Introducing “the World’s Fastest Graphics card”, AMD’s flagship HD 6990
Test Configuration
Test Configuration – Hardware
- Intel Core i7 920-reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz; 21x multiplier for 3.97 GHz, Turbo is on.
- Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
- 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC1800 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
- Galaxy GTX 560, 1 GB custom cooler and clocks, Galaxy Clocks 835/2004 MHz and stock-clocked to 822/2004 MHz, supplied by Galaxy under NDA.
- GeForce GTX 560, 1 GB reference design and clocks (822/2004 MHz) supplied by Nvidia under NDA.
- GeForce GTX 580, 1.5 GB reference design and clocks (772/2004 MHz), supplied by Nvidia
- GeForce GTX 480, 1.5 GB reference design and clocks (700/1401 MHz), supplied by Nvidia
- GeForce GTX 570, 1.2 GB reference design and clocks (732/1900 MHz), supplied by Nvidia and further overclocked to 815/2000 MHz.
- EVGA GTX 460 FTW; 1 GB, overclocked version (at reference clocks 675/1800 MHz) supplied by Nvidia/EVGA
- Galaxy GTX 460 SOC; 1GB overclocked version at reference clocks (675/1800 MHz), supplied by Galaxy
- AMD Radeon HD 6990 (4GB, reference, overdrive and overclocked clocks), supplied by AMD
- AMD Radeon HD 6970 (2GB, reference clocks, 880/1370 MHz) supplied by AMD
- AMD Radeon HD 6950 (2GB, reference clocks, 800/1250 MHz; also flashed to stock HD 6970) supplied by AMD
- AMD Radeon HD 5870 (1GB 850/1200 MHz) by Diamond
- AMD Radeon HD 5870 (1GB 850/1200 MHz) supplied by AMD/Powercolor
- AMDRadeon HD 6870 (1GB, reference clocks, 900/1050 MHz) supplied by AMD
- AMDRadeon HD 6870 (1GB, reference clocks, 900/1050 MHz) supplied by AMD
- Onboard Realtek Audio
- Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers
- Two Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply units supplied by Thermaltake. They are used together to power TriFire and GTX 580 SLI.
- Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
- Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
- Philips DVD SATA writer
- HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD
Test Configuration – Software
- ATi Catalyst 11.4 performance (beta) driver for HD 6990 and HD 6970; WHQL 11.2 used for all other Radeons; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; surface performance optimizations are off; “use applications settings” are checked
- NVIDIA GeForce release candidate 266.66 for GTX 560 Ti; WHQL 266.58 used for GTX 580, GTX 570/GTX 480/GTX 560. High Quality
- Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
- DirectX July/November 2010
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is forced off in the control panel.
- Varying AA enabled as noted in games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3 ; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis and Warhead.
- All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.
The Benchmarks
- Vantage
- 3DMark11
- F.E.A.R.
- X3:Terran Conflict
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
- Call of Duty 4
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
- Wolfenstein
- Left 4 Dead
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Borderlands
- Mafia II
- Call of Juarez
- Crysis
- Warhead
- Lost Planet
- World in Conflict
- Far Cry 2
- Just Cause 2
- H.A.W.X.
- Resident Evil 5
- Alien vs. Predator
- Battleforge
- STALKER, Call of Pripyat
- Dirt 2
- F1 2010
- Metro 2033
- Lost Planet 2
- H.A.W.X. 2
- Heaven 2
Let’s check our results.
This is soooo intense, the scaling is near perfect and the price is somewhat reasonable. I’m still not sure about overclocking that thing, it’s already damn powerful 😛
I wonder how Nvidia will respond with their 590.
Good Job Poppin! *claps*
This is the holy grail of hd 6990 reviews!!!! All hail the king!!!!
Dang…that’s one IMBAH review right there.
Thanks for the epic review 😀 .
Thank-you all!
Let me make a big clarification. At the AMD presentation we were told that simply flipping the switch doesn’t violate the warranty.
That is technically correct. However *operating* the card in the 2nd OD position voids your warranty and makes what they told us at the meeting double-speak. If I had known this, I would have only tested it in the stock (warrantied) position.
WARNING: If you break the yellow sticker that covers the switch, you are NOT warrantied. However, each AMD Graphic Partner may have a different policy and I’d highly recommend that you get it in writing from them before you touch the switch if you are considering buying a HD 6990 (and care about overclocking and retaining your warranty).
I will update my article to make this very clear and to add another negative to the conclusion. All of my future testing will be done with this card in the non-overclocked (under warranty) position.
Hey apoppin, will there be a 11.4 driver review? I noticed that all other Radeon cards were tested with 11.2s and according to AMD there have been some improvements for the HD 6000 series with the new drivers.
Of course. As soon as WHQL 11.4 is released. 11.4 is a beta driver.
However, we did use 11.4 beta for the HD 6990 as it is the only release driver. And for comparison’s sake, we used our HD 6970 with 11.4 beta also – and also because we used it together with HD 6990 for TriFire-X3.
If you’d like to see the performance increase for HD 6970 with the new beta drivers, check out our 11.2 vs 11.1a Performance Analysis – we used the same settings as for the HD 6990 launch article:
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=24120
You can see significant increases for HD 6970 with the new beta driver over the latest WHQL driver, 11.2. Probably there are also increases with the 6800 series.
We tested the rest of the AMD Graphics cards – except as noted above for HD 6990 and HD 6970 – with the latest WHQL driver as we usually do.
Thanks! Looking forward to it!
My spouse and i have been so thankful that Emmanuel managed to complete his studies through the entire precious recommendations he grabbed using your web page. It’s not at all simplistic to simply always be giving out tips which people today have been making money from. And now we fully understand we have the writer to appreciate for that. Those explanations you’ve made, the easy website navigation, the friendships you can make it easier to instill – it’s all impressive, and it’s really helping our son in addition to us consider that that situation is excellent, and that’s extraordinarily mandatory. Thank you for all the pieces!