| AMD Radeon HD 6990 Antilles Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Olin Coles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 07 March 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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VGA Testing MethodologyThe Microsoft DirectX-11 graphics API is native to the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, and will be the primary O/S for our test platform. DX11 is also available as a Microsoft Update for the Windows Vista O/S, so our test results apply to both versions of the Operating System. The majority of benchmark tests used in this article are comparative to DX11 performance, however some high-demand DX10 tests have also been included. According to the Steam Hardware Survey published for the month ending September 2010, the most popular gaming resolution is 1280x1024 (17-19" standard LCD monitors). However, because this 1.31MP resolution is considered 'low' by most standards, our benchmark performance tests concentrate on higher-demand resolutions: 1.76MP 1680x1050 (22-24" widescreen LCD) and 2.30MP 1920x1200 (24-28" widescreen LCD monitors). These resolutions are more likely to be used by high-end graphics solutions, such as those tested in this article. In each benchmark test there is one 'cache run' that is conducted, followed by five recorded test runs. Results are collected at each setting with the highest and lowest results discarded. The remaining three results are averaged, and displayed in the performance charts on the following pages. A combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests have been used in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game. Intel X58-Express Test System
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| Graphics Card | Radeon HD6870 | Radeon HD6970 | GeForce GTX570 | Radeon HD5970 | GeForce GTX580 | Radeon HD6990 |
| GPU Cores | 1120 | 1536 | 480 | 3200 Total | 512 | 3072 Total |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 900 | 880 | 732 | 725 | 772 | 830/880 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | N/A | N/A | 1464 | N/A | 1544 | N/A |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 1050 | 1375 | 950 | 1000 | 1002 | 1250 |
| Memory Amount | 1024MB GDDR5 | 2048MB GDDR5 | 1280MB GDDR5 | 2048MB GDDR5 | 1536MB GDDR5 | 4096MB GDDR5 |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 512-bit | 384-bit | 256-bit |
- AMD Radeon HD 6870 (900 MHz GPU/1050 MHz 1GB GDDR5 - AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview)
- AMD Radeon HD 6970 (880 MHz GPU/1375 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (732 MHz GPU/1464 MHz Shader/950 MHz 1280MB GDDR5 - Forceware 266.58)
- AMD Radeon HD 5970 (725 MHz GPU x2/1000MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (772 MHz GPU/1544 MHz Shader/1002 MHz vRAM - Forceware 266.58)
- AMD Radeon HD 6990 (830/880 MHz GPU/1250 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview)
Comments
The dual-bios switch is a pretty awesome idea even if the actual overclocking potential of the 6990 was a huge 'meh'.
I suppose these cards are never intended to be particularly sensible though and are aimed are that certain type of gamer (more money then sense, possibly).
I know it seems ironic to talk about budget when we're discussing a $700 video card, but if I take the money I would have spent on an X58/LGA1366 motherboard and a top-of-the-heap CPU and put it towards the video card, I think it's a better bang for the $$$$.
Another problem is, whilst high end cards are great fun and all that, they're currently redundant. Current PC games are becoming so heavily gimped by the console market that we're not seeing anything worth buying these parts for.
Having said that I've not played Crysis 2 yet, but it's a console port. Bleh.
RagingShadow, I suggest you wait until the game is released.
In this case I don't count the "What the lawyers make us say" setting at 830MHz 1.12V as the reference setting, but just a safe adaptation to get the card within the PCIe standards.
880MHz and 1.175V is the reference speed, and from there the card can be overclocked a bit. How much past 900MHz is still anybody's guess though...
And almost all my friends and I use controllers when we feel like it.