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.
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Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
2 HD 6970 Cards for $640? I don't think so! These cards are over $300 everywhere. I purchased 2 for $710 shipped and I thought that was a deal. Maybe reviews like yours here inflated the price and I purchased after the price adjustment. I have the same luck with gasoline on days I fill my tank.ViRGE - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
Looking at the Egg, there's 2 different 6970s at $320, which is probably where AT got $640 from.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
All right, you got me there. I only buy XFX double lifetime warranty cards when I start spending this much on replacing my dual GPU solution.I seem to manage to actually re-sell my used video cards when I can offer then to a buyer with a lifetime warranty. XFX double lifetime warranty is not a sales gimic, it works. Heck, I would buy a used card if it had a lifetime warranty, it's kind of a no brainer given you actually want to buy that card int he first place.
Arbie - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
Thanks for keeping the Crysis Warhead minimum FPS charts!! To me, Crysis/Warhead remains the defining game (and not only technically). I don't even look at the numbers on the other titles.Also of prime importance to me are the idle power and, to a slightly lesser extent, idle noise.
Of course, like most people reading your review, I wouldn't be buying a 6990 even if it were silent. In fact, given that PC graphics requirements are apparently ramping down to console levels, I wonder how AMD/Nvidia are going to sell any significant number of cards above midrange. My HD 5770 will run everything at 1920x1200, though not always with all sliders maxed. However, I don't see much if any difference (in DX9) when I do enable 4xAA vs 2xAA etc. Certainly not enough to double the price of this $140 card.
A nit on the Crysis Warhead minimum fps chart for 1920x1200 Frost Bench - Gamer Quality - Enthusiast Shaders + 4xAA: Your Dec 10 chart shows 6970CF at 66.2 fps but this Mar 11 chart shows 66.6. Can you believe anyone would actually notice this, much less comment on it? We are too absorbed in this tech stuff (ain't it grand...).
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
They did say the new drivers made a slight difference, that seems likely to be one of the configurations they retestedmorphologia - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
That isn't portrait orientation in the picture...it's landscape.taltamir - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
The card was measured at 77.3db in the article.1. At what distance was it measured?
2. What is its db measurement 1 meter away?
taltamir - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
I just looked it up, gold is worth 1430$/ounce right now.I highly doubt a watercooled 6990 will weigh half an ounce.
ekrash - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
The performance bottleneck is also seen in nvidia's dual gpu offerings. Dual GPU cards operating in X16 PCIe slots must have their data lanes divided between the gpu's, so they are effectively operating at X8 data rates, not at X16 data rates. Whereas single gpu cards will utilize all X16 express lanes, and even then the PCIexpress standard may soon be obsoleted. I hope we can look forward to Intel's fiber optic technology effectively replacing all data bus signalling with 10GB fiber optic bus and peripheral device signalling which can simultaneously and independently utilize all of the different data protocols used for inter-device and system bus communications. Imagine soon AMD and Nvidia will be producing video cards with fiber-optic data buses which may change requirements for power supplied to present day PCI express slots and may change the standards in power supply manufacturing to require that additional power connector to a video card since the 75 watt PCIe slot will be obsolete.But ATI and Nvidia may also have to work with motherboard manufacturers to see if Intel's "Thunderbolt" fiber optic data buses can increase or freely throttle the video data bandwidth through its 10GB interface and would be tantamount to increasing data lanes from X16 to X32. It would be almost unlimited video bandwidth which far exceeds any bandwidth limitations vs availability that is needed today. Dual GPU's cannot promise the performance with the limitation of the PCIe X16 slot being divided to dual X8 channels, but it would be nice to see how they perform with unlimited bandwidth potential over a single 10GB fiber-optic. And that would change the battlefield between ATI-AMD and Nvidia.
My 4870 X2's (Can run Quadfire) still rocks on enthusiast settings in Crysis and Warhead without any hiccups and I've not seen a slowdown of any sort on any level in Crysis.
The price to performance ratio is declining and may affect my decision to purchase another dual GPU card, opting instead for single GPU card CF solutions that can utilize all X16 lanes by the GPU.
BTW I did notice the lack of DATA on Crysis @1920x1200 with full enthusiast settings, so that data is missing from this review. Its Gamer plus enthusiast shaders.....not full enthusiast. As above the 4870 X2 runs full enthusiast settings, not one setting is scaled back, and not one hiccup....just smooth play throughout on a single 28" display.
cmdrdredd - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - link
Why are we still using Crysis Warhead at "Gamer Quality"????? With cards like these why not turn everything maxed in game and then fidget with AA and the like? I don't get it.