AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Dual GPU Cayman Graphics Card

Testing Configurations and System Setup

For today’s review we are going to be comparing the new HD 6990 graphics card against the best both sides have to offer.  The retail price on the Radeon HD 6990 will be $699 so one grouping is as follows:

• Radeon HD 6990 4GB – $699
  
• Radeon HD 6970 2GB – $369
• Radeon HD 5970 2GB – Not available
  
• GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB – $499

These are basically a grouping of the worlds best currently available single graphics cards though it is obvious the HD 6970 and GTX 580 are going to be at a disadvantage using only a single GPU compared to the pairs in the 6990 and 5970.  But we aren’t here to take sides, but rather to show you the results. 

With the cost of the HD 6990 4GB being so much higher than that of the HD 6970 and even NVIDIA’s GTX 580, a better comparison might use some SLI and CrossFire configurations to see how the performance works out in terms of raw pricing. 

• Radeon HD 6990 4GB – $699
• Radeon HD 6950 2GB CrossFire – $550
  
• GeForce GTX 570 1GB SLI – $700
• GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB SLI – $520
  

This is quite a mix of components here but I think it makes for a good scenario is just looking at the raw dollar amounts associated with different gamers’ configurations. 

Here is our test system setup for the benchmarks:

• Testing Configuration
• ASUS P6X58D Premium Motherboard
• Intel Core i7-965 @ 3.33 GHz Processor
• 3 x 2GB Corsair DDR3-1333 MHz Memory
• Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB HDD
• Corsair Professional Series 1200w PSU
• Benchmarks used: 3DMark Vantage, Unigine Heaven v2.1, Metro 2033, Lost Planet 2, Civilization V, F1 2010, Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2, 3DMark11