AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics card pictured

[Jos]

AMD's much anticipated Radeon HD 6990 made a brief public appearance this weekend in a demo by the company's graphics team manager Matt Skynner. The executive whipped out the card while discussing the company’s APU technology, and while no actual details were revealed of the product itself, Japanese site 4gamer managed to get some close up shots of the massive dual-GPU card as well as a few details from reps at the event.

The card in question had one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCIe power connector, one CrossFireX connector for dual-card configurations, and one DVI port alonside four mini DisplayPort outputs. The card is also equipped with a backplate to help with heat dissipation, backed by a fan located directly in the middle and reportedly also a vapor chamber cooling system. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a production model, so we could still see some minor changes, specifically with the display output port configuration and probably the PCIe power connectors as well.

In terms of performance, if previous leaks are legitimate, the graphics card will integrate 3840 stream processors and have 4GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4.80GHz. That’s a significant leap from the previous-generation Radeon HD 5970's 3,200 stream processors and 2GB of RAM. Pricing info is not yet known but it's likely the Radeon HD 6990 will go over $500, which is the price tag of Nvidia's flagship card, the single-GPU GeForce GTX 580.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/42150-amd-radeon-hd-6990-graphics-card-pictured.html

 

[TomSEA]

"...but it's likely the Radeon HD 6990 will go over $500..."

And don't forget the cost of a nuclear reactor to run this.

 

[princeton]

TomSEA said:
"...but it's likely the Radeon HD 6990 will go over $500..."

And don't forget the cost of a nuclear reactor to run this.

Obviously it will go over $500 eh? It's meant to beat the GTX 580 right?

 

[Route44]

And don't forget the cost of a nuclear reactor to run this.

Ha! I was think the same thing. :haha: It amazes me the cost of high end graphics cards. For $500 I can get a decent motherboard, 4 gigs of good RAM, and a quad core cpu.

 

[Leeky]

That would make it cheaper than two HD6970's wouldn't it?

Also, surprised not to see two 8 pin power connectors given the fact its a dual GPU - even if it is pre-production.

What sort of nuclear reactor would one need to power this then?

 

[Mizzou]

I noticed the same thing on the power connectors, that's the same as a HD 4890 ... interesting.

 

[Cueto_99]

TomSEA said:

And don't forget the cost of a nuclear reactor to run this.

With a combination of 6+8 pin conector you won't need a power plant to run this even on load (as you did with the hungry gtx480); in fact I think I read somewhere the specs were 30 watts on idle and 300 watts on load... If I get to sell my two 4830s I might go with this one or a 6970!

 

[red1776]

With a combination of 6+8 pin conector you won't need a power plant to run this even on load (as you did with the hungry gtx480); in fact I think I read somewhere the specs were 30 watts on idle and 300 watts on load... If I get to sell my two 4830s I might go with this one or a 6970!

The amazing thing about that is( if that's the case), the 6990 will only require 15% more power than your pair of 4830's (260W @ full load)

I wonder if they binned some extremely efficient chips, or if the 6990 is going to be a pair of relatively smaller GPU's

 

[dividebyzero]

I wouldn't dare captain...I could have my custom title privileges revoked before they come into play!

I wonder if they binned some extremely efficient chips, or if the 6990 is going to be a pair of relatively smaller GPU's

My money's on two CaymanXT (6970) running at 6950 clocks. Add in some binning for low voltage leakage and a slightly more aggressive/rigid downclocking facility in Powertune and you should still be within PCI spec (300w). Not keen on half the cards exhaust being aimed directly at where most peoples harddrives are going to be placed (note the front design of the card in this series of pictures)

I'd also parlay that with nvidia launching a GTX590 using two GF114 (GTX 560Ti) with virtually stock clocks of the single card, and a more severe power use limitation in software profiling.

Both these cards will come out as reference with 1 x 8 pin and 1 x 6pin to satisfy the PCI SIG...they should make about, oh...100 of each. Vendor designed cards would almost certainly come equipped with 2 x 8pin* since AMD will now know that the GF114 has more overclock in reserve- and more importantly, any overclock applied translates into better numbers than Cayman can provide (example here) assuming SLI and Crossfire are comparable in scaling-which looks to be the case for the most part.

* Note the spacing around the 6pin connector in the picture. The shroud cutaway is clearly designed to allow the 6pin to be replaced by an 8pin connector
/Sherlock

 

[red1776]

* Note the spacing around the 6pin connector in the picture. The shroud cutaway is clearly designed to allow the 6pin to be replaced by an 8pin connector
/Sherlock

Yes they are rather roomy!
So then is everyone who purchased the 8+8+6 375w Ares rolling the dice?

 

[Sarcasm]

Route44 said:

And don't forget the cost of a nuclear reactor to run this.

Ha! I was think the same thing. :haha: It amazes me the cost of high end graphics cards. For $500 I can get a decent motherboard, 4 gigs of good RAM, and a quad core cpu.

Well obviously these high end gpu's are geared towards people who already have a "decent" motherboard, 4gb's of ram, and a quad core. Chances are these people have a KICK *** motherboard with 8+gb of RAM and a hexa-core or high end quad core, with 3 monitors.

