# AMD Radeon HD 7990 6 GB



## W1zzard (Apr 15, 2013)

Today, AMD releases their highly anticipated HD 7990 dual-GPU flagship. It is based on two full Tahiti GPUs running at 1000 MHz. AMD has also worked hard to keep power draw and noise in check, but can this $1000 card compete with NVIDIA's GTX 690 and GTX Titan?

*Show full review*


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## Delta6326 (Apr 24, 2013)

Very nice review W1zz! But sadly this is not my cup of tea, I would rather just buy 2 cards. On summary page 2 those are some nice figures.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 24, 2013)

As I was saying in the other thread about the announcement of the card. This thing is a disappointing, I was expecting it to beat the 690 hands down, but AMD still needs to work on drivers. Does not appear to be scaling as it should. (Well atleast in games that it isn't scaling right, in the first performance summary, then its about 1% faster then the 690 on games that it does scale right on)


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## 983264 (Apr 24, 2013)

More choices, more dilemma... 

Still, crossfire profiles for games still needs work... Great Review


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## HammerON (Apr 24, 2013)

Thanks for the review W1z!!!


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## Kyuuba (Apr 24, 2013)

At least it can beat the GTX 690 on the main games the world plays.


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## Nordic (Apr 24, 2013)

With watercooling or even some beastly air cooling this card would really shine.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 24, 2013)

On a side note, those power consumption numbers are interesting.


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## radrok (Apr 24, 2013)

Thanks for the review it is top notch as always w1zzard 

Moving on onto the card I would define this release as underwhelming:

They could (and should) have worked soooo much harder. This card really had the potential to shine and annihilate both the GTX 690 and the GTX Titan.

I've waited for this release since the 7970 launch because I really am a sucker for dual GPU cards from ATI/AMD so much I've ran quad CFX for so long I can't really remember but they took just too much time to launch this unpolished turd.

I'm so glad I didn't wait and went for dual Titan, it pains me to admit that nVidia drivers are so much better, and this comes from an ATI fanboy....


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## Emperor_Piehead (Apr 24, 2013)

Pretty cool card would love to see those drivers fixed though


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## jigar2speed (Apr 24, 2013)

radrok said:


> This card really had the potential to shine and annihilate both the GTX 690 and the GTX Titan.
> .



Had ? It will!!!, give it some time the driver updates are going to change the game.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 24, 2013)

AMD has improved performance with crossfire with new prototype driver. '

This is from PCper with their review of the 7990 with their prototype driver given to them by AMD to do the frame-rating tests.


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## radrok (Apr 24, 2013)

jigar2speed said:


> give it some time the driver updates are going to change the game.



Somehow I've heard this phrase so much I wont be enthralled by it anymore but hey, one another can hope 

If I buy a 1k Eur/Dollar piece it has to work right NOW, not in some time lol.


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## Xzibit (Apr 24, 2013)

radrok said:


> Somehow I've heard this phrase so much I wont be enthralled by it anymore but hey, one another can hope
> 
> If I buy a 1k Eur/Dollar piece it has to work right NOW, not in some time lol.



Really the Titan didnt and still isnt working 100%

You RMA'ing it ?

Or are you just refering to your own preference


*PCPer* - Frame Rating: AMD Improves CrossFire with Prototype Driver

Clash of the E-Pees soon


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## radrok (Apr 24, 2013)

I don't know why I'm biting your bait but I will for clarity's sake.



Xzibit said:


> Or are you just refering to your own preference



I'm referring to my OWN experience. Fair enough?


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 24, 2013)

They seriously launched this before nailing down the xfire issues? What was the rush? And here that's not even the only deal breaker. It bugs me to no end that coil whine is even still a thing, but this sounds particularly bad, and on a $1000 card no less? Thanks but no thanks for the two flaming turds on a stick AMD.


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## Xzibit (Apr 24, 2013)

My point was always is that Nvidia software fixed it last year so it was possible for AMD to fix it aswell.

@1440p it looks good with the new Prototype 2 drivers but anything higher I would asume things being equal AMD would have the advantage if they got there variance sorted out to a comparable because its spitting out more frames and nvidia is seeing a higher variance beyond 1440p with its current fixed drivers.

Thats my own take on it but I wasnt so quick to pound on AMD for it.  Since this is the first cycle I switched from Nvidia to AMD.

I could be wrong and if i am so be it. I'm sure someone will point it out to me.

either way better drivers all around


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## HumanSmoke (Apr 24, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> @1440p it looks good with the new Prototype 2 drivers but anything higher I would asume things being equal AMD would have the advantage if they got there variance sorted out to a comparable because its spitting out more frames and nvidia is seeing a higher variance beyond 1440p with its current fixed drivers.


Did you actually happen to interpret the graphs in the PCPer article you linked to?

















The lower and flatter the line, the better the result.

As for variance "above 1440p", you'll notice that PCPer prefaced their article with:


> One thing to note: this fix does not yet address Eyefinity + CrossFire problems.


Which seems to contradict your conclusion


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 24, 2013)

> One thing to note: this fix does not yet address Eyefinity + CrossFire problems.



Dave won't like that. Since he has all his monitors and got all his GPUs strictly for Eyefinity experience.


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## Xzibit (Apr 24, 2013)

@HumanSmoke

Guess you dont like reading either even when you quote me 



Xzibit said:


> I would asume things being equal AMD would have the advantage if they got there variance sorted out to a comparable


 comparable level.

I'll even fix it for you.

I'll even quote this aswell from the article


> There is still the issue of Eyefinity and that problem will not be addressed by this *first* version of the driver.  I have more analysis of that complicated discussion planned in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned!



It would be a problem is they were the only drivers being released *EVER!!!* 

I think a reasonable person can come to the conclusion that both will keep updating their drivers to improve things.


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## 15th Warlock (Apr 24, 2013)

Good review! 

As Radrock said, the release is kinda overwhelming, if anything the alpha drivers should improve frame latency which seems to be the new metric most hardware sites use nowadays.

Kudos to AMD for bundling all those games with the 7990, I wish my Titans would've bundled at least half those games 

Oh well, looks like we'll have to wait until Maxwell and Sea Islands to have another breakthrough in graphics performance next year, the race is on!


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## Outback Bronze (Apr 24, 2013)

$1000 bah. Would have love to see them do 3 gpus on the one pcb, something diffrent. This to me is just 7970 xfire which has been around for 16 months now. Still very nice looking card though.


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## HumanSmoke (Apr 24, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> @HumanSmoke
> 
> Guess you dont like reading either even when you quote me
> comparable level.


The conclusion I was talking about was your assertion that...


Xzibit said:


> and nvidia is seeing *a higher variance *beyond 1440p with its current fixed drivers


(as would be fairly apparent from reading the actual post)
Well, as you can see from the PCPer graphs, that is not the case...and if you needed any other proof of nvidia's supposedly "higher variance beyond 1440P" I'd suggest you take a look at the various 5760x1080/1200 benchmarks from around the interwebz...assuming cadaveca's first hand experience isn't enough of a clue.






> "The inconsistent nature of Radeon HD 7970 GE 3-way CrossFire is very evident here.
> Technically Radeon HD 7970 GE 3-way CrossFire is 25% faster based on the average FPS with TressFX enabled. However, the wildly inconsistent framerate nature is something you feel as you play the game, and compared to GTX 680 3-way SLI it is more stuttery on the 7970 GE 3-way CrossFire platform."


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## asskriss (Apr 24, 2013)

the Radeon HD 7990 is the fastest card from AMD, so the prices is very expensive not all people have this card.


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## Xzibit (Apr 24, 2013)

@HumanSmoke

I'm not comparing its variance to AMD :shadedshu

Im making an observation that beyond 1440p variance sky-rockets abnormaly not consistant with the difference you see going from 1080p to 1440p

Its there from the first PcPer article to the last
*PCPer* - Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing

Unless you prefer your variance more eratic then a single card beyond 1440p

At the current state Nvidia SLI plays smoother but now its gonna be who can fix their drivers first beyond 1440p.

I'm not that impressed by the 7990 when it pertains to games. Its bleh. You get games its a plus they help you pay for 3/8 of the card which good I think.

