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
The launch drivers for the 6990 will be a preview version of Catalyst 11.4, which have been made available today and the final version launching sometime in April. Compared to the earlier drivers we’ve been using performance in most of our games is up by at least a few percent, particularly in CrossFire. For launching a dual-GPU card like the 6990, the timing couldn’t be better.
Along with these performance improvements AMD is also throwing a few new features in to the Catalyst Control Center, making it the first time they’ve touched it since the introduction of the new design in January. Chief among these features – and also timed to launch with the 6990 today - is 5x1 portrait Eyefinity mode. Previously AMD has supported 3x1 and 3x2, but never anything wider than 3 monitors (even on the Eyefinity 6 series).
The 6990 is of course perfectly suited for the task as it's able to drive 4 + 1 monitors without any miniDP MST hubs, and indeed the rendering capabilities of this card are wasted a good deal of the time only driving one monitor. Other cards will also support 5x1P, but only E6 cards can work without a MST hub at the moment. Notably, in spite of requiring one fewer monitor than 3x2 Eyefinity this is easily the most expensive option for Eyefinty yet, as portrait modes require monitors with wide vertical viewing angles to avoid color washout – you’d be hard pressed to build a suitable setup with cheap TN monitors like you can the landscape modes.
The other big change for power users is that AMD is adding a software update feature to the Catalyst Control Center, which will allow users to check for driver updates from within the CCC. It will also have an automatic update feature, which will check for driver updates every 2 weeks. At this point there seems to be some confusion over at AMD over whether this will be enabled by default or not – our drivers have it enabled by default, while we were initially told it would be disabled. From AMD’s perspective having the auto update feature enabled improves the user experience by helping to get users on newer drivers that resolve bugs in similarly new games, but at the same time I could easily see this backfiring with users by being one more piece of software nagging for an update every month.
Finally, AMD is undergoing a rebranding (again), this time for the Catalyst Control Center. If you use an AMD CPU + AMD consumer GPU, the Catalyst Control Center is now the AMD VISION Engine Control Center. If you use an Intel CPU + AMD consumer GPU it’s still the Catalyst Control Center. If you use a professional GPU (regardless of CPU), it’s the Catalyst Pro Control Center.
The Test
Due to the timing of this launch we haven’t had an opportunity to do in-depth testing of Eyefinity configurations. We will be updating this article with Eyefinity performance data in the next day. In the meantime we have our usual collection of single monitor tests.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Asus Rampage II Extreme |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | OCZ Summit (120GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 6990 AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6870 AMD Radeon HD 6850 AMD Radeon HD 5970 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5850 AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 4870X2 AMD Radeon HD 4870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 262.99 NVIDIA ForceWare 266.56 Beta NVIDIA ForceWare 266.58 AMD Catalyst 10.10e AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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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.