Wednesday, March 27th 2013
Reference-Design Radeon HD 7990 No Longer a Unicorn
In its GDC press-briefing on Tuesday, AMD previewed the reference-design Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card. The company dragged its feet over such a product throughout 2012, and allowed its AIB partners to launch graphics cards with their own designs. Among the two that made it to the market were a PCS+ board by TUL, sold under the PowerColor, VTX3D, and Club3D brands, and the ASUS ROG ARES II. While those cards had different company codename, "New Zealand," the new HD 7990 is being referred to internally, as "Malta."
AMD's belated move to launch the Radeon HD 7990 reference design could reiterate the company's long-haul strategy with the Radeon HD 7000 series, which could sail the company through the crucial Summer sales season, over to Q4 2013, when the company is expected to launch its next GPU generation. AMD's reference design HD 7990 enjoys an edge over current market offerings: dual-slot thickness. It uses three 90 mm fans to cool a complex heatsink cooling the two GPUs, the bridge chip, and the VRM to feed them all. AMD didn't speak much about the card, but mentioned that its triple-fan approach is paying dividends. "It's whisper quiet," commented Matt Skynner, general manager of AMD's graphics business unit.
Source:
PC World
AMD's belated move to launch the Radeon HD 7990 reference design could reiterate the company's long-haul strategy with the Radeon HD 7000 series, which could sail the company through the crucial Summer sales season, over to Q4 2013, when the company is expected to launch its next GPU generation. AMD's reference design HD 7990 enjoys an edge over current market offerings: dual-slot thickness. It uses three 90 mm fans to cool a complex heatsink cooling the two GPUs, the bridge chip, and the VRM to feed them all. AMD didn't speak much about the card, but mentioned that its triple-fan approach is paying dividends. "It's whisper quiet," commented Matt Skynner, general manager of AMD's graphics business unit.
61 Comments on Reference-Design Radeon HD 7990 No Longer a Unicorn
Could be a "new" chip, but even if it was, it wouldn't matter. Binning can easily give 1100MHz GPUs @ <175W.
It would explain the higher clocks combined with the apparent lower poweruse.
(shaky and focus)
4Gamer info on AMD GDC 2013 coverage. (translated to english link)
Imagine mario cart/carmaggedon type game with this.
Oh, and I need to retract my comment about size of the card. Looks to be near 40cm, or 16 inches. I say 15 inches, there's a lot of card past where the power plugs are.
The FirePro S10000 PDF spec sheet just says
Full height / full length form factor
Take out your measuring stick
I'm with btarunr magic arse. It has to be a new chip or else its just extremely late. I'm thinking more of the lines of a Pitcairn XT or Tahiti Pro succesor with Bonaire improvements. Bonaire with 6 watt TDP increase along with die-size and they were able to pack a good chunk of performance in there compared to Cape Verde XT.
The only issue is blowing this heat into the case as mentioned by others, but if your case has a good airflow (and it should) this shouldn't even be a problem :toast: