AMD Radeon HD 7990 Review: 7990 Gets Official
by Ryan Smith on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Radeon HD 7000
- Tahiti
Battlefield 3
Our final action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 3, DICE’s 2011 multiplayer military shooter. Its ability to pose a significant challenge to GPUs has been dulled some by time and drivers, but it’s still a challenge if you want to hit the highest settings at the highest resolutions at the highest anti-aliasing levels. Furthermore while we can crack 60fps in single player mode, our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, so hitting high framerates here may not be high enough.
With Battlefield 3 we ended up encountering a terrain issue on NVIDIA’s latest drivers, so we’re using our old NVIDIA scores for the time being until we get the issue sorted out. But even without the benefit of new drivers, NVIDIA does well enough in this game that AMD and the 7990 can’t overcome the GTX 690. We’re looking at a 5% gap here, so it’s not particularly large. In any case the 7990 is still hitting 74fps at 5760 with Ultra quality, which translates into multiplayer minimum framerates well above 30fps.
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Nfarce - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Most people can't afford to pay $2k in cash (or would not choose to do so if they could do so, as is the case of me). Plunking down that kind of money for GPU performance for gaming and not thinking twice about it (or missing it) is the exception, not the rule. That's all I'm saying. More power to you, so to speak, for bragging rights.Shark321 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Without FCAT numbers this review is a complete waste of time. 3 Weeks ago Ryan wrote that FCAT numbers for crossfire will be available "next monday", and nothing has happened since. EVERY other major hardware review website has FCAT results.brucek2 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Long time AnandTech fan here, but this review really drops the ball.Like many other commenters said, if you don't have the FCAT analysis or similar, you're not ready to publish a review. As other sites are showing the 7990's frate rate is in some cases largely fictitious and has gamer-perceptible stutter. Apparently the prototype drivers will fix or improve the issue, but the release date is only "second half 2013" ie potentially months away.
Also, did your sample not have the high pitch whine caused by vibrations of the capcitors / PCB that other reviews are reporting? Can't cover what didn't happen but this appears to be a material issue with this card.
In short had I bought this case based solely on this review, I would have ended up sorely dissappointed. I trust AnandTech more than that and don't want to see this trust erode.
HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
You have to hand it to AMD. Looking at the benchmark games, six out of ten are already Gaming Evolved titles that were included in a bundle by AMD. Of the four that are not, Battlefield 3 will almost certainly be updated to BF4 this year when the Gaming Evolved version shows up.Control the way the benchmark games are developed, control the benchmarks, and look better by comparison. It's smart and I bet it costs a lot less money than actually releasing new cards every year.
7Enigma - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
Here's a thought Ryan; You didn't have enough time to get the FCAT results together, and you are releasing a review of a product that at best is 2 weeks away (can you say SUPER SOFT LAUNCH). So how's about you HOLD THE REVIEW until release or at least until you have a proper review ready.The last couple years has seen Anandtech flip/flop constantly on this point. And while I don't feel Anandtech is biased towards one or the other be it AMD/Intel or AMD/NVIDIA, it just looks bad when one time you hold a review and other times incomplete articles get thrown out to beat the NDA....
Chaser - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
When I decide I need three 30 inch monitors I'll consider a $1000.00 video card. Meh.Mr. Mephisto - Monday, April 29, 2013 - link
i currently own the powercolor 7990 and i have to say the driver releases have changed the performance exponentially. the card was downright disappointing playing crysis 3 using driver 13.2 but after 13.5 there is a much smoother gaming experience. i really dont think that it matters if AMD has better architecture if they cant release good drivers.*i guess it should be said that this is my first AMD card in my 7-8 years of gaming. i used to be a nvidia fanboy XD
Parablooper - Monday, April 29, 2013 - link
There's no way I can afford it, but that doesn't stop me from getting really fucking pumped.Biln3 - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
looks like we need to buy 2 6970s instead of a 6990Shark321 - Friday, May 3, 2013 - link
There is a rumour floating around in forums that Anandtech did not post any FCAT results (like promised 4 weeks ago), because of a deal with AMD.