Is the 6990 the fastest single card solution?

samuelmorris said:
Why would you, they're slower? Granted they're a lot cheaper, but they rely on having two cards. Given the thread title I'm assuming the OP isn't interested in that.
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I believe that OP would be able to more reliably overclock to 6970 speeds with 2 cards. That was at least my experience going from 2 5850s to a 5970.

My unlocked 6950s have worked very well.
 
samuelmorris said:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...graphics-card-review-power-temp-noise-oc.html

Add those clocks to HD6990 existing results, you can easily exceed GTX580 SLI performance, and if you didn't know the HD6990 was already within a very short distance of GTX580 SLI, you clearly haven't seen many benchmarks.

Also, 1920x1200, I lol'ed. Try harder.
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you posted a link dating way back from march, try harder.

but even in the link you posted besides dragon age 2 the 6990 got demolished by 40% in alot of tests, in dead space 2 it got beaten by 90%. we all know nvidia didnt have the proper drivers for DA2 at launch, thats how old the link is, lol.

and in that link, in heaven benchmark the oc'd 6990 got destroyed by 580sli, and lost by over 1400 points in 3dmark 2011

next time look at the links when posting, did you even bother?

6990 is far from performing like the 580's in sli.

let me guess you're searching for a hard to find benchmark where 580 sli runs out Vram at some insane res with 16xaa, supersampling, etc? lol.

but there is always the 3gb version, lol.
 
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DualOwn said:
here is mine, take a look at asus mars II, which are two 580's in sli just stumping the poor 6990.\

even the stock 590 beats it in alot of the tests, so where are you delusional people getting your information? let me guess, AMD forums? lol

you really think that overclocking the 6990 with 10mhz more in each core is going to give your the extra 20 fps? lmao.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-mars-ii-review/17
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With 1500 dollars, I can buy a) three GTX580s or 2) another 6990 to quad-fire and destroy anything out right now.

This discussion also seems to ignore the power bill from running these cards. Frankly, the 6990 is the best bang for the buck for the strongest single card solution.
 
The Mars 2 is a pretty crap card anyway considering it only has 1.5GB per GPU - in the environment it's best for, i.e. multi-display, it doesn't have the memory to put its performance to use. An overclocked HD6990 gets the same performance for literally half the price.
 
samuelmorris said:
The Mars 2 is a pretty crap card anyway considering it only has 1.5GB per GPU - in the environment it's best for, i.e. multi-display, it doesn't have the memory to put its performance to use. An overclocked HD6990 gets the same performance for literally half the price.
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5760p with 16xaa and uber supersampling is really that important to you at that res? :rolleyes:

GTFO with that bs, just cuz you cant afford it it doesnt mean its crap.

i mean, i cant afford it either right now but im not going to bash it because of that.
 
Nope, even if I could afford it I wouldn't buy it, I'd take two 6990s instead, like any sane person would. You do not need 16xAA at 5760 res to exceed 1.5GB video memory per GPU, especially not in SLI. Even 4x MSAA is enough in some titles, as [H] have proven.
 
Cool Vibrations said:
With 1500 dollars, I can buy a) three GTX580s or 2) another 6990 to quad-fire and destroy anything out right now.

This discussion also seems to ignore the power bill from running these cards. Frankly, the 6990 is the best bang for the buck for the strongest single card solution.
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paying for 4 gpu's but playing with 2-3 is your answer?:rolleyes:

and good luck with the driver support for 6990's in crossfire, even a single is still causing problems, crashing, bsod, etc.

580sli is a far better setup than 2x 6990's if you are not into 3dmark benchmarks.
 
As someone that used quad crossfire for two years, I don't think you realise how well it actually works these days. In the titles that matter, quad CF is regularly providing excellent frame rates that will make a Mars II look very pathetic indeed.
 
samuelmorris said:
As someone that used quad crossfire for two years, I don't think you realise how well it actually works these days. In the titles that matter, quad CF is regularly providing excellent frame rates that will make a Mars II look very pathetic indeed.
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your sig says otherwise:rolleyes:
 
Well sorry, not all of us are rich enough to afford two HD6990s. The pair of HD4870X2s cost me £540. Just this pair of HD6970s cost me £570. If I'd have been able to afford two HD6990s I would have bought them, and I have no qualms in recommending them to anyone. I think you'd best take your anti-crossfire rant elsewhere.
 
samuelmorris said:
Well sorry, not all of us are rich enough to afford two HD6990s. The pair of HD4870X2s cost me £540. Just this pair of HD6970s cost me £570. If I'd have been able to afford two HD6990s I would have bought them, and I have no qualms in recommending them to anyone. I think you'd best take your anti-crossfire rant elsewhere.
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is that why you replaced the 4870X2 quad crossfire with a pair of 6970's?:rolleyes:

smart move, ill give you that.
 
