EVGA recently lent our German lab one of the GeForce GTX 690s we've had in the U.S. for months. The purpose? To pit against HIS' upcoming 7970 X2 and PowerColor's Devil13 HD7990, both dual-Tahiti boards vying to become the world's fastest graphics card.
A couple of weeks ago, our German office got an exclusive on HIS' new flagship graphics card, the 7970 X2 (notice that they're not calling it a Radeon HD 7990). Because we also have PowerColor's Devil13 HD7990 6 GB in our lab, along with a GeForce GTX 690 from EVGA, we're about to crown the fastest graphics card of 2012 right here and right now.
Will the outcome matter to you? Well, PowerColor's board is currently listed on Newegg for $1000, but it's out of stock. The HIS card doesn't even show up for sale online yet. Our sample was part of a small, limited-production run (we'll come back to this in the conclusion). Only EVGA's offering is sitting on store shelves. And while it also goes for $1000, making it too expensive for most folks, there's at least something to be said for availability, right?

With its factory overclock, PowerColor's Devil13 HD7990 6 GB comes very close to the GeForce GTX 690 in our performance-oriented tests. Meanwhile, HIS' 7970 X2, which was shown off at Computex, but not necessarily a sure thing, is finally ready. Elevated clock rates are supposed to make the HIS card the fastest graphics card, period. But do the benchmarks concur? Let's have a look at how these three boards stack up on paper first.
| Radeon HD 7970 X2, Radeon HD 7990, And GeForce GTX 690 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| HIS 7970 X2 | PowerColor Devil13 HD7990 6 GB | EVGA GeForce GTX 690 | |
| Shader Units | 2 x 2048 | 2 x 2048 | 2 x 1536 |
| GPU Clock Rate | 1050 MHz | 925 / 1000 MHz | 915 MHz +Turbo |
| ROPs | 2 x 32 | 2 x 32 | 2 x 32 |
| GPUs | 2 x Tahiti XT | 2 x Tahiti XT | 2 x GK104 |
| Transistors (Billion) | 2 x 4.31 | 2 x 4.31 | 2 x 3.54 |
| Memory | 2 x 3 GB | 2 x 3 GB | 2 x 2 GB |
| Memory Bus | 2 x 384-bit | 2 x 384-bit | 2 x 256-bit |
| Memory Clock Rate | 1500 MHz | 1375 MHz | 1502 MHz |
Technically, the HIS card looks like it holds a strong position. If those numbers translate into real-world performance, and if micro-stuttering isn't a problem for AMD, it could be our winner. Then again, we already saw in GeForce GTX 690 Review: Testing Nvidia's Sexiest Graphics Card that Nvidia put a lot of effort into creating a fast, svelte, and quiet offering in its GeForce GTX 690. That'll be a tough act to follow.
- Radeon HD 7990 And GeForce GTX 690 Duke It Out
- HIS 7970 X2: The Challenger
- EVGA GeForce GTX 690: Elegance, Illustrated
- PowerColor Devil13 HD7990: Big And Flashy
- Benchmark System
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Benchmark Results: Real-World Games
- Micro-Stuttering: The Current Situation
- Micro-Stuttering: Alternate Frame Rendering (AMD)
- Micro-Stuttering: Adaptive VSync (Nvidia)
- Micro-Stuttering: Dynamic V-Sync (AMD)
- Power Consumption
- Temperatures
- Noise
- Noise Comparison Videos: Idle
- Noise Comparison Videos: 500 FPS
- Noise Comparison Videos: Game Loop
- Noise Comparison Videos: Full Load
- Just Because You're Fastest Doesn't Make You The Best
not to take away anything for the hard work performed; i would have liked have seen nvidia's latest beta driver, 310.33, included also to see if nvidia is doing anything to improve the performance of their card instead of just adding 3d vision, AO, and sli profiles.
Maybe i am too much of a retro SF buff
not to take away anything for the hard work performed; i would have liked have seen nvidia's latest beta driver, 310.33, included also to see if nvidia is doing anything to improve the performance of their card instead of just adding 3d vision, AO, and sli profiles.
But, would have liked to see 680s in SLI, to see how they scale now compared to the 690.
Also, would using two single GPUs in CF/SLI make a difference to the micro-stuttering charts? iirc, the PCIe controller is tied to the CPU for SB/IB chips? So that would mean no 3rd party bridge in between the two GPUs as in the case of the 7990 and 690. Would that make a diff?
How do you manage to isolate the cards' power consumption at load (idle is simpler)? And noise too: how do you block out the case fans and CPU cooler?
But In the end, 690 was slower than 7990 average framerate but with Radeon Pro, it is the 7990 which is slower right?
So yes it's better than without, but the 690 is faster, as smooth, and use a built in technology
AMD really need to work on it's crossfire technology
I don't think they look "fast and ugly", although I do think that the HIS model could do with some more finesse.
For the power consumption: 3 current clamps with monitoring
Technically, HIS has a winner, not AMD because AMD didn't launch a 7990/7970X2 reference;)
Actually, the only person who I ever recommended a GTX 690 to wanted it specifically because of its low power consumption literally being enough to pay for itself compared to his previous graphics setup due to his high cost for power. Some people looking for such high end cards most certainly do care about power consumption.
This IS an issue.