Hardware AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Review

Why do bit-tech/custom PC have an issue with Ultra performance games and Crossfire/SLI?

The adverts for bit-tech say it's the place for hardware enthusiasts, which are exactly the sort of people who would be looking at these things. I have Xfire 6950/70's and would love to see some crossfire comparisons against these, as I still can't max out some games over three screens, such as Metro and Crysis, games which undeniably take graphics cards and cpu's (mine is a 4.4ghz i7 for comparison) to their absolute limits and beyond. All of these things are wha bit-tech should be focusing on as the self-titled "No.1 place for Hardware Enthusiasts".

Not having a go, just chucking in my 2p

 

...Jesus ****ing christ that's monstrous.

 

(paragraph one of conclusion, you've written "pair of Caymen gpu-s)

Dear BT,

I'm reminded of the 5970 launch review. This seems to be way too superficial for any realistic indication for a review. Granted, the sites doing reviews are a dime a dozen, but still, would be great to get more important information from our favourite tech site, Bit-tech.

For example: instead of wasting precious pre-launch time on benching at 1680 and 1920 without AA, you could've either included more games, or done more extensive testing on the actual settings you can use (similar to [H]).

Namely, if you test a card similar to a 5770, you do not bench it at 2560x4aa - as it's pointless. in my opinion, it would be true for the opposite as well. A card that costs 700$ is more than most people's whole computer, therefore, with that in mind, would it not make sense to give this card a real work-out?

Benches for most cards are in your past reviews anyway.

I really like your reviews Bit-tech, and I hope you manage to find more time to bench real high-end hardware in a manner which matches it's intended use.

 

Yea it would be great to get some Multi monitor benchies.
Alot of are enthuisiasts after all

Wouldn't take that long extra if you already had the kit setup too. Although does limit the choice of games.

 

+1

 

Most current games can run over three screens, only problem is some of them don't use the correct aspect ratio (MW2 I'M LOOKING AT YOU!!)

There are tools like widescreen fixer which help this though.

So tempted to get two of these over the summer, would be absolutely stunning. Pretty much max out any game on my resolution of 6064*1080

 

I think the opening sentences are the most telling. I bought a... hang on, I'll have to check, I've used it so little... I bought a GTX 470 in early January and I've yet to play a game on it - because the games are all crap.

 

I disagree, otherwise bit might as well only do 3DMark 11, Furmark and other canned benchmarks. "It gets these numbers and this hot, but it bares no relevance to the actual games you play". Overwhelmingly the bit-tech stats (at least used to when I was there) told us people clicked the pages of the games they played: Modern Warfare, BF2 etc. The only reason sites should perhaps keep Crysis is cult status: can it play ...?

 

out of interest why do u watermark the pictures when they are stock shots from AMD themselves.

 

You have answered your own question,the card is pointless to most people,this card will eat all the games you throw at it at top resolution,but few people can afford it and the electric bills that will follow

 

Bit-Tech is permanently biased against SLI/X-Fire/Multi-monitor setups. I've called them out many a time on it but nothing ever happens. Sadly it means loyal Bit-Techers like myself have to go to rival sites like Guru3D to gauge multi-card setups.

 

Two out of the Four tests Bit run are canned benchmarks... The built in benchmark is used for Dirt 2 whilst only part (why*) of the Concrete Jungle benchmark is used in JC2.

One could also argue that a 60 second FRAPS run through of BFBC2 isn't enough to correctly portray "real world" gameplay. Five minutes would be a much more accurate representation of real world gameplay as you will actually have time to play some of the game.

 

Impressive perf, but I'm kind of disapointed compared to the single GPU GTX580. Better price / perf / temp / power consumption / noise ratio for the GTX580

I still prefer a single fast GPU card than multiple GPU ... multi GPU (Xfire / SLI), maybe but my conf would be High end card for graphics and another card for physics calculation / AI / etc (I wish all games could support GPGPU for everything that is not rendering, collision detection, path finder, etc...)

 

6970 in crossfire destroy it at less money so what is the point Avr retail price is between £560 and £590 which is high

6970 crossfire is only around £500 to £540 yet out performs the 6990

 

+1 to everyone that says the current crop of test games are too close together when comparing their load on a GPU. My aging 285OC rocks through all those titles at 1920x1200. It's games like Metro and Crysis that can chug a bit if really push the settings up to the max.

So one (or two) high demand games on the test would be worthwhile IMO, in place of the lower spec games if needed.

A range of games from low demand to high would be great. Include a game that can be expected to work on almost everything, and include a game that can only run on mega beasts.

 

totally agree. It would be nice to see performances on multiple screen setup. I would also be interested with rendering test on 3DS / Maya, to see rendering time on different GPU.

 

As it currently stands, this card is aimed solidly at the EyeFinity crowd. Moreover, it's aimed at the EyeFinity crowd who are thinking of running setups like 5x1Portrait (5400x1920) and 3x1Landscape on 30"ers (7680x1600). The most interesting thing would be to compare this with a 6970 on those setups, 6970CF, and a GTX580 1.5GB and GTX580 3GB nVidia Surround setup. I expect the 1.5GB GTX580s will choke extremely fast as they run out of VRAM (GTX470s choke very, very fast in Surround - from 30+fps to low-single-digits with one setting bump) and the 3GB 580s and CF setup would be in the same ballpark as the 6990.

Then it would all come down to price. And oddly, I expect this 6990 would win.

 

problem with sli / CF is that the memory is shared between card ... 2 cards with 1GB result in a "dual GPU" with 1GB. That's the only interest in card with twice the normal RAM (eg GTX 460 2GB SLI vs GTX 460 1GB SLI) especially with high res and high filter setup.

 

2GB is enough for every circumstance and resolution, 1GB is enough for nearly every situation sub 2560x1600.

 

i think i know what you mean...4gb on a video card can give me a stiffy too...