Yep. Two HD6970s perform faster than two HD4870X2s because they're faster cards to start with. Not by a whole lot, but since I wanted to go for DirectX11 and lower noise at idle, I made the switch.
 
samuelmorris said:
Yep. Two HD6970s perform faster than two HD4870X2s because they're faster cards to start with. Not by a whole lot, but since I wanted to go for DirectX11 and lower noise at idle, I made the switch.
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common now, be honest, what else is better?
 
This is my system spec's, does the "6990" go well with this slightly outdated setup ? Will dump the single card 5870 obviously. And my PSU is the PC Power & Cooling 750Watt.

X48 Asus Rampage
Q9650 Quade Core
XFX Radeon HD 5870
8gb DDR2 Patriot Viper
Intel X25-M 80gb SSD
X-Fi Soundcard
Silverstone TJ-03 case
3 Dell 2709W for triple 27" EYEFINITY
Windows 7 Pro
 
Zorachus said:
This is my system spec's, does the "6990" go well with this slightly outdated setup ? Will dump the single card 5870 obviously. And my PSU is the PC Power & Cooling 750Watt.

X48 Asus Rampage
Q9650 Quade Core
XFX Radeon HD 5870
8gb DDR2 Patriot Viper
Intel X25-M 80gb SSD
X-Fi Soundcard
Silverstone TJ-03 case
3 Dell 2709W for triple 27" EYEFINITY
Windows 7 Pro
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You'll like the 6990. My only gripe, it is a bit hot and really loud.
I watercooled mine.:D

It runs like a wild hog.:eek:
 
"Compabitility profiles for Anti-Aliasing and CrossfireX, allowing advanced users to automate tasks like overclocking before gaming, and things not possible before like forcing Anti-Aliasing on games not yet supported by the Catalyst driver. RadeonPro can also help CrossfireX users to force multi-GPU utilization in games not supported by the driver, improving your games performance with a few clicks"


wow, i didnt know AMD drivers were still that bad.
 
DualOwn said:
paying for 4 gpu's but playing with 2-3 is your answer?:rolleyes:

and good luck with the driver support for 6990's in crossfire, even a single is still causing problems, crashing, bsod, etc.

580sli is a far better setup than 2x 6990's if you are not into 3dmark benchmarks.
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Did you just tunnel-vision my post and only focus on the 6990 bit? I specifically said I could buy 3 GTX 580s for the price of a MARS II that you so proudly boast. You've derailed this thread enough with your ridiculous fascination with GTX 580s in SLI. The point of this thread is the fastest single card solution and two GTX 580s is not a single card solution.

Neither is the MARS II because:
1) You and most people can't even afford it and even if they could, it would be an unwise decision for an upgrade
2) Three PCI-E Slots (No aftermarket waterblock available either) vs Single PCI-E Slot 6990

Troll harder.
 
I found the 590 to be much more tolerable in real life, maybe its not just the noise volume but also the tone?

I'm a huge pussy about fan noise.

The 6990 is much more attractive to water cool due to the bigger overclocking upside.
 
The GTX590 will probably be quieter because it uses an axial fan, rather than the radial that the Radeons use. Either way, I wouldn't say the GTX590 is going to be quiet, with that much heat to dissipate.
 
Dualown.

Go look on OCN Metro 2033 benchmark thread. I'm beating almost all the 580 SLI OC set-up with 6970 Crossfire OC at 1920X1080, because of the better scaling on AMD 6xxx serie cards vs Nvidia 5xx serie. At 2560X1600 4AA, then 6970 Crossfire gets ahead of 580 SLi 1.5Gb because of the lack of VRAM' on those. Look at the results. With 6970 Tri-Fire, I'm even beating Tri-SLi 580 3GB at 2560X1600 4AA. I get 66 fps, and the best they can do is 55 fps. :)

And Metro 2033 is a TWIMTBP game! LOL. Nvidia are ''better'' with useless synthetic benchmarks only because they are paying the developpers of those benchmarks. No big mystery here.

