AMD's Radeon HD 6990: The New Single Card King
by Ryan Smith on March 8, 2011 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- AMD
- Radeon HD 6990
- GPUs
Final Thoughts
Wrapping things up, there’s little we need to say that wasn’t already evident in our graphs. The 6990 is a halo card and succeeds at such – by packing two Cayman GPUs on a single card, it is without question the fastest video card on the market today. At the same time there is and always will be a distinction between single-GPU cards and dual-GPU cards; the former is a threat to the latter, but the latter is rarely a threat to the former.
When we reviewed the Radeon HD 5970 back in 2009, the principle question we ran in to was whether it would be better to have a 5970 or two 5850s in CrossFire, given that the two were nearly identical in performance. The answer was that CrossFire was superior so long as you had a power supply with four readily available PCIe power plugs. With the Radeon HD 6990, we find ourselves asking the same question and an even more direct answer. With but a trio of exceptions, the 6990 doesn’t make sense compared to a pair of cards in CrossFire.
The reasons for this are numerous. The 6990 is so close to the 6950CF in performance that on average at 2560 the two are identical. It’s only in Bad Company 2 and Stalker that we see the 6990 take an advantage, which is then negated by anything from Civilization V to DIRT 2. Meanwhile the 6950CF is cooler, significantly quieter, and less power hungry than the 6990. And finally the 6950CF is cheaper: we can snag a pair of cards for $520, versus $700 for the 6990. Likewise, for $640 you can have a pair of 6970s and enjoy performance at 2560 roughly 8% ahead of the 6990, and that setup is still quieter than the 6990.
This leads us to our exceptions, and why we believe the 6990 is truly a niche product.
- Quad-CrossFire; this is going to be the highest performing AMD solution at this time, power and noise be damned. This requires a motherboard with PEG slots three slots apart (lest you choke the first 6990), but it’s achievable.
- 5x1P Eyefinity. At five-panel resolutions you’re going need a pair of powerful GPUs, but given AMD’s CrossFire Eyefinity limitations at the time only 2 cards can directly drive five monitors: the 5870 Eyefinity 6, and the 6990. Ultimately MST hubs will allow the 6970CF to do this, but for the time being the 6970CF is limited by the number of displays a single card can drive without a hub.
- If you absolutely cannot fit two cards in your computer. This is often the traditional domain of the dual-GPU card, but the 6990’s cooling and power requirements put this in jeopardy. Most micro-ATX cases would simply not be suitable due to cooling needs, meanwhile motherboards with two or more PEG slots are increasingly common. There are very few computers with a single PEG slot that could power and cool the 6990 without a complete overhaul in the first place.
Dual-GPU cards have always been a niche product, but the 6990 really takes this and runs with it. There’s no significant power/noise savings to be found by consolidating two GPUs on to a single card, and as we said earlier with the dual-exhaust cooler the 6990 is effectively two video cards on one PCB. This isn’t a bad thing – the 6990 is the world’s fastest video card after all – but it drives the card in to some very specific niches. If you fall in to these niches, then the 6990 is certainly the card for you. At 22% faster than the 5970 it isn’t a massive performance boost, but it certainly has earned its place.
But if you don't fall into these niches, then there’s nothing the Radeon HD 6990 offers you today that the 6950/6970 didn’t offer in CrossFire mode yesterday. In this case while AMD’s king card is an engineering marvel for its ability to handle so much power in a confined space, as a product on the market it won’t be quite as significant as the title implies.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
130 Comments
View All Comments
EmmetBrown - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
Nice, but what about the Radeon HD 6450, 6570 and 6670?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_Gra...
Why they are available for OEM only? They looks interesting, especially the 6670, which with its 480 SP should be faster than the 5670 which has 400 SP and lower frequency. Do you plan to review them?
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
As you note, they're OEM only. AMD will release them to the retail market eventually, but clearly they're not in a hurry. It's unlikely we'll review them until then, as OEM cards are difficult to come by.misfit410 - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
I have to ask, if you bring up the price and say that you might as well do two 6950's in SLI when this thing doubles the performance of the GTX580, I mean would it also not be the better solution than a GTX580 which is $500 while two 6950's can apparently double it for $550 being they can be found for $225 after rebates these days.Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
You sound a little confused. You can't run ATI cards in SLI, they run in what is called crossfire (or crossfirex which is the same thing). Two 6950's don't equal GTX580 in SLI. You need two HD 6970 cards in crossfire to nearly equal two GTX580 in SLI.In my opinion, why limit your performance with 2 HD 6950 cards, why not just bye the 2 HD 6970 cards and never have to second guess if you should have or not? But... That's just me. I have a job.
silverblue - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
Totally unnecessary closing comment there, considering most people here do actually have jobs. Not everyone who has a job can afford such gear as there's more important things to spend money on.Thanny - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
You sound confused, too. He miswrote SLI, but you misunderstood his point entirely. He's saying that two 6950's are significantly faster than a single 580 for almost the same price.Loiosh - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
Hey guys, you forgot one other usage case that would necessitate this card: ATI+physx setup: http://www.shackpics.com/viewer.x?file=DumbVideoca...I'm currently running one and it requires a dual-GPU card. :/
In my case I'm waiting for a watercooled version. BTW, you didn't say the release date for this?
nanajuuyon - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
Funny after reading this review I went into town (Tokyo) to buy a new hard disk and saw this card for sale. So in Japan at least it is already on the market..... price was ridiculous though, 79,000YEN or $945 US..... I'm sure it will be available everywhere soon.Waterblocks on the other hand could be a couple month or so away I guess...
Vinas - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
If you buy this you better have it on water. 'nuff said about all this tri slot cooler talk.JPForums - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
First off, nice article Ryan.Good data, relevant commentaries on said data, and conclusions.
You mention in the article that you believe some of the shortcomings of the 6990 to be a lack of PCIe bandwidth. This got me thinking that perhaps it is a good time to revisit the effect of PCIe bandwidth on modern cards. Given the P67 only natively supports 16 lanes, I'm curious to see what effect it has on CF/SLI. It could make big difference in the recommended hardware for various levels of gaming systems.
Typically, someone looking for a CF/SLI setup will get a board that supports more lanes. However, I have seen a situation where a friend built a budget i5 system and about 4 months later was in a position to acquire an HD5970 on the cheap (relatively speaking). Clearly, two HD5850s/HD5870s would have been an option.
If newer cards are effectively PCIe bandwidth limited, then a 6990 may perform more closely to an HD6970 CF setup in such a system than it does in these graphs. This would be even more of a consideration at the high end if the rare boards with support for 4x8 lane (spaced) PCIe give you no real benefit over a more common 2x16 lane board (comparing 4 HD6970s to 2 HD6990s).