Radeon HD6990/Nvidia GTX 590

[LordHotCakes]

So The Radeon HD6990 was released not long ago. This dual GPU card, in the same vain as the HD5970 has some, quite frankly, insane specs. You can read a review right here:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/03/08/amd-radeon-hd-6990-review/1

Now you can find some (rather lacking) leaked information on the Nvidia GTX 590, Nvidia's own take on the Dual GPU Card. This info includes a nice little presentation diagram. Even though this is leaked info and therefore the specs may or maybe not be accurate, they equally offer a pretty mad (if not complete)list of specs. There is also word that the GTX 590 could be out sooner than you think. Like the end of this month.

Here's some leaked info and diagram:

http://greyviper.com/2872/diagram-highlights-features-nvidias-geforce-gtx-590.html

And when you have taken all that in, I wish to ask you, what, if anything, does all this mean to you? I mean, the PC is forever evolving, but do these two cards represent that? Or is it all just graphical willy waving?

I can say that personally, although I am highly impressed with both cards, they aren't what I, myself, really want or need, but they do show just how far things have come. What do you, the many humble Technophiles of the Escapist think?

 

[jamesworkshop]

Lets be honest nice picture but really very lacking in any real numbers, 3GB GDDR5 memory fine but what of the clock speed/memory bus let alone the clocks of the core/Shaders.

Top end cards are such a waste nowadays when even a 460gtx kicks most games aside from Metro 2033 and crysis which most people don't even play anymore.

 

[zfactor]

They are going to keep miniturizing everything. Even if it is not really needed (like the i7, I do not need 8 cores, no game I have uses all of them...). My rig has two Radeon HD4850s and it runs everything maxed out fine. I probably will not be getting a new card for awhile, given my finaces...

 

[Kabutos]

The GTX590 is a Fermi GPGPU(Complete GPU)
The AMD is not, and i Say AMD because ATI is being discontinued this year(2011)
AMD is dropping the ATI brand and just going AMD
Nvidia was the first and still is the only system with a completed GPU, ECC, and complete PhysX+Graphics support. Not to mention Nvidia cards are more consistent than ATI.
ATI's card may pack a bit more "power" but Nvidia's cards are more solid and better designed.

As a whole? We've reached the pre pinnical point of graphics.
Same with RAM being pinical at 8GB(anything more is "future proof")
Same with Intel CPU clockspeeds(no need for anything more than 3.8ghz at all).
The graphics pinnical is almost within reach. Fermi is the GPU to beat. ATI does not have a direct competitor in the same way that AMD does not have a direct competitor to the Core i7.
Closer specs and higher over all frame rates(Nvidia), is better than higher peaks and lower consistancy(ATI)
Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

Uh...

No.

While AMD might not yet have a strong competitor to Intel's i7s (which is fine because you only need a quad core for gaming anyway), you're just being foolish in saying that every "true" gaming PC has an NVIDIA card. AMD has plenty of competent contenders for the GPU market.

 

[Wolfram23]

Pinnacle has not been reached yet... at all. Next year we're going to see a process shrink which will have huge benefits, like we're seeing with Sandy Bridge and being able to hit 5ghz on air! It's insane! And more speed can always be put to use, given the right application. Sure, gaming won't need that much CPU power (usually) but gaming is a small portion of the PC world.

And another thing, how are graphics cards at the pinnacle if it takes two high end cards to max out any game even at 1080p? And when you throw multimonitor and/or 3D at it, you're looking at needing to drop some serious cash on GPUs. There's plenty of room for upgrading.

Anyway for the topic at hand, the 6990 is a freaking beast but I'll bet the 590 is faster.

 

[Wondermint13]

...Is this topic about computer stuff?

 

[Wolfram23]

Pinnacle has not been reached yet... at all. Next year we're going to see a process shrink which will have huge benefits, like we're seeing with Sandy Bridge and being able to hit 5ghz on air! It's insane! And more speed can always be put to use, given the right application. Sure, gaming won't need that much CPU power (usually) but gaming is a small portion of the PC world.

And another thing, how are graphics cards at the pinnacle if it takes two high end cards to max out any game even at 1080p? And when you throw multimonitor and/or 3D at it, you're looking at needing to drop some serious cash on GPUs. There's plenty of room for upgrading.

Anyway for the topic at hand, the 6990 is a freaking beast but I'll bet the 590 is faster.