The only impressive thing is 3 fans arent that loud.  W1zzard concluded they are others concluded they are similar to the 690 and OpenCL its dominates the Titan and 690.  Bitcoiners and Crunchers are gonna drool over it for sure.

People are gonna eat these up if OC is good just to have the best scores.


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## the54thvoid (Apr 24, 2013)

Why have so few comments picked up on the apparent 'rarity' of the card due to its highly binned chips?  And what's more surprising is the lack of comments about the coil whine. It's disingenuous to call a card whisper quiet when it has coil whine louder than it's fan noise. It would be a waste putting a water block on that when all you'll get is a screaming pig in your pc. Knowing that alone would stop me buying one of these. Bad manufacturing.


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## VulkanBros (Apr 24, 2013)

I have read other reviews - no mention of coil whine.
Maybe the review sample Wizz got is faulty ??


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

the54thvoid said:


> Why have so few comments picked up on the apparent 'rarity' of the card due to its highly binned chips?  And what's more surprising is the lack of comments about the coil whine.



i'm wondering the same



VulkanBros said:


> I have read other reviews - no mention of coil whine.
> Maybe the review sample Wizz got is faulty ??



i checked with five other reviewers and they all got it. i guess some are just focusing on something else


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## Xzibit (Apr 24, 2013)

VulkanBros said:


> I have read other reviews - no mention of coil whine.
> Maybe the review sample Wizz got is faulty ??



He broke it cause they didnt let him keep it. 

He had to write about it in his review so he can have an aliby.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> He broke it cause they didnt let him keep it.
> 
> He had to write about it in his review so he can have an aliby.



uhm .. no .. please dont troll my reviews and personal integrity


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## dj-electric (Apr 24, 2013)

Welp^ Someone got their ass handed to them.
Thanks for thr review w1zz. Defo a skipper and not a keeper.


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## DayKnight (Apr 24, 2013)

^ lol, looks like he did. 

Anyway, excellent review, bad product.

Not impressed.

Plus, it's HUGE!.


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## Nordic (Apr 24, 2013)

I had coil whine on my 7970 for the first week. It went away though. I thought coil whine went away over time so wouldn't it for this also? This is an honest question.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

james888 said:


> I had coil whine on my 7970 for the first week. It went away though. I thought coil whine went away over time so wouldn't it for this also? This is an honest question.



it was present out of the box, all the time, no matter which game was running, and didn't change over the course of my testing.


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## the54thvoid (Apr 24, 2013)

james888 said:


> I had coil whine on my 7970 for the first week. It went away though. I thought coil whine went away over time so wouldn't it for this also? This is an honest question.



In some cases it can but rarely. Both my cards had it to a mild degree. All gfx cards can get it remember - it just seems more common in the 79xx family for some reason.


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## Nordic (Apr 24, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> it was present out of the box, all the time, no matter which game was running, and didn't change over the course of my testing.



How long does your testing take?


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

the54thvoid said:


> In some cases it can but rarely. Both my cards had it to a mild degree. All gfx cards can get it remember - it just seems more common in the 79xx family for some reason.



I tried the card on 3 systems with different mobos and PSUs, all the same


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## d1nky (Apr 24, 2013)

I like the fact it can be xfired with any Tahiti chip, just imagine having a 7950 and somehow coming across a 7990 for cheap one day 

wow I just seen the scores in some games  /


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## Animalpak (Apr 24, 2013)

nice deeply detailed review ! 

AMD needs to stuck on the mainstream market and compete with his price/performance ratio. 

Try to produce the fastest card on the planet is not their call they have very powerful GPU's but that even they know how to use fully.


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## DayKnight (Apr 24, 2013)

Coil whine is the most annoying thing in my opinion!. Good thing I never had it with my stuff.

Heard it in some videos and I was pretty annoyed. Yes, AMD GPU's were present in those videos. 

Don't think I can live with coil whine that dances to how much load is going through the GPU/device. It's like listing to some old game.

What is the point of having a silent PC when you will be listening to some annoying 'teeeeen' all the time?.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

james888 said:


> How long does your testing take?



The 6 days that I had it were enough to get all data for the review as you can see, plus some more time earlier this week to write text.


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## the54thvoid (Apr 24, 2013)

Assuming the latency issue/non-issue gets fixed (the thing that doesn't bother everyone but does bother some but gets made worse by graphical visualisations) there is still the problem with poor crossfire support.  Whether this is down to Nvidia being very nasty or just AMD being 'slow' I don't know (hedge my bets and say lazy developers on a Nvidia sponsored title not giving a hoot about AMD, or worse hobbling it intentionally).

AMD should focus more on getting the cards crossfire to work better in more scenarios.  If we ignore latency (quite easy to do for many who it doesnt bother) it would be the spectre of having a $1000/£850 card that acts like one less than half the price in some popular games that would stop me from buying one.  And the whine.


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## Kaotik (Apr 24, 2013)

What's up with disabling TressFX? It's using standard DirectCompute and not limited to one manufacturer.

It's not like there hasn't been tons of games in the past and even in your current game lineup which work better than usual or worse than usual on one vendor with all the bells and whistles that have been still included in the tests.

edit:
And 680 moving from 4.7% slower to 2.5% faster than 7970GE with one driver just doesn't seem right at all


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

Kaotik said:


> What's up with disabling TressFX? It's using standard DirectCompute and not limited to one manufacturer.


directcompute just runs a shader (that you can freely program and optimize for certain arch) and that puts the result in the cpu and not on the screen. kinda like using physx on cpu vs gpu and saying "it's using standard physx"



Kaotik said:


> And 680 moving from 4.7% slower to 2.5% faster than 7970GE with one driver just doesn't seem right at all



i'm sure you can spot why, if you take a close look at the review. i wonder why people keep making accusactions without bringing any piece of data to the table


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## madness777 (Apr 24, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> The 6 days that I had it were enough to get all data for the review as you can see, plus some more time earlier this week to write text.



W1zz, you're amazing! I admire people who put all their time into their work!


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## Kaotik (Apr 24, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> i'm sure you can spot why, if you take a close look at the review



That still doesn't answer the TressFX case - why was it disabled in "terms of fairness" when it's clear the game line up has other games which prefer one brand of cards over the other (when compared to average difference between cards) by up to nearly 60% difference?

edit:
Seems you edited the answer there - while it does involve CPU, it does major effect on what we see on the screen, too.
It's not limited to one manufacturer of GPUs like PhysX, either, and DirectCompute is used in various games these days.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

Kaotik said:


> That still doesn't answer the TressFX case - why was it disabled in "terms of fairness" when it's clear the game line up has other games which prefer one brand of cards over the other (when compared to average difference between cards) by up to nearly 60% difference?



maybe it's because when i played the game i liked lara better without tressfx. i'll look into this.

edit: details were set to "ultra", which doesn't include tressfx, and sets shadows to normal. i'll adjust on next rebench


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## d1nky (Apr 24, 2013)

@wiz I seen the drivers used are 13.5 beta 2 for 7990 I take it you was sent these drivers?

theres some leaked drivers going round with apparent full support for the 7990 (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183081), and amd have just announced that they have made a break through with frame latency.

did you attempt different drivers or was those ones used recommended or the best for that card?


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

d1nky said:


> @wiz I seen the drivers used are 13.5 beta 2 for 7990 I take it you was sent these drivers?
> 
> theres some leaked drivers going round with apparent full support for the 7990 (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183081), and amd have just announced that they have made a break through with frame latency.
> 
> did you attempt different drivers or was those ones used recommended or the best for that card?



windows 8 only at the time, prototype, not recommended for performance testing.

amd says: "For this reason, I’d like you to resume / continue testing with 13.5beta2 for average frame rates and performance tests, and use this driver only to see the progress we’ve made in terms of frame times and frame pacing."

instead of spending a day installing windows 8 and games i rather wanted to bring you voltage control, which you can't read about in every other review

Edit: Just to clarify: AMD provided a Windows 7 compatible driver on Monday this week, but my card was picked up on Saturday morning the week before. I am sure that AMD will include these improvements in Vista/W7/W8 driver, possibly Windows XP, too.


