6990 vs 570 SLI Multi Monitor Gaming Performance

[rebelstar]

Want to show you guys this quality review from all aspects
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/41404-amd-radeon-hd-6990-4gb-review-19.html

[Paradigm Shifter]

Is that before or after flicking the "Antilles Unlocking Switch" (that is a manufacturer included feature of the card, but voids your warranty if you use it... strange, I thought things like that were illegal...)?

[geniv2]

I"m lazy but whats the price point of two GTX580 vs a single ati 6990?

[Paradigm Shifter]

6900 = ~£550

GTX580 = ~ £400

Therefore

2x GTX580 = ~£800

6990 wins.

[Skid]

6900 = ~£550

GTX580 = ~ £400

Therefore

2x GTX580 = ~£800

6990 wins.

If your going cost alone, if noise is a concern, don't go anywhere near the 6990. Also don't go anywhere near it if you don't have a well ventilated case with high air flow, the card will throw half of its heat back into the case. At least not until some none reference coolers come out for it.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-6990-antilles-crossfire,review-32136-15.html

[Paradigm Shifter]

As long as the 6990 doesn't sound like a GeForceFX or 480 @ max fan when idle, I'm not too bothered. When I'm gaming I've got sound on (usually quite loud) so if the fan kicks up a bit it's not a game-breaker.

Obviously, for others mileage may vary. ;)

As much as I'd like a pair of 3GB GTX580s, even the cheapest are ~£425, so I'm looking at £850 for two. For the saving of £300, the 6990 has got to be really poor in other areas before it looks like a failure. :( ;)

[Skid]

Not while idle but it goes well past the 480 under load, and that's before you flick the overclock switch.

So, what does it take to dissipate the heat generated by a 375 W card?

Apparently, it takes a noise chart uglier than sin itself.

The problem is that AMD doesn’t use a graceful ramp. It instead steps fan speed up and down to address thermal demands. As a result, you hear the board’s cooler accelerating and decelerating like an engine when the driver downshifts coming up to a stop light.

This is something Nvidia put a lot of thought into after getting skewered for the GeForce GTX 480. I dissected a GPU-Z log file taken while just sitting on the Just Cause 2 menu screen and came up with the following:

Up to about 78 degrees Celsius, the Radeon HD 6990's fan spins at about 2180 RPM. We’ll call that the safe zone. Within a minute or so in a 3D application, the warmest GPU heats up to somewhere between 88 and 89 degrees, and the fan cranks up to 2880 RPM. That’s “who played a trick on me and swapped my graphics card out for a GeForce GTX 480?” territory. Both the AMD and Nvidia cards crank out about 51 dB. In order to keep the card at 90 degrees or less, the fan then speeds up to 3600 RPM, or what I call Charlie Sheen F-18 mode.

There’s no excuse for a graphics card to be this loud and, if spinning its cooling fan up to 3600 RPM is the only way to keep the Radeon HD 6990 from overheating, then this product simply isn’t ready for consumption. Because the problem is related to fan speed, there’s a chance an updated firmware could smooth out the way AMD handles heat. Right now, though, there’s no way I’d install one of these things in a gaming machine.

The problem is compounded by the fact that two Radeon HD 6970s in CrossFire top out at 53.1 dB(A) (slightly louder than a single GeForce GTX 480) and two GeForce GTX 570s in SLI max out at 49.1 dB(A)—quieter than a Radeon HD 5970. Both card combinations exhaust all of their air out the back of your chassis, they’re both quieter, and the 6970s, at least, are universally faster.

[thales100]

6900 = ~£550

GTX580 = ~ £400

Therefore

2x GTX580 = ~£800

6990 wins.

Certainly in a "forget everything else but price" analysis. :)

[Mach1.9pants]

Also SLI NVidia in surround does not have the awful stuttering that CF in Eyefinity does. I ditched my 6950s for 2 580s (and previously my 5970) because of that, never buying CF for the foreseeable future. An awful problem that has no fix. Admittedly not even one gets it/notices it but it is a deal breaker to me, twice bitten now shy ;)

[Armenius]

Bleh, apples-to-apples comparison. [H]ardOCP has a much more compelling comparison in my opinion. Average FPS over the course of a gaming session is more important than the peak or lowest numbers

Real World Gaming Performance:

Apples-to-Apples:


And something important you forgot to include: the system configuration.


Looking at the Canucks review it looks as if the power supply they're using isn't powerful enough for the 580s in SLI at least, especially with the CPU overclocked as it is.

Code: Select all

Processor   : Intel Core i7 920(ES) @ 4.0Ghz (Turbo Mode Enabled)

   Memory      : Corsair 3x2GB Dominator DDR3 1600Mhz

   Motherboard : Gigabyte EX58-UD5

   Cooling     : CoolIT Boreas mTEC + Scythe Fan Controller (Off for Power Consumption tests)

   Disk Drive  : Pioneer DVD Writer

   Hard Drive  : Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB

   Power Supply: Corsair HX1000W

   Monitor     : Samsung 305T 30” widescreen LCD / 3x Acer GD235HZ 23.5" 1080P LCDs

   OS          : Windows 7 Ultimate N x64 SP1

The important thing to note about this particular PSU is that its +12V rail is only capable of 80A combined, which means it needs to be outputting maximum power at all times under load to be sufficient at powering these two cards. And as we all should know, the closer a PSU is to its maximum output, the more noise and fluctuation there is and the less efficient it runs.

[Downtown1]

Shouldn't they be comparing HD 6990 against the GTX 590? That being said, I'm glad we can choose between ATI/Nvidia again. Competition should heat up for multi-monitor support as it is quite legitimate now.

[Armenius]

Since the TC started this with Battlefield Bad Company 2:




It looks like the 6990 and 590 are evenly matched, the 590 having about the equivalent performance of SLI GTX 570s. They are both priced the same, too. The 590 draws more power, but runs a little cooler. As far as multimonitor utility goes I still think AMD wins. Personally I'll stick with nVidia because of my hatred towards AMD's drivers. I wouldn't buy a dual GPU to begin with anyway.

[-Sn1PeR-]

It's probably worth pointing out that the 590 tested ~= to 2x 570's.

The full review is here:
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/03/24/asus_geforce_gtx_590_video_card_review/1

6990 Review here:
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/03/07/amd_radeon_hd_6990_antilles_video_card_review/1

I would still probably go 2x flashed 6950's over a 6990. Pretty good performance for the money there.

2GB of vram will be nice for high levels of AA at TH resolutions. It started to come into play in that Metro 2033 test.

[Downtown1]

Need to see more benchmarks, the benchmarks I saw (PCPer) at 2560x1600 had the HD 6990 winning by 10% across the board (except in 1 or 2 benchmarks) vs Nvidia GTX 590. On the other hand, it could be a lot different at surround resolutions. On the previously linked HardOCP, looks like Nvidia is only winning on Metro 2033 (well of course, the game has the "nvidia" advertising when you start it) and tied or losing on everything else.

Personally, I'm almost rooting for Nvidia here.. the ATI drivers I have for my 5970 are terrible, if I use anything newer than 9.x it causes my system to hang when playing games. 9.x has slightly worse performance and the occasional driver crash (without needing a reboot).

[Paradigm Shifter]

Can't say that the nVidia drivers are always better. Had some great "fun" in recent months with trying to upgrade out of the 258.96 Surround drivers. I always end up encountering something that makes me go back, despite any performance penalty. :( (Usually "the display driver has stopped responding" errors - which I haven't seen one of on 258.96...)