AMD launches a dual-GPU, 350W monster card

[nsane.forums]

AMD has taken the wraps off its newest high-end graphics solution, the AMD HD 6990. The new 6990 is a monster of a card—it's basically a small system all in itself, which you can cram inside your PC if you've got the room for it.

The reason behind the size—it takes up two slots and is almost a foot long—is that it has two high-end, AMD 6970 GPUs sandwiched onto a single card. The card also hosts 4GB of GDDR5 (2GB per GPU), and you'll need a power supply that can support a whopping 375 watts of power draw from the card. AMD has also included a switch that essentially overlocks the card, in which case it needs 450W. At this point, we're getting into home appliance territory.

If you're just dying to draw even more power, the HD 6990 can drive up to five monitors simultaneously, so you can go the Eyefinity route with just a single card.

Tech Report has a thorough review of the new card, and it's now comfortably at the top of the single-card performance heap. It's beaten only by NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 SLI solution (which was used in this stunning real-time 3D demo at last week's GDC).

At $699.99, this card costs more than many people's PCs. But if you've got the cash for it, it's now the best way to blow seven bills on a graphics card.

View: Original Article

[DKT27]

WOW. :eek: :mellow: :dribble:

[toyo]

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Launch Date is March 22

The dust seems to have settled down, after AMD's launch of the Radeon HD 6990, extending the red-team's performance lead previously held precariously by the Radeon HD 5970, to the GeForce GTX 580. It looks like NVIDIA will challenge the performance leadership with GeForce GTX 590, a dual-GPU graphics card that uses two GF110 GPUs (the ones on GTX 570 and GTX 580), for an SLI-on-a-stick solution. Rumors of NVIDIA working on this card became concrete as early as in November 2010, when NVIDIA's reference board became public for the first time.

Latest reports suggest that NVIDIA has chosen March 22 as the launch day of GeForce GTX 590. Incidentally, that is also the launch date of EA/Crytek's much-hyped, initially DirectX 9 action/shooter game, Crysis 2. GeForce GTX 590 uses two GF110, though the shader configuration and clock speeds are not known. Since NVIDIA is chasing the top-spot, you can expect the most optimal configuration for the GF110s. A total of 3 GB (1536 MB per GPU system) on board, and NVIDIA's workhorse PCI-E bridge, nForce 200 will be the traffic cop and radio station between the two GPUs. The card will be able to do 3DVision Surround (NVIDIA's multi-display single head technology comparable to ATI Eyefinity) on its own, without needing a second card.

View: Original Article

[mara-]

Great, we would need a PSU that can start a car. :lol:

Cheers ;)

[LeetPirate]

I wouldn't really consider an HD6990 to be in the same league with a GTX590 because I know the GTX590 will use about 1000W and cost about $1000USD, win by 1fps in a benchmark then fanboys everywhere will claim superiority while their house/basement is on fire. :lol:

[toyo]

I wouldn't really consider an HD6990 to be in the same league with a GTX590 because I know the GTX590 will use about 1000W and cost about $1000USD, win by 1fps in a benchmark then fanboys everywhere will claim superiority while their house/basement is on fire. :lol:

There are 2 GF110 GPUs, from the GTX580/570, this generation is much improved compared to GTX480, especially regarding power efficiency. This card will smoke AMD 6990, Nvidia would not do it otherwise anyway. It will also have CUDA.

Intel sells unlocked CPUs at 1000$/piece and there's no popular revolution about it. Then why the best dual-GPU card should cost less.

These companies are just acting like highway thieves when it comes to their high-end stuff... these prices are amazingly inflated, but enough sickos buy these to warrant generation after generation of 1000 USD products.

[LeetPirate]

Well this is how capitalism is meant to work. I'm not complaining about it, I just like to point and laugh at the consumers who buy things without doing any research. There was a time when AMD had intel's back against the wall with their crappy pentium 4 that wasn't going anywhere and AMD came out with Athlon FX 64 bit CPU and they raised the prices to close to 1000USD as well because they knew intel had nothing, lol. As soon as intel came out with conroe architecture AMD resumed their regular competitive strategy of winning with low prices. Intel has a billion dollar marketing department so they could afford to sell products for 10 times the cost of making it. They do that actually, just recently they had some of the i-series selling for 900US and out of the blue they dropped the price by 48%, review sites everywhere said they felt sorry for anyone who bought the cpu yesterday because the price today is almost half, lol.

I'm not against nvidia or anything, I just want to see them actually improve their gpu architecture instead of duct taping more transistors together each time and coming up with a quick release just to be top gun. nvidia uses a higher transistor count per gpu than AMD and their fabrication process is so bad that there is always some massive voltage leak resulting in extreme heat output and poor efficiency. The only reason the GTX 460 was classed as efficient was because they physically cut out a part of the chip to reduce the transistor count and performance. What's worse is their justification of leaving out current technology with weak excuses like remember the time they said nobody needs DX10.1, a year later when they finally came out with DX10.1 cards they changed their story and DX10.1 became the best thing in the world. It is because they build nothing new, just the same GPU with some minor adjustments and rebrand. That strategy used to work in the past because ATi could never deliver good cards on a reliable schedule so nvidia became complacent.

To be fair AMD 6000 series isn't even meant to be a huge improvement over their 5000 series, they said so. AMD 5000 series cards will beat their 6000 cards in benchmarks. The 6000 series is just a more efficient card that they can manufacturer at lower cost and you get around the same performance as a 5 series card for less money and energy usage. AMD's next leap in performance will be the 7000 series cards which will show up 6 months after the 6000 series (hopefully). That's how their production timeline is, they release new cards every 6 months but only after each year the cards get a true boost in performance and features. I can bet anything that when AMD releases the first 7000 series GPU we will see nvidia releases a rebranded gtx 580 and calling it gtx 680 or something.

[Peace_Angel]

I wouldn't really consider an HD6990 to be in the same league with a GTX590 because I know the GTX590 will use about 1000W and cost about $1000USD, win by 1fps in a benchmark then fanboys everywhere will claim superiority while their house/basement is on fire. :lol:

Although I prefer Nvidia products, this may just be the truth! ;p

Peace.

[DKT27]

Review.

[toyo]

It seems the GTX 590 will come out clocked at only 610 MHz (approx). Benchmarks with a 6990 vs GTX 580 SLI @ 600 MHz show that the Radeon will maintain the lead, so AMD could well take the crown for this generation of cards. Remains to be seen, though.

[RadioActive]

Am I the only one who thinks that this is getting absurd (the rate of development of graphic cards that is)? How many people in the world the actually NEED (not merely want) this kind of technology? It's like buying a super car whilst living in a big/crowded city, other than showing off, there's no practical use for it.