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## the54thvoid (Apr 24, 2013)

d1nky said:


> @wiz I seen the drivers used are 13.5 beta 2 for 7990 I take it you was sent these drivers?
> 
> theres some leaked drivers going round with apparent full support for the 7990 (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183081), and amd have just announced that they have made a break through with frame latency.
> 
> did you attempt different drivers or was those ones used recommended or the best for that card?



I've been doing the rounds on reviews, all the reviewers are stating the latency drivers are not due out till summer with most saying 2-3 months away at least. Also seems a lot of reviewers were shipped the alpha drivers after they had finished testing.  Bit of a rush job tbh. Those that did test the alphas, only for a couple of games in general did report vastly reduced latency.  Should add that the runt or partial frames have been eliminated in the process but that would also affect fps, though still be in the same playing field as the 690.


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## d1nky (Apr 24, 2013)

I like to see amd testing drivers as well as cards. and people criticise amd for poor driver development. however timing does seem off with driver updates and new card.

hopefully all the drivers and release of 7990 should tie up nicely so that when all Is mainstream amd don't get castrated. thanks guys


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## AlienIsGOD (Apr 24, 2013)

I think World of Warcraft should be taken out of crossfire testing as WOW has never officially supported multiple gfx cards, making w/e results for multi card setups tainted IMO.


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## tacosRcool (Apr 24, 2013)

drivers... could be better


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## Frick (Apr 24, 2013)

AlienIsGOD said:


> I think World of Warcraft should be taken out of crossfire testing as WOW has never officially supported multiple gfx cards, making w/e results for multi card setups tainted IMO.



So does Assassins Creed 3. 

@ drivers coming 2-3 months from now: That must be WHQL drivers. Betas should come earlier I think?


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## H82LUZ73 (Apr 24, 2013)

radrok said:


> Thanks for the review it is top notch as always w1zzard
> 
> Moving on onto the card I would define this release as underwhelming:
> 
> ...



Very well said,I think AMD is lacking again in all areas,Shame this card had so much potential but all it does with turd drivers is barley beat a 3 year old 6990.......Well another awesome  review by Wizz at least.


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## Frick (Apr 24, 2013)

H82LUZ73 said:


> Very well said,I think AMD is lacking again in all areas,Shame this card had so much potential but all it does with turd drivers is barley beat a 3 year old 6990.......Well another awesome  review by Wizz at least.



It beat it handily. Not sure what you're on about.


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## H82LUZ73 (Apr 24, 2013)

Frick said:


> It beat it handily. Not sure what you're on about.



the low res scores 1280......1600 and so on .http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/5.html

yeah it beats it in games that have crossfire profiles but why in Asssins does the single cards beat it. Drivers no crossfire profile?,If i was spending $1000 on it and only played this game or that game don`t you think i would be mad.
 Really someone else nailed it that it only works on the popular games.
LOL and i am  a AMD Fan boy that is being honest.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

AlienIsGOD said:


> I think World of Warcraft should be taken out of crossfire testing as WOW has never officially supported multiple gfx cards, making w/e results for multi card setups tainted IMO.



does any title "officially" support multiple graphics cards?

WOW scaling works fine on NVIDIA, on AMD it did work all the time. it's just broken on AMD since the MOP expansion was released.


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## Frick (Apr 24, 2013)

H82LUZ73 said:


> the low res scores 1280......1600 and so on .http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/5.html
> 
> yeah it beats it in games that have crossfire profiles but why in Asssins does the single cards beat it. Drivers no crossfire profile?,If i was spending $1000 on it and only played this game or that game don`t you think i would be mad.
> Really someone else nailed it that it only works on the popular games.
> LOL and i am  a AMD Fan boy that is being honest.



Ye gods man, that is an exception. If you ONLY played that game sure you'd be mad to buy a 7990.


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## Zubasa (Apr 24, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> does any title "officially" support multiple graphics cards?
> 
> WOW scaling works fine on NVIDIA, on AMD it did work all the time. it's just broken on AMD since the MOP expansion was released.


This.
Also the Blizzard games are still some of the most sold and played titles.
World of Warcarft reported 9 million subscribers worldwide last time they release the figures.
Even the most hated Diablo III still have around 1~2 million players worldwide regularly logs on. Not everyday but something like a few days a week.
There is really no excuse for AMD's poor Crossfire drivers on these games when nVidia have no problems.


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## Nihilus (Apr 24, 2013)

Wow this card sucks.  Plain and simple.  Amd had well over a year to work on drivers, and it still scales terrible in many areas.
  Ok enough on drivers - let's look at the hardware. 
1.) This card NEEDED to be $900 or less.  I don't care how many freebies you throw in.               The HD 7970 costs less than the GTX 680, so the twin card should cost less.
2.) Power draw sucks.  We expected better power characteristics with 'only' 2 8-pin PSU connectors. The only thing this did was kill o/c potential.
3.) Even with the games that don't scale well removed, this card is only on par with a GTX 690.   A card that has been out for quite some time.

6/10 would of been by rating.  TPU - you are far to generous.


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## Nihilus (Apr 24, 2013)

Can someone come up with crossfire HD 7870 results.  I have a feeling an "HD 7890" crossfire card would of gave this thing a run for its money.


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## 63jax (Apr 24, 2013)

weird, Guru3D found this card to be much better than TPU, who's right then? every site has it's own opinion, don't know who to trust anymore...


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## Rivage (Apr 24, 2013)

The world's first legit reference cooling system?


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

63jax said:


> weird, Guru3D found this card to be much better than TPU, who's right then? every site has it's own opinion, don't know who to trust anymore...



look at the data, come to your own conclusion. take into account what matters for you. if you are a millionaire you obviously don't care about the $1k price .. or maybe you do very much care about pricing, because that's why you are still a millionaire.

did guru3d test the same games we do? if you exclude the ones where we saw issues with cf scaling, and assume such cases don't exist, the card would end up much better. if coil noise is not important to you: even higher score.


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## cadaveca (Apr 24, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> Dave won't like that. Since he has all his monitors and got all his GPUs strictly for Eyefinity experience.



I wasn't really expecting anything until July. It's still April.


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## alienstorexxx (Apr 24, 2013)

tpu has lost all my respect since a long time ago, and this review matchs that idea.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 24, 2013)

alienstorexxx said:


> tpu has lost all my respect since a long time ago, and this review matchs that idea.



Yet you still come here and post nonsense.............


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## Crap Daddy (Apr 24, 2013)

alienstorexxx said:


> tpu has lost all my respect since a long time ago, and this review matchs that idea.



Can you be more specific?


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## SIGSEGV (Apr 24, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> windows 8 only at the time, prototype, not recommended for performance testing.
> 
> amd says: "For this reason, I’d like you to resume / continue testing with 13.5beta2 for average frame rates and performance tests, and use this driver only to see the progress we’ve made in terms of frame times and frame pacing."
> 
> instead of spending a day installing windows 8 and games i rather wanted to bring you voltage control, which you can't read about in every other review



someone at pcpers asked regarding the upcoming amd's radeon driver..



> i read a small tidbit from the techpowerup 7990 review that mentioned these drivers will only be in windows 8 flavor. is that true?





> Ryan Shrout
> 
> No, that is not correct.  When AMD sent this to press it was initially Windows 8 only but they sent a Windows 7 version on Friday/Saturday.
> 
> The fix will definitely be for both Win7 and Win8!



is that true?



63jax said:


> weird, Guru3D found this card to be much better than TPU, who's right then? every site has it's own opinion, don't know who to trust anymore...



my suggestion : trust your own opinion


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## radrok (Apr 24, 2013)

alienstorexxx said:


> tpu has lost all my respect since a long time ago, and this review matchs that idea.



When you make such a statement it's expected (and polite) to state why, otherwise you end up being mistaken as a troll or perhaps, you are.

Considering that TPU reviews have often set the bar for reviews excellency I'll just be polite and say you have a very awkward method of judgement.

I have yet to find a reviewer that comes close to W1zzard as quality and thoroughness.