I think you need to read out the specs and purpose of the Sandybridge their buddy.
Intel isn't working for better clock speeds their looking at better performance out of design.
17% more performance at a MAX clock speed of 3.8ghz turbo boosted. 17% more performance... at the same clock speeds as previous processors.
Clock speed pinnicle has been reached, nessesity to go higher is just not nessisary at this time. same with RAM. who needs 16GB ram configs? No one unless they want bragging rights.
I got bragging rights with my alienwares 12GB Tripple Channel, But was it nessisary? Nah 8GB was all i needed, but 12Gb 1600mhz triple channel Corsair Vengence is more my style, catch my drift?

Faster isn't always more powerful. It is when were talking about the same chip platform(ie 2.66ghz vs 3.2ghz Bloomfields). but not when it comes to multi variant chips.

WTF are you talking about? Clock for clock SB is faster than first gen i cores, yes, but they also have a significantly higher overclock headroom. FYI my i5 750 is clocked at 3.7ghz UP TO 4.3ghz with turbo boost enabled (177 base clock). Anyway all you said originally is that you don't need more than 3.8ghz "at all" which is just stupid, faster clocks gets work done faster so of course there's a need for it. Better efficiency is great too! But SB has both. I've SEEN people with 4.6-5ghz overclocks on their i5 2500k's. I've never seen that on an i5 750/760 or a 960 or any AMD chip, unless it was using LN2.

I never said anything about RAM previously, and yeah generally 6-8gb is a perfect amount but that's not to say more isn't needed for certain applications. Don't ever just assuming gaming is the one and only purpose for a PC.

I really don't see why you're taking such an aggresive stance here. It's not like your opinion is the be-all-end-all. Not to mention this thread isn't even about CPUs and RAM.

 

[Wolfram23]

snip

No, "we" aren't talking about standard speeds and performance. "You" are, for some reason. I don't know why. Not to mention they've been chaning a LOT. Not from gen 1 to gen 2 of "i" cores but that's only covering, what, 2 or 2.5 years? The 775 quads start as low as 2.6-2.8ghz and those aren't even that old. They don't normally show a huge increase in speeds in a "toc" cycle because it's about optimizing, but next "tic" and we'll probably see 4ghz CPUs at stock speeds. (FYI, Intel uses a "tic-toc" cycle where the tics are whole new CPUs, for example going from 775 socket to 1156/1366, while tocs are the optimizations as seen between i5 760 and i5 2500 for example)

And if you think 12gb is enough for all circumstances, you're kidding yourself. You may not have explicitely said "only gaming" but that's the only thing I can think of because there's a MASSIVE ammount of people using PCs for their professional work and might have several instances of Solid Works and Photoshop and this and that, that all eat up lots of RAM. I've seen people building PCs who claim to use 10-15GBs on average due to their circumstances. Me? I barely use 4gbs of my 8 but that's because I'm mostly gaming, I'm not running a ton of RAM heavy apps.

I know you think you're some god at PC hardware factoids and that's good for you, but I too know what I'm talking about. Ultimately our little back and forth here seems pretty futile anyway when you seem to be arguing something completely different than me.

 

[MrTub]

The GTX590 is a Fermi GPGPU(Complete GPU)
The AMD is not, and i Say AMD because ATI is being discontinued this year(2011)
AMD is dropping the ATI brand and just going AMD
Nvidia was the first and still is the only system with a completed GPU, ECC, and complete PhysX+Graphics support. Not to mention Nvidia cards are more consistent than ATI.
ATI's card may pack a bit more "power" but Nvidia's cards are more solid and better designed.

As a whole? We've reached the pre pinnical point of graphics.
Same with RAM being pinical at 8GB(anything more is "future proof")
Same with Intel CPU clockspeeds(no need for anything more than 3.8ghz at all).
The graphics pinnical is almost within reach. Fermi is the GPU to beat. ATI does not have a direct competitor in the same way that AMD does not have a direct competitor to the Core i7.
Closer specs and higher over all frame rates(Nvidia), is better than higher peaks and lower consistancy(ATI)
Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

Uh...

No.

While AMD might not yet have a strong competitor to Intel's i7s (which is fine because you only need a quad core for gaming anyway), you're just being foolish in saying that every "true" gaming PC has an NVIDIA card. AMD has plenty of competent contenders for the GPU market.

Pretty much this. As long as Intel continues to be way overpriced, AMD will continue to be strong competition for them. Once I add crossfire HD 6870s to my rig, I'll be running anything on DirectX 11 maximum settings at 60+ FPS. Nvidia's closest competitor at that price, the GTX 570 OC, doesn't even come close in benchmark scores, and I don't know of any card that you can SLI to get the same results without going at least $100+ over the cost of the AMD cards.

