HD 6990 Preview/Review

[tajoh111]

Not every HD 6950 can be unlocked to HD 6970.

Anyway none of the Nvidia or AMD/ATI dual GPU card was ever made to compete with 2cards SLI or CF setup. The single most important reason for the dual GPU card is to compete as fastest graphic card on the market. I wonder why you still don't get it.

Also AMD strategy is to develop much smaller GPU chips and use the dual GPU as flagship card. IT looks like for the last 3 generation the strategy worked well for AMD, so what is there to argue about?

I prefer the dual GPU card because it is much more suitable for my setup.

I think what saaya and alot of reviewers are saying is that their is little benefit going with the 6990 compared to two card solution aside from the form factor and even the form factor benefit is none applicable because of the compromises of the card. It is unlike past dual GPU cards from AMD for several reasons. No cost savings(actually you pay a penalty), underspec'd compared to the single cards, possibly louder noise(depending on the review), lower overclock headroom and similar power consumption. Additionally quadfire is a terrible solution as shown by tech powerup. The extra card gets some of the worst bang for your buck ever. I think three cards would be better for scaling and significantly cheaper.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...ssFire/19.html

When AMD made this card, it was of course to be a halo project. But considering the unfair asking price compared to their single card solutions(and past dual cards) and the warranty limitations to unlock it true performance, its and impractial beast that has a smaller niche than ever before for a videocard(atleast a massed produced one).

This niche being people with only a single graphic card slot with a wider case but for some odd reason with alot of depth who want ultimate performance. They also need super good cooling in this cramped case since this card blows hot air back into the case.

This niche is even smaller because anyone for the most part considering this part should have a crazy beefy CPU, a big case and a MB to match with multiple PCIe slots. For some water coolers it is somewhat more practical but I would be scared to water cool such an expensive card and only to have something break because of improperly cooled VRM or something.

This card has so many compromises that it is impractical for even alot of power users. And especially for people on xtremesysystems, warranty should be available for the most part and having none when overclocking is a big issue on a card this expensive.

Also, why is the 6990 better for your setup? Your case is huge and your MB is spaced for 3 cards in CFx?