So please give your statement a backup, I am sure TPU staff always looks for feedback.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

SIGSEGV said:


> Ryan Shrout
> 
> No, that is not correct. When AMD sent this to press it was initially Windows 8 only but they sent a Windows 7 version on Friday/Saturday.
> 
> The fix will definitely be for both Win7 and Win8!



That's correct, I didn't mean to imply their new driver will only be for Windows 8, I'll fix my original post. my card was picked up on Saturday morning, so I couldn't test on Windows 7. That's why I wrote "at the time"

AMD provided the Windows 7 driver to me on Monday morning, not on Saturday (I talk to EU team, Ryan to NA)


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## the54thvoid (Apr 24, 2013)

If you read a lot of reviews, AMD sent out the alpha drivers very late. A lot of reviewers couldn't test them properly. It was bad resourcing from AMD. They should have held back until they could supply the alphas to test with cards.


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## brandonwh64 (Apr 24, 2013)

alienstorexxx said:


> tpu has lost all my respect since a long time ago, and this review matchs that idea.



This deserves a "No Thanks" and a ban from the internet. You have to ask yourself this question. If you had to choose who would win in a fight between W1zzard and Chuck Norris then you would be wrong on both answers cause W1zzard IS chuck Norris of the GPU world.


----------



## yogurt_21 (Apr 24, 2013)

high price, coil whine (like seriously that alone is a deal breaker), poor crossfire scaling, multiple games where crossfire doesn't work at all, dropped frame issue still present...

that's quite a bit. Pay 1000$ get plagued with issues, get a single 7970 for less than half the price and end up with a happy wallet and a happy gamer. Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same. Most of those issues were present when crossfire launched with a master/slave setup. Now many years later the same thing is true, a good single card nets you a better experience.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

yogurt_21 said:


> Pay 1000$ get plagued with issues



same 1k gets you two options from nvidia, that are both nearly perfect, with the option to trade some performance for single-gpu (690->titan)


----------



## BigMack70 (Apr 24, 2013)

AMD's time would have been better spent improving drivers and fixing stutter than releasing this card...

The plastic cooler and coil whine have absolutely no business being on a $1000 card. Fail.


----------



## Crap Daddy (Apr 24, 2013)

When the rumors hit about an official 7990 I was asking myself what are the reasons behind such a decision from AMD. Reading this review I understood: no reason at all.

One year after the GTX690 was launched, the HD7990 delivers about the same raw performance while using more power (we already knew that). Crossfire is broken in some titles (we already knew that). Frame interval benchmarking - which cannot be avoided lately - shows the same problems AMD is facing (we already knew that).

What we didn't know is that AMD is asking 1000 American dollars for this card (7 games and coil whine included).


----------



## Frick (Apr 24, 2013)

Crap Daddy said:


> When the rumors hit about an official 7990 I was asking myself what are the reasons behind such a decision from AMD. Reading this review I understood: no reason at all.
> 
> One year after the GTX690 was launched, the HD7990 delivers about the same raw performance while using more power (we already knew that). Crossfire is broken in some titles (we already knew that). Frame interval benchmarking - which cannot be avoided lately - shows the same problems AMD is facing (we already knew that).
> 
> What we didn't know is that AMD is asking 1000 American dollars for this card (7 games and coil whine included).



Yeah the timing is a bit weird. It feels like a lot is hanging in the air right now, regarding Crossfire.


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 24, 2013)

I'm not sure what to make of this.  Yes, AMD should've held back releasing this to reviewers if not the best drivers.  It's been this long what's it matter, they couldn't have waited a week for said "Beta drivers", it not like they were trying to say push under "Q1 wire" or something.  As to price AMD should have gone with $900.  Sure it doesn’t have the "sexy elegance" of a GTX690 or Titan, nor does it need that! I'll use the savings on women…  utilitarian is just fine in my case.  I wonder why W1zzard left out the GTX690 in length comparisons on page 2; between the two "dueling" cards the AMD is only 1 inch longer at 12inches.   That room goes to good use for that extra 2Gb of memory and the wider bus.   While lastly having "optional" coil whine is not acceptable, you don't think they test the sample W1z got before it was delivered... strange.  

I'd like to have more testes at 5670x, this is really why someone buying at this level is looking to use it, and honestly in that matrix it's not that bad for this 7990.  There’s the clear advantage (Batman really the one exception) over the GTX690, but that’s not discussed?    

Don’t get me wrong it’s not any huge win especially basing only from the W1zzards' write-up it is disconcerting.  If I was looking for starting a 5670x1080 set-up this would be a standout, especially for $900 in a couple of weeks if you get all the bundle titles and no " whine".   

What's super interesting is AMD has found TSMC making such great gains in deliveries they finally provide "Top-Shelf Malta" chips from the same fab process they started with now over a year and half ago, and the difference in significant!  This tells me Tahiti was never their problem… Now considering AMD has enhanced the GNC structure/architecture (Bonaire), while spinning this further improved manufacturing it seems seem there’s good hope in "Sea Island".


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 24, 2013)

Zubasa said:


> This.
> Also the Blizzard games are still some of the most sold and played titles.
> World of Warcarft reported 9 million subscribers worldwide last time they release the figures.
> Even the most hated Diablo III still have around 1~2 million players worldwide regularly logs on. Not everyday but something like a few days a week.
> There is really no excuse for AMD's poor Crossfire drivers on these games when nVidia have no problems.



I agree and hope WOW is included for a long time. Those benchmarks are very relevant to my friend who plays. Helped him decide to switch to a 670 (his 7950 didn't even offer an improvement over his 6950) and then the 690 results motivated him to go SLI. Since going SLI his DPS is up because as hard as it is to believe this old game still dips in high level combat areas which will negatively effect gameplay. He says he's at 60 pretty much all the time now no matter how busy the area.


----------



## Ravenas (Apr 24, 2013)

The only disappointing part to me is the price. I bet w1zz would have given a 9.0 if the card was at the $799 sweet spot. The card itself has higher specs than counter parts so obviously requires more power to run. On big deal folks, your card scores 300 less marks in a benchmark than an equally priced card. These comments about this card in this thread get so nit picky IMO. If your care that much about crossfire by a 7990 ghz.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

Casecutter said:


> I wonder why W1zzard left out the GTX690 in length comparisons on page 2



i thought gtx 690 is same length as titan. i had both cards in my hands for the photo session but apparently missed that gtx 690 is a little bit longer.

690 is same length as 7970 ?



Casecutter said:


> I'd like to have more testes at 5670x


the games which have no 5760x1080 graphs don't support that resolution



Casecutter said:


> What's super interesting is AMD has found TSMC making such great gains in deliveries they finally provide "Top-Shelf Malta" chips from the same fab process they started with now over a year and half ago, and the difference in significant!



how do you know that amd hasn't been stockpiling these top 0.5% of chips since they began making tahiti ?


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## EarthDog (Apr 24, 2013)

Depends on which model 7970 you are talking about. For example the HIS 7970 Turbo X is nearly 12" while the MSI TFIII is 10.6"

Titan = 10.5"
690 = 11"


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Depends on which model 7970 you are talking about.



reference design of course. thanks for posting the measurements


----------



## radrok (Apr 24, 2013)

Looking at Titan and 7990 Malta PCB I think that Titan could have been much shorter considering its PCB isn't crammed at all.


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

radrok said:


> Looking at Titan and 7990 Malta PCB I think that Titan could have been much shorter considering its PCB isn't crammed at all.



larger pcb makes your life much easier as signal routing designer. it also reduces cost because of less layers/vias needed. and improves signal quality, which might mean better oc or higher out of the box clocks. larger pcb also lets you use a larger cooler. cost for a bit more pcb material is negligible


----------



## Hayder_Master (Apr 24, 2013)

awesome review wiz, wait for quad crossfire xd:


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## W1zzard (Apr 24, 2013)

Hayder_Master said:


> awesome review wiz, wait for quad crossfire xd:



no quad cf planned, sorry. you can look at the titan sli review to get an idea what a mess that would be


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 24, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> Games which have no 5760x1080 graphs don't support that resolution


Sorry didn't mean your review, but others that test other title that give that modern ability.