No you wont. Metro 2033 simply takes to much power for to play stable 60+ fps, neither will Crysis & Warhead. And Gtx 560 Ti SLI will perform as good as 5870CF for the same price.

 

[MrTub]

Wow. Barely even started this thread and it has already erupted into an argument over Intel and AMD. And it was started over ATI and NVIDIA! Well, ATI is part of AMD, but... still, this was about graphics cards, not processors! Why don't we argue power supplies, RAM, hard drive and optical drive brands for once? Or maybe motherboards or hell, even cases?

Ati doesnt exist anymore. They are called AMD.

 

[Wolfram23]

As a whole? We've reached the pre pinnical point of graphics.
Same with RAM being pinical at 8GB(anything more is "future proof")
Same with Intel CPU clockspeeds(no need for anything more than 3.8ghz at all).
The graphics pinnical is almost within reach. Fermi is the GPU to beat. ATI does not have a direct competitor in the same way that AMD does not have a direct competitor to the Core i7.
Closer specs and higher over all frame rates(Nvidia), is better than higher peaks and lower consistancy(ATI)
Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

I get the feeling you're just trying to troll me at this point, but what I argued against was that first bit I just quoted. You do not, at all, mention anything about stock speeds, and for some reason are also trying to bring Intel into this when it's clearly a thread about the top 2 graphics cards of which Intel has no bearing. So even if you meant to be arguing about stock speeds and performance, you were not in fact doing so.

Also, AMD Radeon GPUs are great. There's very few arguments against them since the 5xxx series came out and overall Nvidia and Radeon are very equal for price/performance as you go up the ladder.

I'd like to know what your best 3DMark11 score is (providing the full score link not just some number).

 

[MrTub]

As a whole? We've reached the pre pinnical point of graphics.
Same with RAM being pinical at 8GB(anything more is "future proof")
Same with Intel CPU clockspeeds(no need for anything more than 3.8ghz at all).
The graphics pinnical is almost within reach. Fermi is the GPU to beat. ATI does not have a direct competitor in the same way that AMD does not have a direct competitor to the Core i7.
Closer specs and higher over all frame rates(Nvidia), is better than higher peaks and lower consistancy(ATI)
Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

I get the feeling you're just trying to troll me at this point, but what I argued against was that first bit I just quoted. You do not, at all, mention anything about stock speeds, and for some reason are also trying to bring Intel into this when it's clearly a thread about the top 2 graphics cards of which Intel has no bearing. So even if you meant to be arguing about stock speeds and performance, you were not in fact doing so.

Also, AMD Radeon GPUs are great. There's very few arguments against them since the 5xxx series came out and overall Nvidia and Radeon are very equal for price/performance as you go up the ladder.

I'd like to know what your best 3DMark11 score is (providing the full score link not just some number).

May I ask why you want his 3dmark11 score?

 

[Wolfram23]

May I ask why you want his 3dmark11 score?

Because of his claim about "every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLI blah blah blah". I'm running a pair of 5850s I want to see this big mouthed guy show me the money. Fermi cards are known to run hotter and use more power for equal performance, first off, and secondly, they just aren't "better" unless you pay more for the next tier up, but a little more money gets you a better ATI card, and a little more gets you a better Nvidia card, etc. (example being 460<5850<470<5870<480<5970 - now with 5xx and 6xxx out it gets more convoluted but that's just an example of performance increasing with price)

 

[MrTub]

May I ask why you want his 3dmark11 score?

Because of his claim about "every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLI blah blah blah". I'm running a pair of 5850s I want to see this big mouthed guy show me the money.

Well I can say a number but i cannot link its cause for some odd reason my 3dmark do not want to connect to internet...................: So do you want entry/performance/Extreme?

 

[MercurySteam]

Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

Scuse' my language but...... bull fucking horse shit.

I know people on a budget running two or three was Crossfire which more than qualifies for a gaming rig. Nvidia isn't as cost effective as ATI and they'll always be a part of gaming. Bloody Nvidia fanboys......

 

[MrTub]

Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

Scuse' my language but...... bull fucking horse shit.

I know people on a budget running two or three was Crossfire which more than qualifies for a gaming rig. Nvidia isn't as cost effective as ATI and they'll always be a part of gaming. Bloody Nvidia fanboys......

Ati wont be part of the gaming anymore since they do not exist. And if you do some research you can get most of the times about the same performance for the same price if you go nvidia. But if you want top of the line Nvidia is going to be more expensive then Amd.