 

[captaincranky]

And Granny'll be A 'Cranking the 'Lectric Generator....

Well obviously these high end gpu's are geared towards people who already have a "decent" motherboard, 4gb's of ram, and a quad core. Chances are these people have a KICK *** motherboard with 8+gb of RAM and a hexa-core or high end quad core, with 3 monitors.

Yeah, like wow Route & Tom, get with it! These are guys who can already run "Crysis", that'll be a' springin' for one o' these there cardie things....

 

[dividebyzero]

[So then is everyone who purchased the 8+8+6 375w Ares rolling the dice?

Only on any potential resale value! Nothing to stop an AIB putting three or more power connectors (or an external power connection direct to a wall outlet for that matter) on a card if their marketing department are nutty enough.
I think I'd personally rather have a 2x8pin connection on a 300w card than a 8+6pin- both will deliver 300w, but the 8+6 arrangement is at it's limit which obviously means that any extra power draw (OC and/or increased GPU/vRAM voltage) is going to either draw more than 75w from the PCIE slot -possibly destabilizing the board- or run the PSU cables out of specification
I don't think the PCI SIG is of concern to vendors (AIB's) in general (Asus Mars/Ares, MSI R5870 Lightning...) as AMD and Nvidia only constrain themselves to the 300w limit due to the fact that OEM's won't touch an out of specification card. DIY and boutique PC builders could care less of the insurance ramifications of a 300+ watt card so there's always going to be a market for the über-enthusiast card.

@ Tom et al
$500 for the HD6990 is a (Willie Nelson) pipe dream. The extra binning required should be enough to push the card higher than that. Given that as with the HD5970 the card is essentially a PR stunt/p1ssing contest, you won't see copious amounts of the cards for sale and that should ensure a premium price tag. Why sell a HD6990 for $500-600 when you can sell two HD6970's for $700+ ? The only difference between them is the small added cost (for the latter) of one plastic shroud, a squirrel cage fan, assorted power/DP/DVI plugs and possibly a few capacitors/VRM's.
$649 if you're lucky, $699 if you're not.

 

[red1776]

Only on any potential resale value! Nothing to stop an AIB putting three or more power connectors (or an external power connection direct to a wall outlet for that matter) on a card if their marketing department are nutty enough

The last time I remember an external power supply for the VGA was the Vodoo 5 6000 (and I think they discontinued it after making 100 of them or so)

 

[dividebyzero]

Yup...just goes to show what a great idea that was. The Voodoo 5 6000 was a bit of a power hog if I remember rightly...~50w if you cranked up all the eye candy !

 

[red1776]

Yup...just goes to show what a great idea that was. The Voodoo 5 6000 was a bit of a power hog if I remember rightly...~50w if you cranked up all the eye candy !

:haha: yes, And I think it retailed for $650

 

[dividebyzero]

They probably sell for much the same price now.
A friend of mine has been looking for a V5 6000 for a while-he collects classic/landmark computer componentry - he has a couple of V5 5500's -one working and one encased in a block of acetate (paperweight).

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

The consensus on the HD 6990 seems to be that it will consist of a pair of 2GB 6970s running at 6950 clocks. I wonder what Nvidia is up to with its own dual-GPU card. Most would point to a pair of GTX 560 GPUs on a single PCB but I still think it's possible that the coming GTX 590/595 could contain a pair of GTX 570 GPUs if Nvidia manages to get the power and heat issues under control.

 

[Tha General]

looks just like the rest of the high end cards haha

 

[Guest]

I'm a bit surprised it's not 2 x 8 pin connectors.
The amount of stream processors/transistors are 3840 while 5970 has 2x 2154 and not 3200 as they wrote. The 5970 are two 5870 fused together but a bit down-clocked.
4 GB memory is pretty damn nice but the GTX 580 is doing pretty damn nice too with it's 1,5 GB. The GTX 580 actually performs best in Metro 2033 (the most powerful game at the moment) but the 5970 is just behind.

Will be very interesting to see how the 6990 performs.

 

[dividebyzero]

Most would point to a pair of GTX 560 GPUs on a single PCB but I still think it's possible that the coming GTX 590/595 could contain a pair of GTX 570 GPUs if Nvidia manages to get the power and heat issues under control.

Seems you're not too far off the mark according to Nordic Hardware. GTX 590 is two fully functional (GTX 580, 512 core) GPU's. Due out in the next month...which I guess means the HD 6990 should be with us sooner rather than later also.

Something tells me the power limiters on both cards are going to get a serious workout.

 

[Guest]

Will that card run on my machine?
Alienware aurora alx
Intel core i7 920 oc'd at 3.2ghz
6gb 1333mhz ddr3 ram
1tb raid 0 hdd
Ati 5870

 

[Guest]

thats cheaper then 2- 6970's

 

[Leeky]

Will that card run on my machine?
Alienware aurora alx
Intel core i7 920 oc'd at 3.2ghz
6gb 1333mhz ddr3 ram
1tb raid 0 hdd
Ati 5870

Yeah it will, assuming you have a power supply good enough (and powerful enough) to power it.

Its all dependant on your power supply.