think it's really a problem, with slide on "0"

Furmark they have use the slide on +20, other test have been made with slide on +0... average, they have 157W ( 3dmark 03 game test ), peak ( max during 3Dmark03 for game test ) they have 187W.

For sure, Furmark test will be completely cut off ( but untill you play with it ) ... but with 157W average it will not be hard to get lower numbers with a dual gu cards. + TPU point an interessant thing with media testing: the memory clock is not lowered, and TDP is horrible there, he suspect the fast 2gb GDDR5 to be a possible cause of higher TDP... so lower speed on memory look to have surely more impact on TDP of what it will have on general perfs.

Then the 5970 OC edition ( let's alone the Ares ) was far of respect the PCI express standard, if the card with slide on "0" will maybe bring some cut off, they can uncut it with TDP slide on "+20". ( respect the 300W limit on extreme situation and peak, and unrespect them without worry, user choice ) .... so yes, maybe they will be some throttling on some specific situation, but i believe they can maintain thoses situation really rarefull. as the peak will not come offtly. ( im more worry about temps instead of the TDP, if i was going to buy them, i will choose really well the version by his cooler. )

Time will tell, im not medium.

[HelixPC]

good hardware, good features, bad drivers, bad software. till ATI learns how to make good drivers, they wont be getting mine or any of my customers business again, they don't even have a good working official driver for the 6900 series yet, its been one and a half months and all they have are these alpha drivers, i wont even call them beta

[freeloader]

good hardware, good features, bad drivers, bad software. till ATI learns how to make good drivers, they wont be getting mine or any of my customers business again, they don't even have a good working official driver for the 6900 series yet, its been one and a half months and all they have are these alpha drivers, i wont even call them beta

What's wrong with the drivers? I've never had a problem with them.

One and half months on a new product and you're complaining? Most graphics drivers, including Nvidia, don't reach any level of maturity until at least six months after release.

[HelixPC]

What's wrong with the drivers? I've never had a problem with them.

One and half months on a new product and you're complaining? Most graphics drivers, including Nvidia, don't reach any level of maturity until at least six months after release.

Maybe you havnt, but other people sure have, the customers i deal with do more than play video games, more into video production and ive seen alot of problems with ati, im not saying nvidia is perfect, but they work and give less problems. And nVdia had official drivers for the GTX 400 and 500 series with no problems, as a matter of fact nvidia always has drivers ready for launch day, amd ati prefer to use the public as beta testers, for example the new ati drivers have mouse lag only at the top right corner of the screen, google it and you will see many ati users who experience this issue, including me when i was building a system for a customer who requested the 6950.

[Tha Last Meal]

Back again with new Rumors

Matt Skynner just shook this kind of card, just to let everyone see that two of its huge size and design of the core corresponding to the PCB on the back, and two eight-pin auxiliary power supply interface, and did not disclose further details. Not surprisingly, then, Radeon HD 6990 will be equipped with two Cayman XT Radeon HD 6970 core, with 3072 stream processors and 4GB GDDR5 memory, frequency of practice on the one hand there is likely to continue down to the level of Radeon HD 6950, which is 800 / 5000MHz, the other eight-pin dual 375W power supply capacity can be guaranteed, do not rule out a hard-hearted to AMD the possibility of up to 880/5500MHz.

I think this card HD 6990 will come with Radeon HD 6950 core

Source

[duploxxx]

good hardware, good features, bad drivers, bad software. till ATI learns how to make good drivers, they wont be getting mine or any of my customers business again, they don't even have a good working official driver for the 6900 series yet, its been one and a half months and all they have are these alpha drivers, i wont even call them beta

love a good lauch just before sleep why do you keep fooling yourself? fyi a new driver is released right now for the boards that neither you and so called customers don't have , don' worry we only deploy about 35000 a year of those ati since they have such bad drivers, mouse lags, etc... at least we don't have to replace 13000 pieces since other nv cards went banana ......

[HelixPC]

love a good lauch just before sleep why do you keep fooling yourself? fyi a new driver is released right now for the boards that neither you and so called customers don't have , don' worry we only deploy about 35000 a year of those ati since they have such bad drivers, mouse lags, etc... at least we don't have to replace 13000 pieces since other nv cards went banana ......

You sound very immature, i stated my experience and you got hurt like it was your fathers company i insulted, but hey, you keep using your lovely ati card. One thing ati still cannot do better than nvidia, is produce better drivers. I dont care who makes the product, i go with what works.

[jogshy]

VHS tape? Nope, it's a brick !

[Loque]

they should make more effort to craft a better cooler, one that exhausts the heat outside the case powered by something else than a delta screamer.

would be nice if they made a waterblock connected to something like the Hydro series from corsair, out of the box ready to install