Double the GPUs, double the performance, at almost double the price.
AMD’s dual GPU cards have come a long way in the past several years. The original Radeon HD 3870 was noisy, ran hot and didn’t always perform up to snuff. Since then, AMD’s Catalyst Driver suite has substantially improved the performance and breadth of CrossFire-supported games.
On the hardware side, AMD is pulling out all the stops with its Radeon HD 6990 card. The company understands that a dual GPU card is most appealing to a small band of enthusiasts who really want the card to push the edge of the envelope, both in terms of engineering and features.
Despite being fully twelve inches long—like its predecessor, the Radeon HD 5970—the HD 6990 looks a little less imposing than the 5970. Maybe it’s the center-mounted fan, which visually breaks up the huge mass of the cooling shroud.
The Radeon HD 6990 combines twin Cayman GPUs, 4GB of GDDR5 and a new cooling system.
Still, it’s a big, heavy card that will only fit in larger PC cases, so make sure your case has the room for it.
The HD 6990 is essentially two Radeon HD 6970 cards built onto one card. While the base core clock speed is down a bit, at 830MHz, the full 6970 has been replicated, complete with 3,072 total shader ALUs, 192 texture units and 4GB of GDDR5 running at 1,250MHz.
A pair of HD 6970 GPUs and all that GDDR5, even with the core clocks cranked back to 830MHz, consumes serious power; the HD 6990 ships with two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors. Also built into the card is a tiny physical dip switch that allows you to overclock and overvolt the core clock with a single flick, to 880MHz. Flicking that switch turns (Read more...)
0 comment:
Yorum Gönder