Download the Tom's Hardware App from the App Store
The reference for current tech news
Yes No
Ads

Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft (DX9)

by

Platform potential seems to make a ton of difference in WoW. I ran my GeForce GTX 560 Ti review using an overclocked Sandy Bridge-based configuration, and that system demonstrated all kinds of separation between cards. Here, however, a Gulftown-based build running at the same 4 GHz suggests there’s a ton of congestion.

The Nvidia cards are least-constrained by processor performance, and they consistently best all of AMD’s cards. This is exactly consistent with what we saw in World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm--Tom's Performance Guide.

When it comes time to turn on anti-aliasing, though, the Radeon HD 6990s take the smallest performance hit. Even still, you can run Cataclysm at 2560x1600 with 8x MSAA on a Radeon HD 6950 and still average more than 60 frames per second. There’s really no reason to buy such a high-end card for this fairly mid-range title.

Incidentally, World of Warcraft is the other game where AMD’s beta driver exhibits a flickering/shimmering menu screen at 1680x1050.

Share:
193
Comments
X
Submit

Comments
Read the comments on the forums
hayest 03/08/2011 6:34 AM
Hide
--2+

Killer Card!

Out of spec for default seems kind of weird though.

CrazeEAdrian 03/08/2011 6:37 AM
Hide
--1+

Great job AMD. You need to expect noise and heat when dealing with a card that beasts out that kind of performance, it's part of the territory.

jprahman 03/08/2011 6:40 AM
Hide
-7+

This thing is a monster, 375W TDP, 4GB of VRAM! Some people don't even have 4GB of regular RAM in their systems, let alone on their video card.

one-shot 03/08/2011 6:43 AM
Hide
-1+

Did I miss the load power draw? I just noticed the idle and noise ratings. It would be informative to see the power draw of Crossfire 6990s and overclocked i7. I see the graph, but a chart with CPU only and GPU only followed by a combination of both would be nice to see.

anacandor 03/08/2011 6:44 AM
Hide
-0+

For the people that actually buy this card, i'm sure they'll be able to afford an aftermarket cooler for this thing once they come out...

wino85 03/08/2011 6:46 AM
Hide
-0+

OMG!!! It's finally here.

cangelini 03/08/2011 6:48 AM
Hide
-0+

one-shot :
Did I miss the load power draw? I just noticed the idle and noise ratings. It would be informative to see the power draw of Crossfire 6990s and overclocked i7. I see the graph, but a chart with CPU only and GPU only followed by a combination of both would be nice to see.



We don't have two cards here to test, unfortunately. The logged load results for a single card are on the same page, though!

bombat1994 03/08/2011 6:52 AM
Hide
--1+

things we need to see are this thing water cooled.

and tested at 7680 x 1600

that will see just how well it does.

That thing is an absolute monster of a card.

They really should have made it 32nm. then the power draw would have fallen below 300w and the thing would be cooler.

STILL NICE WORK AMD

Bigmac80 03/08/2011 6:53 AM
Hide
--1+

Pretty fast i wonder if this will be cheaper then 2 GTX 570's or 2 6950's?
But omg this thing is freakin loud. What's the point of having a quite system now with Noctua fans :(

tacoslave 03/08/2011 6:54 AM
Hide
-2+

Its hot, sucks alot of power, and costs a ton. But i still want one.








Badly

lashton 03/08/2011 6:54 AM
Hide
-7+

AMD doesn't care about noise because they are waiting for custom colling solutions from OEM

lashton 03/08/2011 6:56 AM
Hide
--1+

bombat1994 :
things we need to see are this thing water cooled.and tested at 7680 x 1600that will see just how well it does.That thing is an absolute monster of a card.They really should have made it 32nm. then the power draw would have fallen below 300w and the thing would be cooler.STILL NICE WORK AMD


That maybe possible when they get 28nm ready on bulldozer, they are just raping the rewards of old tech.

scrumworks 03/08/2011 7:01 AM
Hide
-1+

Starts with negative comments (noise), so no surprises from Chris. Fermi of course never made so much noise and consume so much power that would require this type commenting. Everything was Power, PhysX and CUDA!

4745454b 03/08/2011 7:03 AM
Hide
-0+

Meh. To much for what it is. The only thing it does better then two 6970s is in power. (if one 6970 is 250W and this is 375W, then it uses less power then 2x6970.) But I agree that you're better off with a CF setup. Like the GTX480 and possibly the GTX580, its simply to much for what you pay for.

Edit: I should say its either to much or to little and always in the wrong way for what you pay for. I also dislike the the 375W TDP. We have specs/rules for a reason.

Haserath 03/08/2011 7:04 AM
Hide
-0+

I think AMD will have the performance monster this round. It would be surprising if Nvidia was anticipating something like this. The GTX 570 already uses quite a few more Watts than the 6970; what will they do to match two 6970's on one board?
This is isanity!

megamanx00 03/08/2011 7:14 AM
Hide
-0+

OMFG!!!!

Well, I guess if you were thinking of running 3, or even 6 displays (which would require at least one hub or daisy chain monitor), this is the card you would want, perhaps even two of them. I'm guessing if you put two of them in you really really want it water cooled.

MasterMace 03/08/2011 7:14 AM
Hide
-0+

Careful, you may not be able to here a tornado siren a mile away with this one.

nforce4max 03/08/2011 7:17 AM
Hide
--1+

Well at least it is cheaper than the two 7900gtx duos (eom) that landed some years after introduction. Personally I wouldn't purchase this card knowing the driver bugs and the usual issues that dual gpu cards have except I'll wait a few years to snatch one up on the cheap as a collectors item. For those who got the money wait at least two or three weeks for reviews and complaints by owners of this card before you buy one. I can live with the noise but bad drivers I can't.

cangelini 03/08/2011 7:45 AM
Hide
-4+

scrumworks :
Starts with negative comments (noise), so no surprises from Chris. Fermi of course never made so much noise and consume so much power that would require this type commenting. Everything was Power, PhysX and CUDA!



LOL. Look at the power AND noise graphs, scrum :)

dragonsqrrl 03/08/2011 7:45 AM
Hide
-3+

It looks like the improved CrossFireX scaling introduced with the HD6000 series really helps the HD6990 shine. There's no question about it, this thing's a top of the line performance beast.

The big (and really inexcusable) problem is the noise, and to a lesser extent power consumption. It's by far the loudest single card stock cooler ever conceived, and that's taking into account the former champions, the GTX480 and HD5970. The load temps aren't great, but they're acceptable in my opinion. I'm not sure what people were expecting, but this is an extreme high-end dual GPU card, and load temps in the upper 80's C aren't uncommon in this performance segment. The problem is once again the excessive noise that's generated in order to keep the 2 GPU's running at those already high temps.

I totally agree with the reviewer, the HD6990 seems rushed, the drivers are buggy, and if running a fan at 3k+ RPM is the only way to keep a card operating, it probably needs a little more tweaking before release.

lashton :
That maybe possible when they get 28nm ready on bulldozer, they are just raping the rewards of old tech.


Bulldozer will be manufactured using Global Foundries 32nm process, not 28. The node shrink you're referring to for next-gen GPU's will be manufactured using a completely different 28nm process at TSMC. AMD uses Golbal Foundries only for its CPU's at this time.


Ads

Best offers

All about Graphics Cards
 Graphics Cards performance charts
All Graphics Cards charts

Newsletters


OK
Ads