AMD Radeon HD 7990 6 GB

[jihadjoe]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

Can't Lie On The Internet - YouTube

 

[brandonwh64]

Can't Lie On The Internet - YouTube

Im a french model..... bonjour!

 

[Fluffmeister]

$1000? like... OMGZ!

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

 

[yogurt_21]

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

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]

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]

$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]

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

 

[W1zzard]

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]

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

 

[MxPhenom 216]

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

Card itself.

 

[radrok]

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

 

[Nihilus]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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!)

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.