My god o .o!

Call things what they are – it will be released as 3GB and 6GB effective, respectively.

Well there was a card with 4 fans though – Voodoo 6 :)
http://i.imgur.com/sR8My.jpg

dont you remember the ASUS Mars II the 1400$ beast that has dual unlocked 580s ? and eats power supplies for breakfast 3 slots dual 120MM fans

And has a weight of 2.5 kg :)
But that’s not a reference card

Oh like 15 years ago hehe

“updated Tahiti XT2 silicon” Oh really?
It is the same chip ,the same card with higher clocks,factory overclocked card with higher voltage .Result is higher power consumption naturaly!
7990 card will be with lower clocks and obviously with better cooling design which is needed to chill out this power hungry and hot chip! 360w power draw?I don’t think so but we will see!

I am pretty sure Tahiti XT2 is exactly the same as original XT. The only difference is AMD supposedly bins the more mature 28nm node chips and selects the ones that can operate at higher frequencies. Normal Tahiti XT can overclock to 1125-1150mhz on 1.175V for the most part. Above 1150mhz, it becomes a huge gamble and very few chips reach beyond 1.20ghz at just 1.212V or so. Although, I think it’s mostly marketing too because by now 28nm TSMC node has matured as a whole which should mean most Tahiti XT chips have matured in aggregate. Calling this chip TX2 is simply misleading for this reason I believe. Think about it, it’s not like only 3% of Tahiti XT chips have matured since the manufacturing process node has improved over time. However, AMD isn’t even calling XT2 an officially new stepping……

The thing about the 7990 card though is someone who wanted dual-GPU cards already owns GTX670/680/7970 SLI/CF or has purchased the GTX690. Only the most hardcore AMD fanboy/NV hater would have waited for this long to not get a GTX690 if he was really looking to drop $1K on a single dual-GPU card. GTX690 is everything a gamer would want, quiet, efficient and fast. The chance that HD7990 will be better than a 690 is almost non-existent. It might be 5% faster, maybe but being this late in the game, who cares.

A stock HD7970 CF loses to a GTX690:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-690/4/

This card would need to be clocked at 1Ghz at minimum to match a stock 690. However, HardOCP, TechReport, AnandTech and Xbitlabs have all reported that GTX690 SLI works exceptionally well, has far less micro-stutter than HD7970 CF and generally speaking SLI users appear to have more favourable opinions of SLI than Cross-fire for game support/smoothness.

Point taken. I did not test it and did not receive any review guide whatsoever. I only read couple of reviews, where they were asking the same questions I did :)

Ya, the GE edition is just regular Tahiti chip that they overclock from the factory. It runs at slightly lower voltages but once GPU Boost kicks in at 1050mhz, the GPU voltage goes to something like 1.216V! That’s worse than many regular versions that overclock to 1150mhz on just 1.175V. There is no magic.

BTW, AMD “soft launched” 7970 GE edition. Reviews went out around June 22nd and most said cards should be available on July 1st. It’s been 2 weeks and not a single GE card is on sale on Amazon or Newegg. Based on that this HD7990 is probably never going to be available in large quantities, and I expect initial shipment to sell out right away and go out of stock similar to HD6990/GTX590/690. These dual-GPU cards are a waste 99% of the time and they lose their value much faster than standalone cards.

well there was no other cards like it i mean it was a DirectCU design but i dont know there was no other company that did such a thing

You mean the 120mm fans? Because there are now plenty of triple-slots cards -> 7970X2, Mars 3 and so on.

my guts telling me 850$, my brain is telling me 900$. any other guesses?

I think it looks like 2 8 pins, what looks like a space between a 6 pin and an 8 pin is just the bluriness of the photo. If it was an actual space, you’d see a peak of the red pcb(least i think because of the positioning).

100% 2x 8-pins. Can you imagine dual Tahiti powered by 6+8 pin? Maybe on 500MHz clock.

I guess it just depends on how much value you think a videocard offers. Personally, I won’t spend more than 2 days earnings on a videocard. I don’t make $500-1k a day. Since videocards drop in value so much (right now an HD7950 for $320 with a 1.1ghz = HD6990/GTX590), it’ll be only a matter of time before a $350 GPU will be as fast as a GTX690, probably by 2014 when Maxwell launches we’ll see that. If someone has to really save up $1k to buy a videocard, that means they can’t really afford it easily imo. I think such a gamer would be way better off upgrading every 2 years for say the next 6 years (that’s 3 upgrades) and buying $325 videocards rather than buying a GTX690 for $1k and holding it for 6 years.

That was more what I was saying. Usually people who buy these $1k videocards buy the next fastest card the minute it’s out. They could care less about loss of value. But if someone has to actually save for that, looks like their buying strategy is all wrong imo. It’s pretty much always a losing proposition to future proof. Those 6990 / GTX590 lost almost half their value in less than 2 years. In 2 years from today, HD6990 / 590 will probably be worth $100.

Videocards are not like other things in life that while cost a lot, actually last a while. GPUs become worthless very fast. You can use an iPad 3 in 3-5 years from now. You can use a nice pair of headphones for $1-2k such as Sennheiser HD800 or Audez’e LCD-2 for 5+ years. GTX690 will be nothing special in 2.5-3 years max, especially when NV stops optimizing drivers for it just like it abandoned the 7950 X2, 295 and soon the 590 will follow.

To me it’s almost like flushing $1k into the toilet because if you want to maximize the value for performance of 1K, buying $325 GPUs 3x over 6 years is way way better. So then who can afford to flush $1k into the toilet? Not people who have to save that $, but people who probably make that in a day or faster. Obviously it depends on the person. If gaming is someone’s only hobby, then sure $1k is probably worth it to them a year on upgrades.

Wow. Live a little. Or drool at my setup while I get a new one next year. Who cares? I have a budget of a few k per year for a desktop, it’s not going to kill me and I really, really don’t make much at all.

With regards to it’s like flushing $1k down the toilet I completely agree. Anyways, to add to your point, when I upgrade my videocards I ebay them. A GTX 480 cost at least $500 when it was released and now they sell for less than $200 on ebay. The GTX 460 768MB was $200 when it was released and sell for less than $100. The high end cards loose so much value overtime when compared to midrange cards. Plus, PC gamers are mostly subject to console ports and the midrange cards (in sli and crossfire) and high cards from 2 years ago can still handle most games at 1900X1200. Games requiring more VRAM for high rez textures being mostly the exception. I just find it hard to justify spending $1k on a videocard.

I do live, which means I don’t play games 24/7 :) Gaming is just one of my many hobbies.

Completely agree. It’s way better to upgrade frequently than to buy these uber high end GPUs and hold on to them for years and years. GTX480 was going for $225-250 barely 18 months after release on Newegg, nevermind EBay. Next year when GTX780 and HD8900 series are out, HD7970 and GTX680 will lose at least $200+ of their values. The early adopters of 7970 are going to lose the most since reference cards cost $550 and after market $580-600 at launch in January 2012. Those cards will be going for $275-300 I bet by summer of next year, if that. :)-

The worst part is “enthusiasts” don’t want to admit or talk about is how going from High to Very High / Ultra makes 0 difference in most games today, especially if you aren’t zooming in screenshots.

Look at Dirt Showdown or Ghost Recon Future soldier. Both are average graphically and horribly optimized and the difference between Medium and Ultra settings is non-existent. GPUs get faster and faster but games aren’t getting better looking at all imo. We’ve hit a point of stagnation in the last 2-3 years and current consoles are holding back PC gaming big time. The best selling games on teh PC are also not GPU demanding: Diablo 3, Starcraft 2.

It’s almost sad when you load up a game and turn the graphics to the max and nothing changes visually but performance drops in half:

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-future-soldier-test-gpu.html
and
http://gamegpu.ru/racing-simulators-/-gonki/dirt-showdown-test-gpu.html

BF3 is notorious too for almost no graphical differences beyond High and a huge performance difference.
In Crysis 2, extreme tessellation on concrete barriers and “fake ocean” make almost no difference visually on Ultra and induces a huge performance penalty:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21404/2

Maybe the guys who drop $2k on GPUs need to see 1 bump on the concrete barrier to make themselves feel better.

My mistake,fast writing..Sorry.
7990 card,not 6990.

“Nvidia has only just become efficient thanks to Kepler, where as AMD has been efficient forever.”

Yeah,right :):):)

Look carefully:
http://www.geeks3d.com/20090618/graphics-cards-thermal-design-power-tdp-database/

You paypal-gifted a guy from EVGA? Sounds desperate :)

it’s for epeen and 1440P+ resolutions. A single 680 can’t max BF3 at playable framerates at that resolution. Have to knock hbao down to ssao

I own a 7970 myself but you are still mistaken in your post. A 1050mhz HD7970 with Cats 12.7B is faster than a GTX680 but a stock 7970 is still trailing behind. Also, SLI scaling and support is better than CF. While HD7970 overclocked can often beat an overclocked 680, the same cannot be said for Cross Fire. In real world gaming, CF exhibits a lot more micro-stutter than SLI does.

For single GPU, I think HD7970 is better but for dual or more, I’d take SLI any day since it just has better support and feels smoother in games. The frames per second are not always indicative of actual “feeling” of smoothness in games and that’s exactly where SLI is superior.

Always had smaller dies? You are dead wrong about that:

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/5261/DieSize_575px.png

NV40 was very similar to R420 and G70 was similar to R520 and G71 (7900GTX) smaller than R580 (X1900XT series). G80 was similar to R600 but almost 50% faster. G92 was smaller than R600 and faster. Right now Kepler is 294mm^2 and is as fast as 7970 series. So there have been at least 3 times where NV had a smaller or similar sized die.

Also, while GTX480 did consume a lot of power, it was 2 full generations ahead in tessellation performance than both the 5800 and 6900 series which pays dividends today. Today, HD5870 is a joke in modern games with tessellation and its gimped 1GB VRAM, while the 480 keeps on trucking.

Batman AC 1080P 4AA: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5818/46428.png
GTX570 ~ GTX480 = 61 fps
GTX470 = 49 fps
HD5870 = 32 fps

Civ 5: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5818/46443.png
GTX570 ~ GTX480 = 44 fps
HD5870 = 30 fps

With 1GB of VRAM and lacklustre geometry engines, HD5870 is a paper weight product for modern games today while GTX480 can easily be used. With overclocking, GTX480 ~ 580 and is 40% faster than the 580 in modern games at 1080P (55% vs. 77%):

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_670_Power_Edition/28.html

$370 HD5870 doesn’t look like such a bargain anymore vs. the GTX470/480 ah?

Prior to “small die strategy” ATI cards were not more efficient than NV cards (especially the hot and power hungry X800XT, X1800XT/X1900XT/X1950XT series.

Having said that, today I think HD7970 is a good compromise between compute/gaming performance and power consumption.

BestJingo your clearly picked games that favor Nvidia that is ridiculous. Nvidia high end has always used 500-550mm2 die sizes, this is the reason why for a long time AMD has had better pricing. Yes Nvidia has more tesselation power but where it really shows it is in HAWX and Unigine both funded and optimized for Nvidia hardware yet again. The GTX 480 was a utter failure an embarassment along with the whole line too hot too hungry, that was the point of the refresh 500 series. AI can simply post benchmarks in favor of AMD FYI

I have the 5870 2GB and it runs modern games just fine. My Ivy Bridge seemed to have unlocked its full potential as opposed to my Q9550 for obvious reasons. I’m just going to get the 7970 next month, it’s all I really need

Cracks me up really this whole comment is nothing more then a slant towards nvidia. ALL the games listed are fully optimized for Nvidia. Try using games that have not received $ to make Nvidia hardware run better on them. Batman is the biggest joke ever to use as a testing platform. a serious hardware tester would know that and would never give that game the time of day in testing. Same with Civ 5. You can do the same with ATI optimized games and make all your Nvida cards look like garbage also.
The fact is both card lines are damn near identical. The thing thatr has given ATI a lead up until the last gen is the fact there cards have a better price per performance ratio. So while trying to blow smoke up everyones back ends with bias benchmarks from games that are FULLY optimized for Nvidia may make you feel proud and important lets try to put some actual facts up instead of the fanboy comments. Once you get rid of all the optimized benchs for either side you will see that there is NO difference between the cards except in a price per performance factor. That unfortunately Nvidia has been behind for quite some time. People buying Nvidia or ATI are just paying for the name and Nvidia makes you pay more for its logo. hell they have too otherwise they could not keep on dropping money into gaming companies laps to make there hardware perform better then ATI hardware in modern gaming titles.
If you thing this is hot air actually go do some research and see just how much cash that Nvidia throws at gaming companies . ATI does not folow this practice so they can charge less for there hardware. If you take a rough estimate of yearly costs versus card prices. It will probably be a shock to you but the differences in card prices between Nvidia and ATI usually can be broken down to what Nvidia is spending on game designers . lol I know it sounds bad but thats how nvidia operates. They have been busted countless times doing this. Who you think was behind the whole AA being disabled for ATI cards on batman in the first place? Should not take a rocket scientist to figure that was intentional and not some mysterious accident and the excuse the gaming design team made was complete BS. ATI has always given ref models of there cards to whoever asked for one in terms of companies designing games.
Its nice that your proud of your team and support them passionately. But please try to be alittle more unbias when trying to prove your point. At least try to use some unbias data when trying to prove your point.