AMD Radeon 6990+6970 CrossFireX / "TriFire" Review @ [H]

LeninGHOLA said:
Nice performance for $1000. Xfire scaling is definitely improved over my 5850s



Not an RTS, it's turn based. It would be interesting to see performance on Civ 5, but I think it is more cpu cycle bound.
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Yeah, that was my mistake as I have used the abbreviation RTS rather generically as a term. For a strategy game though, it is beautiful. I just wish I had one of those 2560x1600 monitors.
 
Awesome article. Massive power draw! Time for you guys to upgrade your test CPU finally!!!
 
Wow.

I just converted two HD 6950 to HD 6970s and clocked them up to meet stock 6970s, it would be keen the get another and go three way, if I could get this kind of juice out of the deal. I'm not sure how well my new cards scale, as I haven't spent much time with them yet.

CFX is scaling nicely in this article!:D
 
sleeper52 said:
anyone know if you can trifire a 6990 + 6950 (modded to 6970 bios)? Cuz that, imho, is the killer deal!
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In that case, why not just use three 6950's modded to 6970's? :p

The lowest priced 6950 is $219.99. With a little luck, if all of them unlock that's a ~$850 kickass setup...
 
Can you put the 6970 in the main slot and Crossfire it with a 6990? Kind of the opposite setup that Hard OCP had.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037102115 said:
In that case, why not just use three 6950's modded to 6970's? :p

The lowest priced 6950 is $219.99. With a little luck, if all of them unlock that's a ~$850 kickass setup...
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I have a watercooled setup. 3 cards means 3 waterblocks at $120+ each.
With only 2 cards, its more convenient...
 
Zarathustra[H];1037102115 said:
In that case, why not just use three 6950's modded to 6970's? :p

The lowest priced 6950 is $219.99. With a little luck, if all of them unlock that's a ~$850 kickass setup...
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This.

I would imagine that you are looking at quite similar performance to the 6990+6970 Tri-Fire setup.
 
Here's my 6990 with Koolance waterblock. Idle temp: 26-28 celsius, and max Furmark load is 43-45 celsius.

5601671697_6419c64197_b.jpg


And Tri-Fire 6990+6970, both watercooled. Both card running at 1.25v, 1050/1350. Rock-stable. High voltage, and no black smoke. :)

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[
 
LEVESQUE said:
Here's my 6990 with Koolance waterblock. Idle temp: 26-28 celsius, and max Furmark load is 43-45 celsius.
[
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Wow that is badass... the blocks are slim and make for a good fit

just wondering if you have more water going to the 6990 than 6970, bigger hose or something to account for the increased heat/power
 
@LEVESQUE nice! im looking for a similar setup as well. Did you happen to test if 1050 is the max stable OC possible? I would love to see a review on the OC limit on water.
 
Lorien said:
Did I just read that right? CPU limited with an overclocked i7 @ Eyefinity resolutions, scary :eek:. Looks like these cards will need the push of a Bulldozer to get em moving. :D
As always, great review. Thanks.
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Either that or just move our test system to a $200 Sandy Bridge.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Note our apples to apples tests were not memory capacity constrained, that is why I chose the settings I did for the ap2ap testing, they are low enough that memory capacity is not holding either back on those graphs, so what you are seeing is raw GPU performance vs. raw GPU performance in all the ap2ap graphs.
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Actually, yeah thats true....

Don't know what I was thinking.

A single GTX580 is only slightly (13% on average?) faster than a single 6970, so three 6970's will certainly have better number crunching abilities than two GTX580's...

The GTX580's will naturally be more expensive as the highest end single GPU solutions always are, and thus the bang-for-the-buck equation reflects this.

For instance, two GTX460's in SLI have about the same performance as a single GTX480, yet are a better bang for the buck. For the same pricie (~$1000) you could tri-SLI some GTX570's and undoubtedly perform pretty well as well, but here the RAM will probably hold them back too much...

Heck, what would be even more interesting would be to tri-SLI three 2GB GTX560TI's..

This ought to be a really interesting comparison that comes in almost $200 under budget
 
Zarathustra[H];1037102414 said:
A single GTX580 is only slightly (13% on average?) faster than a single 6970...

The GTX580's will naturally be more expensive as the highest end single GPU solutions always are, and thus the bang-for-the-buck equation reflects this.
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Not anymore. If you look around, and at the latest benchmarks with AMD 11.4 drivers, 580 SLI and 6970 Crossfire are now neck-to-neck. So the price premium for the Nvidia card is there for no reason.

That's why 6990+6970 is so much better then 580 SLI for the same price. Because 580 are overpriced.
 
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Shwick said:
just wondering if you have more water going to the 6990 than 6970, bigger hose or something to account for the increased heat/power
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I use 3 dedicated and separated waterloops in my case:

1 for the CPU with 1 triple 120 rad (i7 2600k at 5.1 24/7)
1 for the 6990 with 2 triple 120 rads
1 for the 6970 with 1 triple 120 rad.