W1zzard said:


> how do you know that amd hasn't been stockpiling these top 0.5% of chips since they began making tahiti?


True we don't, but to find traction it would've been some point after New Zealand being canceled (originally March of 2012 release), while sometime about the first 7970GHz released in June.  So AMD might have realized this sometime a little less than a year ago.

Now if each Tahiti wafer has 5,000-6,000 chips and .05% are "that good" that's like conservatively 3 Malta chips per.  If the yield is say 40% (IDK) that's 2,500 XT/LE parts, now if they sold 50k of Tahiti cards since the point a year ago that dictates some 20 wafers.  Figuring the .05% AMD would’ve amassed a war-chest of 60 Malta chips, or 30 cards.  No wonder they took your sample, coil whine and all.

It would need to be at least 2% to make some 1,200 – 7990 off 20 wafers.  Consider a speculative 50% profit (most business works/wants more) that’s return of 600,000 dollars.  IDK, would ADM just leave that on the table?  I think we see why either side has to release such options when they have the chips!


----------



## EarthDog (Apr 24, 2013)

I had no idea wafers yield 5-6K cores? I thought they rock 8 or 10" wafers, and the GPU die is like 3/4" x 3/4" so......... ? Just based on that alone, those hyptothetic values are really off. I also have to imagine that yields of this caliber are a lot higher (1-2%). But like you I am simply guessing too.


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 24, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> I had no idea wafers yield 5-6K cores? I thought they rock 8 or 10" wafers, and the GPU die is like 3/4" x 3/4" so......... ? Just based on that alone, those hyptothetic values are really off. I also have to imagine that yields of this caliber are a lot higher (1-2%). But like you I am simply guessing too.



Honestly, I don't know the numbers, but I'd be surprise to know if I'm way out of the ballpark, such information isn't always readily unearthed.  tI be good to know all of that but if that was known it be enlightening and a little hard to swallow as the raw part cost would shock you.  There all other operating and engineering costs to account for with that. 

Thought I read the density is something approching that,  but yes it depend on nm2 of each chip. Supposedly Tahiti is a 365nm2 part, while I thought I read 28Nm wafer got bigger and are like 12" dia.


----------



## PatoRodrigues (Apr 25, 2013)

AMD moving in the right direction. Late launch, but i'm glad they improved a few things. 

Power consumption looks better, improved frame latencies with that prototype used by PCPer for example... Really a shame W1z didn't have more time with the card (maybe got it wrong, but he received the drivers after returning the card? Or is just that the main driver for it was on Win8?) 

And people still insist in argue about the frame latency subject... And bash AMD. No wonder a member was banned.... C'mon, not that hard to see the positive side of it. Pretty obvious that AMD is working hard on it and knows how to fix it. Hang on 'till July (even Dave that only owns AMD hardware and is talking about for years will wait). Of course, you could move to nVidia, but they have their problems too. No fanboyism, but offer a top-of-the-line, generation leading, exclusive card for $1000 and then announce a fully-enabled version of the same card ISN'T FAIR. :shadedshu

Thanks for the review, W1z! What a beautiful card..


----------



## SIGSEGV (Apr 25, 2013)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> I agree and hope *WOW* is included for a long time. Those benchmarks are very relevant to my friend who plays. Helped him decide to switch to a 670 (his 7950 didn't even offer an improvement over his 6950) and then the* 690 results motivated him to go SLI.* Since going SLI his DPS is up because as hard as it is to believe this old game still dips in high level combat areas which will negatively effect gameplay. He says he's at 60 pretty much all the time now no matter how busy the area.










playing WOW using high end card configuration in SLI. you guys are amazing 

---
i don't think 999$ was a good price point for HD 7990 despite they also bundled it with 8 AAA games.
i hope there will be a re-review of HD7990 'Malta' from wizzard using its newest driver (13.5 WHQL)


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 25, 2013)

It really is bizarrely demanding. I thought it was a netcode problem causing lots of over head some how since it benefits a lot from a nice overclocked 6 core (yes it's even sensitive beyond 4 cores for some reason) but more gpu power helps as well. I just don't get it because the visuals do not coincide with the hardware needed to max it out.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Apr 25, 2013)

Casecutter said:


> Now if each Tahiti wafer has 5,000-6,000 chips and .05% are "that good" that's like conservatively 3 Malta chips per.  If the yield is say 40% (IDK) that's 2,500 XT/LE parts, now if they sold 50k of Tahiti cards since the point a year ago that dictates some 20 wafers.  Figuring the .05% AMD would’ve amassed a war-chest of 60 Malta chips, or 30 cards.  No wonder they took your sample, coil whine and all.


Not even close.
Tahiti is ~352mm^2 before packaging (~365mm after). TSMC use 300mm wafers. You're looking at ~160 die candidates per wafer.
After that, you're pretty much stuck. You can estimate the yield, but without knowing the wafer start split between GPUs (and whether the overall figure includes risk production of future products), and the number of wafer starts AMD has at TSMC it all boils down to guesses based on guesses.


----------



## ogharaei (Apr 25, 2013)

Crap Daddy said:


> What we didn't know is that AMD is asking 1000 American dollars for this card (7 games and coil whine included).



I really hope AMD fixes the whine, but I can already see someone lugging it home with a smile, installing it, double-clicking on his favorite game, and, bam, being greeted by coil noise as he snacks on cashews and almonds he bought in bulk to scrape together enough money.




LAN_deRf_HA said:


> It really is bizarrely demanding.



Spell effects will do that if you have the Particle Density setting on "Ultra" in 25-man raids. Played WoW until the end of Cata and 10-man raids were not a problem. It got ugly in 25s, though.


----------



## Prima.Vera (Apr 25, 2013)

Yeah, the games that don't work on Crossfire with this card, are also the same than don't work with the 5870x2 Crossfire. The ones that hope that the Crossfire will be improved...keep dreaming.


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 25, 2013)

ogharaei said:


> Spell effects will do that if you have the Particle Density setting on "Ultra" in 25-man raids. Played WoW until the end of Cata and 10-man raids were not a problem. It got ugly in 25s, though.



I think that's the specific situation he was talking about. Says with sli now he doesn't get dips there.


----------



## the54thvoid (Apr 25, 2013)

PatoRodrigues said:


> ...No fanboyism, but offer a top-of-the-line, generation leading, exclusive card for $1000 and then announce a fully-enabled version of the same card ISN'T FAIR. :shadedshu



Ah the power of the web to completely be taken as gospel... 

That rumour is based on a speculative article from 3Dcenter (i think).  Nvidia have not released any statement about a new card.  The BSN article states there is no Ultra, just that the Titan LE, a working title, will in fact become the 780.  Again, that story is rumour too.  You canopt believe everything you read on the web.  Sometimes you've just got to wait for the truth to appear.

EDIT:

Link to TomsHardware site where he has video/sound of the fans and how quiet they are, plus the associated coil whine.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-review-benchmark,3486-15.html


----------



## jihadjoe (Apr 25, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> how do you know that amd hasn't been stockpiling these top 0.5% of chips since they began making tahiti ?



+1 for this.


----------



## mirakul (Apr 25, 2013)

Nice review. 650 Ti boost now nearly as fast as 7870 in overall performance chat 
Hey, stop giving that shit. I'm here at TPU, not at an nVidia's commercial.


----------



## Anvirol (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks for the review. I own Sapphire 7970 (reference) with absolutely unbearable coil whine and the problem never magically went away. 

Also another Gigabyte 7970 Windforce x3 had similar problem. My latest HIS 7970 IceQ2 cards don't have this problem though. Seems to me that mostly the reference PCB designs are suffering from coil whine. 

This is the first time that I've seen a reviewer mention coil whine issues and I hope others will mention such issues in their reviews.


----------



## okidna (Apr 25, 2013)

mirakul said:


> Nice review. 650 Ti boost now faster than 7870 in overall performance chat
> Hey, stop giving that shit. I'm here at TPU, not at an nVidia's commercial.



I don't know what are you talking about, because I'm still seeing 7870 above 650Ti Boost (59% vs 57%).


