AMD Radeon HD 6990 review

AMD has made a lot of its Eyefinity multiple-monitor technology in recent years; although the reliance on DisplayPort outputs and the resulting need for adaptors has probably slowed take up. Refreshingly, the HD 6990 is being bundled with a raft of adaptors to ease potential owners’ transition to triple-monitor gaming. These consist of passive and active mini DisplayPort to DVI adaptors plus a mini DisplayPort to HDMI adaptor. The DVI adaptors are only for Single-Link DVI, but you can still run three monitors up to 1,920×1,200. On the back of the card are four mini DisplayPort outputs; plus unusually a single Dual-Link DVI adaptor for those who want to run a single high-resolution (2,560×1,600) monitor.

We re-ran our tests on a three-monitor setup, such as the Samsung MD230X3 above, with our Full HD screens totalling a resolution of 5,760×1,080 pixels. Here we saw 74.2fps in Call of Duty 4 (below the usual 86fps maximum), 38.7fps in Crysis and 36.1fps in Stalker, all with 4x anti-aliasing enabled. This just goes to show that even with all its graphical might, the HD 6990 can be stretched by more extreme gaming setups.

Coming back to the card itself, one reason cited by AMD for the unusual arrangement of outputs is the need to get the maximum quantity of hot air out of the back of the card, something that a second DVI port would have restricted. The card has a single fan in the centre, which drives airflow over a pair of heat sinks on either side.

All that heat is a by-product of the card’s huge 450W potential appetite. In the main AMD has curbed its enthusiasm for power using its PowerTune technology to regulate the clock speed under extreme conditions and keep consumption down to a maximum 375W. That’s still a lot of juice, as the two 8-pin power connectors testify. You’ll need a very hefty power supply to get this card up and running smoothly. You’ll need a sizeable, uncluttered PC case as well with the card measuring a huge 303mm in length.

At £550 the HD 6990 is more than double the price of the HD 6970 – which currently costs around £270 inc VAT. Yes, it’s the most powerful graphics card we’ve ever tested, outdoing even Nvidia’s super-fast GTX 570 and 580 cards. However, even the most enthusiastic, die-hard gamers will surely balk at this card’s price, given the huge variations in its benchmark results. If every game ran as well as 3DMark 11 then we could see some justifying the expense, as it is, though we’d stick with the far-cheaper and more predictable HD 6970.