Nice and cool. :D Who said the 6990 is hot and noisy?
 
flooberjobby said:
Can you put the 6970 in the main slot and Crossfire it with a 6990? Kind of the opposite setup that Hard OCP had.
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no because it would have to force the 6990 to the 6970 clocks and the card does not do that stock. you would have to modify the 6990 bios to support 6970 clocks then you could do it. now there are some boards that have the primary PCI-e slot on the bottom and the secondary on top for the exact reason i'm sure your thinking about doing this, which then you could run it in that config.


MethylONE said:
Can I get an AMEN!
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AMEN brotha!!!!!!
 
Good article. Qucik question for anyone. How the heck do you enable 24X CFAA?? Highest settings in my CCC are 16xEQ for AA and 16x for AF?? I plat BFBC2 a lot and would love to see it. :confused:

We continued to be impressed by AMD Radeon HD 6990+6970 CrossFireX in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. We never thought it would be possible that we could actually utilize 24X CFAA at 5760x1200 in a game.
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sleeper52 said:
Can you please share to us your OC experience using water? :D is 1050 the max possible while being stable?
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I'm working 12 hours shifts in a row for a couple of days, and just installed the 6990 last friday night. Not enough time in a day.

I just installed the waterblock, raised voltage to 1.25v, input 1050/1350, and everything was working, with nice temps.:)

So I will probably be able to go higher. :D
 
Evil Scooter said:
Good article. Qucik question for anyone. How the heck do you enable 24X CFAA?? Highest settings in my CCC are 16xEQ for AA and 16x for AF?? I plat BFBC2 a lot and would love to see it. :confused:
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For my 10.12 CCC you choose Override application settings for the Anti-Aliasing mode and Edge-detect for the Filter.
This shows the highest Level as 8xEQ and Filter Samples as 24xEQ.
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
For my 10.12 CCC you choose Override application settings for the Anti-Aliasing mode and Edge-detect for the Filter.
This shows the highest Level as 8xEQ and Filter Samples as 24xEQ.
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I'm using the early 14.4 previews and when you select Override application settings for the Anti-Aliasing mode the only option in the drop down menu for the filter is "standard". Maybe the newer 14.4 previews have the option enabled. :confused:
 
Evil Scooter said:
Good article. Qucik question for anyone. How the heck do you enable 24X CFAA?? Highest settings in my CCC are 16xEQ for AA and 16x for AF?? I plat BFBC2 a lot and would love to see it. :confused:
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Under the AA option in the driver control panel see there is a Filter drop down box, its on Standard by default, click it and put it on Edge Detect. This is the custom filter (CFAA). Now, when you enable 4X AA in-game you'll be at 12X CFAA, and when you enable 8X AA in-game you'll have 24X CFAA. It will take a tremendous perf hit on a single GPU card, it uses the shaders on the GPU to do its thing, so in a shader heavy game it will be unplayable pretty much.
 
Chefboy said:
Yup! Piss'em off real good and make them come out swinging! Love competition!

Can't be so serious, smile. :D
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I told Kyle this earlier today in regards to NV cards, give me something good and I'll praise it too. Still waiting....
 
Damn good article. Now I kinda have to rethink about 2x6950's vs 2x570. Don't really know which is better now.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Under the AA option in the driver control panel see there is a Filter drop down box, its on Standard by default, click it and put it on Edge Detect. This is the custom filter (CFAA). Now, when you enable 4X AA in-game you'll be at 12X CFAA, and when you enable 8X AA in-game you'll have 24X CFAA. It will take a tremendous perf hit on a single GPU card, it uses the shaders on the GPU to do its thing, so in a shader heavy game it will be unplayable pretty much.
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Just updated to the latest 11.4 and 11.3 CAP's used in the article. In CCC Edge detect is an option under both "Override application setting" and "Use application settings". If I'm reading you correctly here I should have CCC set to "Use application settings" with "edge detect" then select 8x AA in game to achieve 24X CFAA correct?

thanks in advance for your clarification.
-scoot
 
Evil Scooter said:
Just updated to the latest 11.4 and 11.3 CAP's used in the article. In CCC Edge detect is an option under both "Override application setting" and "Use application settings". If I'm reading you correctly here I should have CCC set to "Use application settings" with "edge detect" then select 8x AA in game to achieve 24X CFAA correct?

thanks in advance for your clarification.
-scoot
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Don't mess with the "Mode" i.e. Use Application Setting, Enhance or Override, just leave this on the default Use application settings.

Underneath the slider is another drop down box called Filter. In this box, it says Standard, chose Edge Detect.

Then, in side the game, use the built in game AA controls. When you have 4X AA on it will really be 12X CFAA. When you have 8X AA enabled it will really be 24X CFAA. The key is just to have Edge Detect filter selected in the driver. To revert back to regular MSAA just put it back on Standard.
 
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