AMD Radeon HD 6990 Review - PAGE 16

Yeah if you unlocked them...even better.

That or grab three 6950 1gb's for at least $25 less than a 6990 after rebates.

If you can get two 6970s that perform better for 100$ less then this card then why not do that unless you don't have enough slots for 3 way or 4 way x fire and keep your warranties.

Thanks for all the comments guys!!

We just learned that AMD will not warranty graphics cards that use the on-board overclocking BIOS switch. A little disappointing to say the least and the review has been updated to reflect this. So, if anyone does get this card it is recommended to leave the BIOS switch in the default position.

quote EdwardTheBard

..am I the only one concerned about the 256-bit bandwidth?

They've had the 256bit / 512bit ring bus in the past and it sounds like in the case of the 6990 they're using a config of 256x2 for the card. Still it would be nice to see 512x2 addressing 4GB but at least it's not as bad as it could be :/

Wow, epic card. But...

..am I the only one concerned about the 256-bit bandwidth? Nvidia seems to use 256-bit bandwidth for every 1GB of ram. Maybe it's not that crucial (2900XT had a 512-bit wide memory interface and it wasn't beneficial to its perfomance) but since it's an enthusiast card I expected some kind of improvement on this matter.

quote chautemoc

It might be the first that can properly run Metro 2033 maxed -- that's more demanding than Crysis.

QFT.

As far as price/ performance goes it's definitely not good but not too far off from the gtx 580. It's about 30% faster at 2560x1600, and if you don't play at that resolution there's litte reason to get this beast of a card, and if it's price were linear to the gtx 580 it would be priced at $650 (only $50 off from msrp) If you OC it with the bios switch it bumps it up to almost 35% faster, linear with $675. It's expensive as hell but relative to other high end cards it's not priced too bad.

For comparison the gtx 580 would be ~$385 if price/performance scaled linearly with the 6970 or gtx 570. Or when compared with the 560ti it would be ~$299. As far as being overpriced goes it's all relative and relatively the 6990 isn't too bad, at least in my opinion.

exactly. thats exactly why it is so expensive. no other card can compete with it, so it doesnt have to have any competitive prices. people would still buy this card though, if they want to get as much performance as possible crammed into as small a space as possible.

What a rip off.699.00 that's a hundred over the hd 5970 when it was released.The only reason it is this high, is the fact that there is no competitive card out there.An extra 2 gigs doesn't cost a hundred dollars.

$700 though? gosh damn. Someone needs to make a special edition and sell it for $1k.

make the cooler take up 4 slots, all copper, 30 heatpipes and six silent 80 cfm fans.

From what i've seen it can, with two 6990's, at 1920x1200 at 4aa and max dx11 but hits about 45 at 2560x1200.

It might be the first that can properly run Metro 2033 maxed -- that's more demanding than Crysis.

Two of them unfortunately. But it's an accomplishment nonetheless. A single will run it at 1920x1200 maxed and 4aa at ~66fps.

Until it hits 60fps minimum im not going to be happy haha. cmon 7990's

wait, wait...is this the first card that can play crysis maxed out?