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Apr 25, 2013)

the54thvoid said:


> Ah the power of the web to completely be taken as gospel...
> 
> That rumour is based on a speculative article from 3Dcenter (i think).  Nvidia have not released any statement about a new card.  The BSN article states there is no Ultra, just that the Titan LE, a working title, will in fact become the 780.  Again, that story is rumour too.  You canopt believe everything you read on the web.  Sometimes you've just got to wait for the truth to appear.
> 
> ...



Can't Lie On The Internet - YouTube


----------



## brandonwh64 (Apr 25, 2013)

BarbaricSoul said:


> Can't Lie On The Internet - YouTube



Im a french model..... bonjour!


----------



## Fluffmeister (Apr 25, 2013)

$1000? like... OMGZ!

Decent effort from AMD but ultimately falls short. Still at least it managed to get *Xzibit* overly excited.


----------



## yogurt_21 (Apr 25, 2013)

the54thvoid said:


> Ah the power of the web to completely be taken as gospel...
> 
> That rumour is based on a speculative article from 3Dcenter (i think).  Nvidia have not released any statement about a new card.  The BSN article states there is no Ultra, just that the Titan LE, a working title, will in fact become the 780.  Again, that story is rumour too.  You canopt believe everything you read on the web.  Sometimes you've just got to wait for the truth to appear.
> 
> ...



dude I could barely take 5 seconds of that coil whine...and that was just the video. In person it would only be a matter of time before I'd be smashing said 1000$ gpu under my boot...which would be a terrible waste.


----------



## Casecutter (Apr 25, 2013)

mirakul said:


> Nice review. 650 Ti boost now nearly as fast as 7870 in overall performance chat
> Hey, stop giving that shit. I'm here at TPU, not at an nVidia's commercial.


That is an interesting change... although using "All Resolution" can be very ambiguous, honestly never much if any useful matrix.  For cards in such a $130-190 range you need to be looking at what the hardware is "intended for/as it's useful resolution", which anymore would stand as 1920x.  Though the odd part even there they appeared to shuffled up a bunch, since from the reference GTX 650 Ti Boost review.  Notice in the 7990's set-up page; W1z is showing that the GTX 650 Ti Boost (only) used 314.21 Beta drivers.  Interesting if that had been the only change... but between that reference review and the 7990 the gaming titles have changed.

W1z has discontinued Alan Wake, Crysis 2, and Max Pane; while adding Bio shock, Crysis 3, Star Craft II, and Tomb Raider all really brutal on lower hardware.  With those changes in titles the results moved dramatically, as 314.21 Beta drivers mainly where to fix Tomb Raider.  Also notice the three titles that where removed where all fairly challenging to such level of hardware but had scores... none the less.

Now now look at Bioshock and Crysis 3 they basically fail on the $130-190 hardware scale for 1920x.  Star Craft II NoAA, although not showing such hardware level or results a GTX 650 Ti Boost might do somewhat playable on that title (NoAA).  Lastly the 314.21 Beta drivers close the gap on Tomb Raider, so using only that driver with the GTX 650 Ti Boost (only) has possibly skewed result in favor of it against all competitors.   And against a 7850  which say might get 18Fps; the Boost card gives 27 fps that 50% improvement, although not any more playable.  Again it a fails at 1920x and the setting W1z used, so it it is effecting its' placement in other cards in all classes.  While to use such results against all the earlier reviews that don’t show such titles provide a huge boon.

It's pretty widely accepted that a GTX 650 Ti Boost is exactly the same class of hardware as the 7850, and spar back and forth depending on the titles one looks at.  The raw data needs to be extrapolated, when not harmonious.


----------



## sanadanosa (Apr 25, 2013)

$1000 for a plastic graphics card?
just kidding . Great review as always. I think this card is just too late. Release nearly a year after 690, yet don't give much advantages. If AMD release this card just around 690 release date, it will be different. Or maybe AMD just want to sell games bundled with a beast graphics card?


----------



## Nihilus (Apr 25, 2013)

Other websites have shown this card getting equal or less performance when overclocked.  Something definately wrong there.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 25, 2013)

Nihilus said:


> Other websites have shown this card getting equal or less performance when overclocked.  Something definately wrong there.



How are those sites testing OC performance? If you use Furmark then PowerTune will clock down the card to 950 MHz all the time. When I tested OC with BF3 I saw the performance gains I reported, which were underwhelming but consistent.


----------



## Prima.Vera (Apr 26, 2013)

Is that coil whine annoying sound heard on the speakers or on the card itself?


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 26, 2013)

Prima.Vera said:


> Is that coil whine annoying sound heard on the speakers or on the card itself?



Card itself.


----------



## radrok (Apr 26, 2013)

Some say it goes away with different PSUs but I'm skeptic, honestly.


----------



## Nihilus (Apr 26, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> How are those sites testing OC performance? If you use Furmark then PowerTune will clock down the card to 950 MHz all the time. When I tested OC with BF3 I saw the performance gains I reported, which were underwhelming but consistent.



Futuremark on legit reviews.  Also far cry 3 on another site.  Both of those are high power consumption test.  Just seems that using 2 power connections may have been a mistake.  I mean really, if you have this card, how about shelling out for a descent power supply with enough connections?


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 26, 2013)

radrok said:


> Some say it goes away with different PSUs but I'm skeptic, honestly.



It seems more likely that a psu would have coil whine with a certain card than for a card to have coil whine with a certain psu.


----------



## the54thvoid (Apr 26, 2013)

Nihilus said:


> Futuremark on legit reviews.  Also far cry 3 on another site.  Both of those are high power consumption test.  Just seems that using 2 power connections may have been a mistake.  I mean really, if you have this card, how about shelling out for a descent power supply with enough connections?



Eh? What do you mean by that? I'm reading that as if you're saying our reviewer didn't use more power connections on the card. But that can't be what you mean as the card only has two 8 pins and was being supplied the power required.
What do you mean?


----------



## okidna (Apr 26, 2013)

the54thvoid said:


> Eh? What do you mean by that? I'm reading that as if you're saying our reviewer didn't use more power connections on the card. But that can't be what you mean as the card only has two 8 pins and was being supplied the power required.
> What do you mean?



Maybe Nihilus is referring to the unofficial 7990 (Powercolor DEVIL, ASUS ARES 2, etc.) which use 3 (instead of 2) 8 pin PCI-E power connectors.

The official 7990 is running with similar or higher core and memory clock than the unofficial 7990 and w1zzard said that PowerTune forced the official card to throttled back to 950 Mhz when running Furmark. 
One reason I can think of what could cause this is those 2 power connectors on the official 7990 could not supply enough juices aka. power limitation. And this getting worse with overclock like Nihilus found out in another site reviews, resulting in no performance gain or even worse.

I don't know why AMD did this, why don't they just play it safe like their partners with the unofficial 7990 (slap 3 x 8pin PCI-E power on this official 7990). Maybe they don't want to look bad in the power consumption rate  or something else. But I don't know, I'm just guessing 

_(Sorry if I messed up in my writing, I do understand what Nihilus meant but it's kinda hard for me to express what's in my head into a simple English paragraphs since my English is not that good  Cheers!)_


----------



## the54thvoid (Apr 26, 2013)

okidna said:


> Maybe Nihilus is referring to the unofficial 7990 (Powercolor DEVIL, ASUS ARES 2, etc.) which use 3 (instead of 2) 8 pin PCI-E power connectors.
> 
> The official 7990 is running with similar or higher core and memory clock than the unofficial 7990 and w1zzard said that PowerTune forced the official card to throttled back to 950 Mhz when running Furmark.
> One reason I can think of what could cause this is those 2 power connectors on the official 7990 could not supply enough juices aka. power limitation. And this getting worse with overclock like Nihilus found out in another site reviews, resulting in no performance gain or even worse.
> ...



Your English is excellent 



> Maybe they don't want to look bad in the power consumption rate  or something else. But I don't know, I'm just guessing



This is exactly it I think.  It also means they can strap on a more elegant cooler as the temps will be lower.  This card is like a Titan in some ways - it has lots of potential power but it is limited by hardware.