 

[Wolfram23]

AMD GPUs are better, they produce higher scores. Never denied that.
But ATI STILL doesnt have a completed GPU.(GPGPU) They don't have a match to the Fermi.
Do they need it.... probably not...
But Nvidia has a pretty dam close line and the Fermi series is a complete GPU.
Its more consistant.

and yes I mentioned about stock speeds, go back and read it, Pinnical speed is 3.2ghz~3.8ghz stock on intel cores.
Read, It's essential. Standard aka Stock.
Now stop.
You started it by challenging, now back off and stop digging deeper.

And what does my score have to do with anything?
How is it relevent to the converstation?
It's not.
So why would you ask for it?

"More consistent" is extremely debatable so let's not even go there. Let's just say I've had absolutely not issues or inconsistency with my current, and first, ATI GPU set up.

No, no you did not mention stock speeds. Pinnacle means "peak" and has no inference to stock anything. You didn't mention "standard" either.

Yes I challenged your extremely biased opinion. Why wouldn't I when you're just throwing out opinions on things I feel strongly against thanks to my own experiences? You have yet to prove a single thing I've said wrong.

Just so you know. Im a girl. So you can put your dick away, theres nothing to compare it to.
Your ATI Fanboyism is showing hardcore, so you might want to back off and put it away before you poke someones eye out with that.

Wow way to make a sexist remark. Bravo. I'll ignore the return jab, and reiterate that the reason I ask is because you've already said things that are either outright false or extremely debatable because there's actually little difference. You also are just being a jerk now, for example calling me a fanboy when I've already conceded that Nvidia and AMD Radeon cards switch it up the scale for performance and are very even, etc. You came out with the whole "real gaming pcs have Nvidia" shit. I'm a regular Addict over at Tomshardware and have recommended Nvidia AND AMD on countless occasions depending on requirements and budgets.

So not only are you completely wrong and/or misleading, but you're being a stubborn jerk. Nice one, lady. Never seen that before...

 

[MercurySteam]

Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

Scuse' my language but...... bull fucking horse shit.

I know people on a budget running two or three was Crossfire which more than qualifies for a gaming rig. Nvidia isn't as cost effective as ATI and they'll always be a part of gaming. Bloody Nvidia fanboys......

Ati wont be part of the gaming anymore since they do not exist. And if you do some research you can get most of the times about the same performance for the same price if you go nvidia. But if you want top of the line Nvidia is going to be more expensive then Amd.

Yes it's true ATI doesn't exist, but ever since they merged with AMD people refer to them as ATI/AMD (abbreviated as ATI). Nvidia has always been top of the line, it's true but it's not necessarily better than ATI/AMD. Yo have to take price to performance ratio, features, and lineup of cards to determine this. ATI and Nvidia have both.

 

[MrTub]

Every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLIed but most gaming rigs with ati need two cards for complete support.

Scuse' my language but...... bull fucking horse shit.

I know people on a budget running two or three was Crossfire which more than qualifies for a gaming rig. Nvidia isn't as cost effective as ATI and they'll always be a part of gaming. Bloody Nvidia fanboys......

Ati wont be part of the gaming anymore since they do not exist. And if you do some research you can get most of the times about the same performance for the same price if you go nvidia. But if you want top of the line Nvidia is going to be more expensive then Amd.

Yes it's true ATI doesn't exist, but ever since they merged with AMD people refer to them as ATI/AMD (abbreviated as ATI). Nvidia has always been top of the line, it's true but it's not necessarily better than ATI/AMD. Yo have to take price to performance ratio, features, and lineup of cards to determine this. ATI and Nvidia have both.

If you are going for the top of the line the best performance card is the best not the cheapest of the top of the line. Or you simply call them AMD?

 

[Wolfram23]

May I ask why you want his 3dmark11 score?

Because of his claim about "every true gaming rig has Nvidia single or SLI blah blah blah". I'm running a pair of 5850s I want to see this big mouthed guy show me the money.

Well I can say a number but i cannot link its cause for some odd reason my 3dmark do not want to connect to internet...................: So do you want entry/performance/Extreme?

Would be fun to see anyway although I'd need to know your setup to have any sort of frame of reference lol. But yeah, let's go with Performance since that's all I could run on the free version of it (although I have Vantage scores too, full version came with my RAM)

It shows my system in the link, at my "everyday" settings I scored 7529 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/526273

But my highest score was 8418 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/526616