But put a REAL-life demanding game like Metro 2033, and 580 SLI and 6970 Crossfire are now head-to-head, with both set-up using latest drivers.

EK are selling the single -slot bracket for the 6990 for like 7$ if you want to make a single slot card out of your 6990. :)
 
I switch from a single HD5870 to a dual GPU gtx590. I believe that the fan used by the 6990 does not differ much from that of 5870 (they looks kinda similar on photo). The fan is pretty loud even at 50% load, and at 70% will be rather distracting(even with a headphone that leaks in noise).
The fan used by Nvidia is the same old axial fan that is not as noisy as the ATI's. But then during gaming, it will still spin at 70 -80%. But at full load, somehow the temp of my 590 only register 70+ C.
So in short, i think:
1. ati is louder, but fan spins at same percentage load.
2. nvidia is cooler but draws more power.
3. for eye infinity, go for 6990 as it has more ram to deal with higher res.
4. If for single monitor like 1920x1200, go for 590 as it has better features such as phys and better 3D support.
 
At 1920x1200 I'd probably still go with the HD6990. In situations where there is less load, it'll be quieter anyway, and when the performance matters, it's still faster than the GTX590.
 
My 6990 is very quiet most of the time until I've been gaming on it hard for a couple of hours. It OC's well, I'm running at 950/1350 perfectly stable with +20%, haven't actually looked at voltage yet because afterburner caused it to do weird stuff like run only one core when gaming.

On the other hand, I game at 19x12 and 570 SLI takes a fat dump on the 6990. 580 SLI would beat it even worse. This is from my own experience, I switch back and forth between the 6990 and SLI/Tri-SLI 570's for benching but I game on the 6990 because I like to have my sound card in and I have no slots left with Tri SLI.
 
gtx 590 is quieter because it has insufficient cooling. the vram gets crazy hot.

the fan for the 6990 is much louder than the fan of 5870 but with headphones on it shouldnt matter. and its also faster than the gtx590 on paper. plus it can be oced without blowing up.
 
LigTasm said:
On the other hand, I game at 19x12 and 570 SLI takes a fat dump on the 6990
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It would be faster, but 'taking a fat dump' we're talking 10% tops here, a bit of an exaggeration :D
And this at 1920x1200 of course. At higher resolutions the HD6990 should be on top of the GTX570 SLI by the same figure.
 
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samuelmorris said:
It would be faster, but 'taking a fat dump' we're talking 10% tops here, a bit of an exaggeration :D
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lol Yeah I may be exaggerating a little but I really wanted to use that phrase. In Crysis 2 I see about ~15fps higher on average and about 1500 points higher on 3Dmark11. Running the 6990 with the AWSUM bios and 950/1350 narrows the gap a ton but after that it really stops showing much gains where the 570's will keep going until I can't give them any more voltage.
 
3DMark11 is obviously going to show a higher score, because that's been nvidia-biased ever since its first incarnation. Crossfire scaling is unfortunately very poor in Crysis 2 at 1920x1200 (about 50-60% compared with the usual 95%) so that's why you're seeing differences. On the whole, GTX570 SLI should not be noticeably faster than the HD6990, those are just two cases where you will see differences.
 
samuelmorris said:
3DMark11 is obviously going to show a higher score, because that's been nvidia-biased ever since its first incarnation. Crossfire scaling is unfortunately very poor in Crysis 2 at 1920x1200 (about 50-60% compared with the usual 95%) so that's why you're seeing differences. On the whole, GTX570 SLI should not be noticeably faster than the HD6990, those are just two cases where you will see differences.
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I was throwing up some examples, I could run down every benchmark and game I've tried but the 570 SLI is faster (not that it really matters much, both are overkill) but at the same time when I had 6970 CF it was faster as well. Note that I'm running my 570's at 900mhz core for gaming which is a significant overclock, also running the 6990 at 950mhz.
 
Hmm, those are quite similar overclocks, but I think the cards handle overclocking differently. Stock/Stock the 6990 probably takes a slight advantage.
 
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