AMD Radeon HD 7990 6 GB

[d1nky]

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

 

[AlienIsGOD]

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.

 

[tacosRcool]

drivers... could be better

 

[Frick]

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?

 

[H82LUZ73]

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....

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.

 

[Frick]

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.

 

[H82LUZ73]

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.

 

[W1zzard]

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.

 

[Frick]

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.

 

[Zubasa]

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.

 

[Nihilus]

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.

 

[Nihilus]

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.

 

[63jax]

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...

 

[Rivage]

The world's first legit reference cooling system?

 

[W1zzard]

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.

 

[cadaveca]

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.

 

[alienstorexxx]

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

 

[MxPhenom 216]

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.............

 

[Crap Daddy]

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

Can you be more specific?

 

[SIGSEGV]

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?

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

 

[radrok]

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.

 

[W1zzard]

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)

 

[the54thvoid]

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.

 

[brandonwh64]

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]

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.