AMD is releasing its most powerful graphics card today, Radeon HD 6990.
While it is reminiscent of the original multi-GPU cards of yesteryear,
it is the fastest single graphics card on the planet.
CrossFire-on-a-Stick and the counterpart card from the other company are
interesting phenomena. They boast of the fastest single performance
figures and in multi-card arrangements can garner serious performance
figures, yet at what price? In the case of HD 6990 it is $700 a card.
You seriously need to be hungry for high resolution multi-monitor
performance to require this kind of firepower. However, Bugatti Veyron
or Lamborghini Reventon isn’t affordable either to the general public
and neither are graphics cards like this. Budget performance gamers may
not be able to have the toys but we can still admire someone else’s.
Equipped with two Cayman based graphics processors, Antilles weighs in
with over 5 GigaFLOPS of raw compute power. It is scary to think about
that kind of compute power from a single device. In fact, if we hooked
up 20 of these boards together, we would have beat out many of the top
500 supercomputers built just a few years ago. Now, when it comes to
gaming performance, it is the fastest single card in existence. That is
of course until the next super-card comes along.
This is the grand-daddy of all multi-GPU card setups, Quantum3D MercuryLooking at the card there is something very obvious that we can assume;
it is going to consume a LOT of power. It comes with two 8-pin power
connections which gives the board a natural ceiling of 375 watts.
However, AMD launched its PowerTune technology back with Cayman. Just to
refresh your memory, PowerTune is a technology system which monitors
and regulates power draw across all parts of the processor and
components. This enables the card to determine the fastest clock
frequencies while maintaining a specific thermal design. Additionally,
like the 6970 and 6950 boards, the 6990 has dual BIOS. The awesome part
of this launch is the fact that AMD provided one specifically modified
to draw up to 450 watts!
Unfortunately I have to end this teaser here. While I would love to have
the performance numbers available to you, however, I just got the card
and the driver in hand. I promise to have them up shortly. If you have
any specific questions or requests in the benchmarking setup to please
send me a message or contact one of the generals in the forums. If your
suggestion is within reason and I can fit it into the test schedule, I
will do it.
Azerty: € 577,10
http://azerty.nl/0-970-394491/xfx-radeon-hd-6990-grafische-a.html
Subject: AMD’s HD 6990 Preview 
Mon May 09 2011, 08:28
