Radeon HD 7990 CrossFireX Smiles for the Camera

[btarunr]

An anonymous tipster left an interesting picture on our doorsteps. It shows a pair of Radeon HD 7990 "Malta" reference-design graphics cards chugging along inside an enthusiast PC. AMD surprised us late last month, when it showed off a reference-design Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card, at the Game Developers' Conference (GDC) event. The cards in this new picture appear to be identical to the one AMD showed. The "Radeon" embossing appears pretty clear on both cards, so one can't mistake them for FirePro S10000.

Bearing a new internal codename "Malta," compared to last year's various dual-HD 7970 contraptions that were codenamed "New Zealand," the new Radeon HD 7990 is being designed to be far more energy efficient, and quiet. While the various "New Zealand" cards often featured three 8-pin PCIe power connectors and triple-slot cooling solutions, "Malta" makes do with just two 8-pin power connectors, and a dual-slot cooler. We've been talking to a lot of reliable sources in the industry, and nobody has any clue about a tentative launch date.



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[badtaylorx]

i still think they should have opted for a dual "Tahiti LE" variant card....

7890???
7980???

at $500 it could have destroyed its competition

 

[INSTG8R]

i still think they should have opted for a dual "Tahiti LE" variant card....

7890???
7980???

at $500 it could have destroyed its competition

Well who knows now that they have officially done their top tier "Dual" There is a "reference" design to follow that can easily roll down the line to lower GPU's We had the 6850X2 and 6870X2 in the last series. As always flagship first then the "trickle down"

 

[EarthDog]

Nice.. I cant wait to review this...soon !

 

[Kaynar]

I hope this official move to 2x7970 will lead to acceptable Xfire performance so that I may buy a 2nd 7970...

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.

 

[Aquinus]

Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.

My thinking exactly and like the picture, with two of them, that's 75% paperweight until they do something with CFX.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.

Amen brother!

Still they are cute little runts.

 

[happita]

Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.

I think the main thing is that the power requirements dropped from 3x 8pins to 2x 8pins and the fact that they said they were trying to make it more efficient versus other dual-7970 options.

Bearing a new internal codename "Malta," compared to last year's various dual-HD 7970 contraptions that were codenamed "New Zealand," the new Radeon HD 7990 is being designed to be far more energy efficient, and quiet. While the various "New Zealand" cards often featured three 8-pin PCIe power connectors and triple-slot cooling solutions, "Malta" makes do with just two 8-pin power connectors, and a dual-slot cooler. We've been talking to a lot of reliable sources in the industry, and nobody has any clue about a tentative launch date.

 

[Mathragh]

I suppose they're waiting with releasing this until the driver team has the crossfire drivers close to where they want them.
That way, reviews of this card will show the performance of the new drivers, instead of the performance under current batch of(according to many) sub-par crossfire drivers which will cause this card to underperform.

 

[Hayder_Master]

AMD should release it quickly, the title become so old, next generation cards will be release too, so those cards it will be not useful anymore

 

[BigMack70]

too bad quadfire is the most useless POS ever except for benchmarking

 

[lobsterrock]

EA/DICE employee

It was an EA/DICE employee. He showed off the picture on /r/battlefield, a quick look through his history indicated that he was an EA/DICE employee.

 

[Animalpak]

Amazing card will be super quiet and cool.

 

[Aquinus]

too bad quadfire is the most useless POS ever except for benchmarking

We'll see if that is still the case after AND fixes their drivers. It might not be entirely useless If they get it right. I'll reserve judgment until after we have tangible evidence that their efforts have been successful or not.

 

[EarthDog]

Quadfire/QuadSLI scaling is TERRIBLE, and if they havent fixed that to this point, its not going to get much better. Besides, they arent fixing FPS, that is fine its the FRAMETIME everyone is up in arms about (for little reason).

 

[TheHunter]

PLX bridge like by GTX690 or regular crossfire bridge?


Imo plx could make a big change.

 

[chinmi]

Cant wait for the review....

 

[EarthDog]

Regular Crossfire bridge?

 

[PopcornMachine]

Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.

My thinking exactly and like the picture, with two of them, that's 75% paperweight until they do something with CFX.

I suppose they're waiting with releasing this until the driver team has the crossfire drivers close to where they want them.
That way, reviews of this card will show the performance of the new drivers, instead of the performance under current batch of(according to many) sub-par crossfire drivers which will cause this card to underperform.

They must have a new driver to handle crossfire ready for this, or they will get crucified with the new frame latency testing.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

PLX bridge like by GTX690 or regular crossfire bridge?


Imo plx could make a big change.

What are you talking about? Linking 2 of the cards together or for the GPUs within the card?

Dual GPU cards like the 7990 and 690 is basically SLI and Crossfire on a stick. There is a chip on them to make the GPUs run in sync like a bridge would do for 2 separate cards.

 

[EarthDog]

What are you talking about? Linking 2 of the cards together or for the GPUs within the card?

Dual GPU cards like the 7990 and 690 is basically SLI and Crossfire on a stick. There is a chip on them to make the GPUs run in sync like a bridge would do for 2 separate cards.

Correct.

They must have a new driver to handle crossfire ready for this, or they will get crucified with the new frame latency testing.

Oh yeah? You may be right, but seeing as how these are completely different beasts in some respects, I wouldnt hang my hat on it until you see the data...

... not to mention this issue was blown way out of proportion in the first place IMO.

 

[radrok]

too bad quadfire is the most useless POS ever except for benchmarking

quote for truth and emphasis.

 

[erocker]

Nice.. I cant wait to review this...soon !

Check those frametimes!!!

If the card actually works well, I'd get one.

 

[EarthDog]

Check those frametimes!!!

If the card actually works well, I'd get one.

Can the $2k in equipment needed come out of TPU's budget? I WOULD LOVE TO! Otherwise, we are letting this issue blow over, but will reference other testing as there are some that cant let it go, err would like to see it. Being more serious, I would like to see how CFx on a stick handles it compared to two boards...its just, we cant afford the testing equipment... its going to be fixed soon by AMD (not that everyone sees it anyway) and after that we will all be left with $2k worth of testing equipment that nobody cares about.

Hopefully we are right on that anyway... hah!