----------



## qubit (Apr 26, 2013)

I despair at AMD, I really do. They have a product clearly full of potential, but then completely ruin it with something retarded like severe coil whine:


> What is a major issue, though, is the extremely annoying coil whine the card emits as soon as it runs a 3D application. The whine is generated by resonating power circuitry coils and is a problem that can be resolved; it's just an engineering challenge. NVIDIA did so for the GTX 690 and GTX Titan; both cards don't have such coil whine issues. On the HD 7990, however, it is very apparent, and I don't understand how AMD missed such a glaring problem. I talked to five other reviewers and they all confirm it, so it's not an isolated issue. What makes the whine even more apparent is that it is constantly changing pitch and volume, drawing your attention to it by effectively overpowering the fans' "whoosh" sound.



I've read many of W1zzard's reviews and know that he doesn't deliver criticism like this lightly. If _he_ found it a really bad problem, then it damned well is. I think that 8.3 score is a bit generous due to this and some of the other issues. With the coil whine, I wouldn't be able to give the card any rating at all, since who in their right mind would want to be driven to distraction by their new premium $1000 card?! I only hope that this is a problem with these early samples and that production versions won't have this problem.

This, along with CrossFire issues and a much cheaper fit and finish to the card make going NVIDIA a no-brainer. And no, I'm not saying this as an NVIDIA fanboy: I *want* NVIDIA to have strong competition so that we benefit from better products at cheaper prices. I also want to know that I have a choice of brands, not just be stuck with one because the other one is too lame to compete. :shadedshu


----------



## EarthDog (Apr 26, 2013)

Is it really an AMD issue though? Does AMD control which coils vendors use on their cards or just the specifications? I guess Im not certain what control AMD has over the reference board specification and the parts that go on it.


----------



## Nihilus (Apr 26, 2013)

Okidna - that is EXACTLY what i meant, thanks.  I wasn't trying to ding the reviwer in any way.  The big win of the card over the devil 13 is the dual slot and NOT the 2 x 8 pin connectors.


----------



## m1dg3t (Apr 26, 2013)

As usual, concise review W1zzard  So dual GPU card is still not appealing, to me. I was actually looking forward to this release and the possibilities it was to bring. 

There are some positives to take away from this, however, i feel they still have quite a  bit of work to do. New architecture and trying to play SLi catchup with Nvidia isn't working out so well ATM.

Maybe if ATi crippled the compute part of the core like Nvidia did with their latest cards things would be quite different? This is out of my scope of understanding anyways


----------



## erocker (Apr 26, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Is it really an AMD issue though? Does AMD control which coils vendors use on their cards or just the specifications? I guess Im not certain what control AMD has over the reference board specification and the parts that go on it.



Most of the time, people say such things to help them feel better about the choice of hardware they have in thier systems...

In this case though, it seems like a widespread issue among review samples. Maybe they need to pick up some better parts.


----------



## Nihilus (Apr 26, 2013)

2x 8 pin plus the PCI is 375 watts in a PERFECT world.  This card doubtfully can get all of that and I think AMD screwed the pooch on the end of it.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 26, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Is it really an AMD issue though? Does AMD control which coils vendors use on their cards or just the specifications? I guess Im not certain what control AMD has over the reference board specification and the parts that go on it.



AMD has full control over the reference board. Their engineers design the PCB routing, pick the components to use and are responsible that it works properly.

All these cards are produced for AMD and AMD pays for them. If a board partner wants a 7990 he has to buy the card from AMD.

On other designs the reference design schematics, BOM (bill of materials), PCB layout, advisory documents are released to board partners so they can produce the cards and optionally modify stuff and swap out components to reduce cost or make it "better". That's how non-reference designs are created. I'm not sure if/what requirements AMD puts on these customs designs and what kind of testing AMD requires, but NVIDIA is VERY strict.



erocker said:


> Maybe they need to pick up some better parts.



to fix coil noise you need to pick "different" coils, not "better" or "more expensive"

this is just an engineering problem, it's done in virtually every product in your house that consumes significants amount of power and runs different voltage internally


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## Prima.Vera (Apr 28, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> ...
> to fix coil noise you need to pick "different" coils, not "better" or "more expensive"
> 
> this is just an engineering problem, it's done in virtually every product in your house that consumes significants amount of power and runs different voltage internally



I thought those products are rigorously tested before released to the public. This makes me think AMD is not as serious company as it should...


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## qubit (Apr 28, 2013)

Prima.Vera said:


> I thought those products are rigorously tested before released to the public. This makes me think AMD is not as serious company as it should...



This sounds to me like a quality control issue more than anything else. Still inexcusable, but I can't imagine the engineers testing out the prototypes, hearing this awful noise and going "Yeah, it's just fine!" Nah, can't see that. Someone fucked up somewhere.


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## radrok (Apr 28, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> AMD has full control over the reference board. Their engineers design the PCB routing, pick the components to use and are responsible that it works properly.
> 
> All these cards are produced for AMD and AMD pays for them. If a board partner wants a 7990 he has to buy the card from AMD.
> 
> ...



So basically my two Zotac and Gainward cards differ only in serial stickers behind them?

nVidia produced them and AIB put stickers and box on it, right?

Thank you for sharing the knowledge, much appreciated.


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## qubit (Apr 28, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> On other designs the reference design schematics, BOM (bill of materials), PCB layout, advisory documents are released to board partners so they can produce the cards and optionally modify stuff and swap out components to reduce cost or make it "better". That's how non-reference designs are created. I'm not sure if/what requirements AMD puts on these customs designs and what kind of testing AMD requires, *but NVIDIA is VERY strict.*



I wish nvidia had been stricter with the GTX 580 reference design. Until recently, I was using a Zotac Amp! version, which is basically a reference card with a slightly higher clock speed. Everything worked fine, even in the most demanding games and benchmarks designed to stress it out - until I tried Folding@Home with it.

After a few seconds, it would suddenly start to emit the most abominable and loud coil noise you could imagine. It was so severe in fact, that it broke through the audio circuitry and clearly came out through the speakers!

I was so pissed off about this that I made a thread about it here. Yeah, sure I could have probably used glue to lessen the problem, but I wasn't up for taking the thing apart and voiding the warranty over this, so I dont run F@H on it.

I've now got the EVGA GTX 590 in my specs, but haven't gotten around to trying F@H on it yet. I hope this doesn't have the same problem.


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## Rahmat Sofyan (Apr 28, 2013)

I'm really concerned about performance per dollar score, does it include or considered the 8 game bundle?or only as it is as graphic card?


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## HumanSmoke (Apr 28, 2013)

qubit said:


> This sounds to me like a quality control issue more than anything else. Still inexcusable, but I can't imagine the engineers testing out the prototypes, hearing this awful noise and going "Yeah, it's just fine!" Nah, can't see that. Someone fucked up somewhere.


Not an entirely unknown situation. Remember the design problem that the HD 6970 suffered with PCI-E plug placement ?


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## W1zzard (Apr 28, 2013)

Rahmat Sofyan said:


> I'm really concerned about performance per dollar score, does it include or considered the 8 game bundle?or only as it is as graphic card?



it uses the 1000 USD price and the results from performance summary (not performance summary 2)


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## Rahmat Sofyan (Apr 28, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> it uses the 1000 USD price and the results from performance summary (not performance summary 2)



ahhh see 

now I can see clearly, where is performance per dollar score come

thanx W1zz.


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## mirakul (Apr 29, 2013)

IMHO, including those 3 Blizzard games in the test is unfair. All of them favor nVidia card and are CPU-tied. Those results don't reflect the actual power of the cards to be honest, turning the overall performance chart to a laughing stock.
660>7870?
660Ti>7950?
680>7970 GHz?
Sorry, no way in hell


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## W1zzard (Apr 29, 2013)

mirakul said:


> and are CPU-tied



only star craft ii is cpu limited, the rest scale fine on both manufacturers. amd just fails with their wow crossfire profile


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## mirakul (Apr 29, 2013)

I have some questions for u Wizz
1. Did you test all the card in your overall performance chart with its latest driver at your time(314.22 and 13.5 beta 2)

2. Why were your AA settings so inconsistent through out the tests?

3. According to nVidia, the 314.22 boosts the performance mostly in 
"GeForce GTX 680:
Up to 41% faster in BioShock Infinite
Up to 60% faster in Tomb Raider
Up to 23% faster in Sniper Elite V2
Up to 13% faster in Sleeping Dogs"

And they still lost to AMD in your BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs tests.
So, why they suddenly triumphed in your overall performance chart?? If not because of the Starcaft 2 and World of Warcaft results?

