Registered: 05/29/10
Posts: 2776
Loc: The Netherlands
AS the NDA on the nVidia 590 GTX is lifted, the review sites check how it stacks up to the competition. Beside the AMD HD6990, that includes the 570 and 580 in SLI.
Also, some of the pro Nvidia reviews are laughable:
Quote:
When I reviewed the AMD Radeon HD 6990 for the launch event two weeks ago, I genuinely liked the card's ability to produce unmatched performance using the sheer strength of two top-end GPUs. NVIDIA answered back with a product just as powerful, but refined so many of Gemini's smaller details that the scales now tip in their favor. Depending on your collection of games and settings, graphics performance is fairly even between the GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990. But unfortunately for the Radeon HD 6990, modern graphics cards are capable of a lot more than simply producing frame rates. Consumers are looking at supplemental features, such as stereoscopic 3D functionality, graphical enhancements, affordable multi-display possibilities, broad software support, and stable drivers. NVIDIA 3D Vision, APEX PhysX, The Way It's Meant to be Played developer support, surround support with inexpensive DVI monitors, and Forceware drivers all deliver these things. AMD's solutions are either no widely supported (DisplayPort), unpopular (AMD HD3D), or lack affordable integration (Eyefinity).
I'm surprised AMD/ATI wins in the "more demanding" games (which is where one wants to win). Though, the winning margin is small.
AMD has stated they don't compete on shear speed -- because they know Nvidia will "do anything" to win at shear speed and AMD does not want to go that route. Rather, AMD/ATI goes for "balanced architecture" and sound application of engineering principles (for example, no clock settings that reduce product lifetime below established norms).
So, again, AMD edging out Nvidia is not what I expected.
Of course, they perform so closely that Nvidia fans can remain Nvidia fans and AMD/ATI fans can remain AMD fans with no suffering for their faith
I'm surprised AMD/ATI wins in the "more demanding" games (which is where one wants to win). Though, the winning margin is small.
AMD has stated they don't compete on shear speed -- because they know Nvidia will "do anything" to win at shear speed and AMD does not want to go that route. Rather, AMD/ATI goes for "balanced architecture" and sound application of engineering principles (for example, no clock settings that reduce product lifetime below established norms).
So, again, AMD edging out Nvidia is not what I expected.
Of course, they perform so closely that Nvidia fans can remain Nvidia fans and AMD/ATI fans can remain AMD fans with no suffering for their faith
Like these two cards could sway anyone in any direction with those prices. Most of us can only drool from afar. (Although maybe "drool" is too strong of a word).
Registered: 08/24/07
Posts: 267
Loc: Croatia, Zagreb
Originally Posted By: Remon
Seems like AMD won this round.
Also, some of the pro Nvidia reviews are laughable:
Quote:
When I reviewed the AMD Radeon HD 6990 for the launch event two weeks ago, I genuinely liked the card's ability to produce unmatched performance using the sheer strength of two top-end GPUs. NVIDIA answered back with a product just as powerful, but refined so many of Gemini's smaller details that the scales now tip in their favor. Depending on your collection of games and settings, graphics performance is fairly even between the GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990. But unfortunately for the Radeon HD 6990, modern graphics cards are capable of a lot more than simply producing frame rates. Consumers are looking at supplemental features, such as stereoscopic 3D functionality, graphical enhancements, affordable multi-display possibilities, broad software support, and stable drivers. NVIDIA 3D Vision, APEX PhysX, The Way It's Meant to be Played developer support, surround support with inexpensive DVI monitors, and Forceware drivers all deliver these things. AMD's solutions are either no widely supported (DisplayPort), unpopular (AMD HD3D), or lack affordable integration (Eyefinity).
Depends how you look at it. For me Nvidia is a clear winner in this one. Lower noise for equal temps (FAIL on the cheap fan design on 6990 - added cost to get a proper custom cooling), lower consumption (blocked by drivers), and shorter design (fits in more cases).
Additionally IMO, none of the two is better than a proper SLI/CF configuration - except in power consumption.
Depends how you look at it. For me Nvidia is a clear winner in this one. Lower noise for equal temps (FAIL on the cheap fan design on 6990 - added cost to get a proper custom cooling), lower consumption (blocked by drivers), and shorter design (fits in more cases).
Additionally IMO, none of the two is better than a proper SLI/CF configuration - except in power consumption.
I don't get from where people are getting the lower consumption part.
The 590 is consistently drawing more power than the 6990 in reviews, both idle and under heavy load.
Yeah, read the reviews linked above, you'll see that the amd card draws less power in factory bios setting, and more when it's switched to the second one. Of course 6990 performs even better than the 590 then.
In other news, it was reported in techpowerup that their card fried when it was overclocked, and there's a video from a swedish site:
The problem is the drivers they've shipped with the card, so the easy solution is to use newer drivers.
6990 will overrun 590 in some test, but for the money they are charging for it - you get that cheap cooler?? No thank you. Besides, I would always choose a single GPU card in CF/SLI over these kind of solutions.
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