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
DiRT: Showdown
Racing to the front of our benchmark suite is our racing benchmark, DiRT: Showdown. DiRT: Showdown is based on the latest iteration of Codemasters’ EGO engine, which has continually evolved over the years to add more advanced rendering features. It was one of the first games to implement tessellation, and also one of the first games to implement a DirectCompute based forward-rendering compatible lighting system. At the same time as Codemasters is by far the most prevalent PC racing developers, it’s also a good proxy for some of the other racing games on the market like F1 and GRID.
DiRT: Showdown is something of a divisive game for benchmarking. The game’s advanced lighting system, while not developed by AMD, does implement a lot of the key concepts they popularized with their Leo forward lighting tech demo. As a result performance with that lighting system turned on has been known to greatly favor AMD cards, which is exactly what’s going on here. But since we’re looking at high-end cards there’s little reason not to be testing with it turned on since even a lone GTX 680 can push 30fps with 5760 with these advanced effects turned on.
In any case, 7990 completely clobbers everything else here short of the 7970GE CF. As heavy as the load is from turning these advanced effects on, the 7990 is still more than fast enough to crack 60fps even at 5760.
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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.