Please enlighten me


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## W1zzard (Apr 29, 2013)

mirakul said:


> I have some questions for u Wizz
> 1. Did you test all the card in your overall performance chart with its latest driver at your time(314.22 and 13.5 beta 2)
> 
> 2. Why were your AA settings so inconsistent through out the tests?
> ...



1) NVIDIA: 314.22 WHQL, ATI: Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3, HD 7990: 13.5 Beta 2
2) because that's what the games support
3) "up to 41%" means 0-41%. highly dependent on settings, card, resolution, aa
i havent done a detailed analysis of why amd turns out to be slower now. we did remove some benchmarks and added new. shouldn't be hard for you to figure it out.


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## mirakul (Apr 29, 2013)

Thanks for your response, Wizz
3. nVidia confirmed that 314.22 driver has the most impact in those listed games, and nVidia's card still lose to AMD in them. So the driver was not the reason why nVidia got ahead overall. It was pointed out in my above post that the boost was from the new games added to your benchmark, which all come from Blizzard and favor nVidia cards (FYI, the recent patch to WoW is a nightmare for AMD users)

So again, I'm asking about the fairness of your bench.


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## W1zzard (Apr 29, 2013)

mirakul said:


> Thanks for your response, Wizz
> 3. nVidia confirmed that 314.22 driver has the most impact in those listed games, and nVidia's card still lose to AMD in them. So the driver was not the reason why nVidia got ahead overall. It was pointed out in my above post that the boost was from the new games added to your benchmark, which all come from Blizzard and favor nVidia cards (FYI, the recent patch to WoW is a nightmare for AMD users)
> 
> So again, I'm asking about the fairness of your bench.



We added Crysis 3, Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite. All games that are bundled by AMD.
StarCraft II was only temporary removed because they released the addon which caused all older scores to get invalidated.


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## Animalpak (Apr 29, 2013)

which one you will get if you have the money ? Look at the price of AMD !! CRAZY !!


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## W1zzard (Apr 29, 2013)

Animalpak said:


> which one you will get if you have the money ? Look at the price of AMD !! CRAZY !!
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/130429/Immaginefe.jpg



it's just a placeholder for pre-orders. cards won't be available for at least another week


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## the54thvoid (Apr 29, 2013)

mirakul said:


> Thanks for your response, Wizz
> 3. nVidia confirmed that 314.22 driver has the most impact in those listed games, and nVidia's card still lose to AMD in them. So the driver was not the reason why nVidia got ahead overall. It was pointed out in my above post that the boost was from the new games added to your benchmark, which all come from Blizzard and favor nVidia cards (FYI, the recent patch to WoW is a nightmare for AMD users)
> 
> So again, I'm asking about the fairness of your bench.



I think you need to take a wee seat and think about how worked up you are getting.  When you say a game shouldn't be included because it's unfair against AMD, that's just tough.  Blizzard games are massively popular and to not include them is worse.  If anything it highlighted AMD's poorer developer relations, something they are now rectifying.  Also, in a single game, the AMD card is demolished by the GTX 680 which skews the final performance summary.  I don't necessarily think that this is statistically accurate but all the graphs are there for you to see and if you choose to look at individual games, as you should, you will see where the cards strengths are.

Furthermore, if you want to truly gauge a cards performance, use lots of different sites to examine a global result.  I'm afraid you will find most sites tend heavily towards Nvidia cards still.  TPU was one of the first places to put a 7970 GHz above a 680 in the performance charts for BF3 so kudos for that surely?

Finally, it's massively disrespectful to come onto a site as a new person (though I've got a feeling you're not new at all) and effectively criticise one of the more respected technical reviewers and software writers around the tech sites at the moment.  It shows a complete lack of understanding and also tremendous naivety regarding the overall purpose of TPU.  W1zzard does more than just review gfx cards for a living - that is just a small but unfortunately highly fevered area of tech TPU does.

I am no moderator and have no vested interest in TPU other than believing that you should take a step back from your own highly opinionated stance and breath in the overall impressions and opinions voiced in what is after all just a single review.  You have clearly stated and shown your opinions and you are entitled to them but that does not make them valid or worth incessantly smacking W1zz around the head with.

Try, if possible to not see the review as a competition between AMD and Nvidia and instead as an objective review of the 7990 against it's peers.  W1zz is not alone in his underwhelmed response to the 7990, many others are too.  And for balance, obviously some sites think it is awesome in all regards.

But to finally hammer the point one more time, if the world likes Blizzard games, it would be professionally remiss to neglect them from a review, regardless of how poorly coded they are for AMD cards.  And remember, Tomb Raider hobbled Nvidia on release.  The code given to Nvidia was not the final release code.  So that was very unfair to Nvidia but the game is still in the review, fair or not.


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## mirakul (Apr 30, 2013)

Thanks for your lecture, guys, and a special thanks to W1zz's great patience.

From the statistic perspective, the fact that an observation changed the overall result is still tickling me. However, I get what you guys wanna give here.

I'm looking for your next review, W1zz!

Cheers


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## Nihilus (Apr 30, 2013)

Seems that tri-fire is AMDs strong side.  Tweaktown has a review of a 7990 + 7970 in trifire.  It had great scaling and matched or beat SLI titans in most cases.  Tom's had a trifire 6870 review way back when that had great scaling as well.  Any chance Wizzard will follow suit?


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## Ravenas (Apr 30, 2013)

When are the OEMs going to release this card? What is the hold up?


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## qubit (May 10, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> it was present out of the box, all the time, no matter which game was running, and didn't change over the course of my testing.



That would totally drive me nuts, even for a minute. What a fail.


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## HumanSmoke (May 11, 2013)

Ravenas said:


> When are the OEMs going to release this card? What is the hold up?


Was supposed to be the 7th May for retail availability. Judging by the lack of cards at Newegg, and all of three verified owner reviews, I'm guessing that the cards must be hand made.


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## Ravenas (Oct 19, 2013)

Does anyone know if they have resolved the coil noise? At $599 plus 8 games it's really hard to turn this down.


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## qubit (Oct 20, 2013)

Ravenas said:


> Does anyone know if they have resolved the coil noise? At $599 plus 8 games it's really hard to turn this down.



Not to my knowledge, but do check from other sources. This problem alone is a dealbreaker for me. How incredibly irritating.

Also, the CrossFire runt frames bug isn't fully fixed yet and judging by the amount of time it's taking to get there, I wouldn't hold my breath. IMO even a fully fixed driver will still have issues it shouldn't have and give you headaches.

If you really wanna go dual GPU, stick to nvidia. I've run this using different cards for some time now and it's always worked really well for me.


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## erocker (Oct 20, 2013)

Coil noise can happen with any card that uses them. It's not limited to brand, model, etc.


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## manofthem (Oct 20, 2013)

Ravenas said:


> Does anyone know if they have resolved the coil noise? At *$599* plus 8 games it's really hard to turn this down.



You mean $499?


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## Nihilus (Oct 28, 2013)

Check out the tweaktown review of msi 280x in crossfire.  The wipe the flor with every game.    This is what the 7990 SHOULD of been.


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## DRDNA (Oct 28, 2013)

Nihilus said:


> Check out the tweaktown review of msi 280x in crossfire.  The wipe the flor with every game.    This is what the 7990 SHOULD of been.



http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290X_CrossFire/12.html

Looks like the 7990 did okay here to me


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## johnspack (Oct 28, 2013)

Wow,  coil noise...  try gaming with 2 gtx480s running 100% fans....  I'd trade for one of these little beasties any day!


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## Nihilus (Oct 28, 2013)

yeah i guess so, initial reviews on tpu seemed like it was overly hot, overly power hungry, and had poor scaling on several games.  Crossfire 280x looked to have near perfect scaling so it looks like they ad a better starting point on the drivers.


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