The market for top graphics accelerators over the past year has been deprived of at least some share of interest. Last but not least - due to the impossibility or unwillingness of NVIDIA to release an analogue of AMD's dual-core solution. For this reason, the HD 5970 reigned supreme at the top of the Olympus of 3D graphics.

A year has passed, and again AMD is releasing an update in the form of the AMD Radeon HD 6990. There have been many rumors about what the most advanced and technologically sophisticated graphics adapter will be. But, as before, the company decided not to compromise, but to make a full-fledged video card without regard to a competitor.

Characteristic table

Characteristics HD 5970HD 6970HD 6990GTX 580
codename HemlockCayman XTAntillesGF110
Process technology, nm 40 40 40 40
Core size/cores, mm 2 334x2 389 389x2 ~530
Number of transistors, million 2154x2 2640 2640x2 3300
Core frequency, MHz2D 157 150 150 50 / 100
3D 725 880 830/880 772 / 1544
OC core frequency, MHz 950 950 980 850 / 1700
Core voltage, V2D 0,95 0,90 0,90 0,96
3D 1,10 1,18 1,12/1,175 1,06
Number of shaders, pcs. (PS) 1600x2 1536 1536x2 512
Number of rasterization blocks, pcs. (ROP) 32x2 32 32x2 48
Number of texture blocks, pcs. (TMU) 80x2 96 96x2 64
Maximum fill speed, Gpix/sec 46,4 28,2 53,1/56,3 37,1
Maximum texture fetch rate, Gtex/sec 58 84,5 159,4/169 49,4
Pixel/Vertex Shader Version 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0
Memory type GDDR5GDDR5GDDR5GDDR5
Effective memory frequency, MHz2D 1200 300 300 67
3D 4000 5500 5000 4008
Effective memory frequency, OC MHz 4400 5800 5800 4100
Memory voltage, V2D 1,60 1,60 1,60 1,36
3D 1,60 1,60 1,60 1,62
Memory size, MB 1024 x2 2048 2048 x2 1536
Memory bus, bit 256 x2 256 256x2 384
Memory bandwidth, Gb/s 128 x2 176 160x2 192,4
Power consumption, W2D 42 20 37 nd
3D 294 250 375 / 450 244
Crossfire/Sli YesYesYesYes
Card size LxWxH, mm 340x100x38270x100x37340x100x38270x100x38
Recommended price, $ 599 369 699 499

Architecture and improvements

Graphic stuffing Antilles is a pair of GPU Cayman, externally and architecturally completely identical. So, there is no need to talk about the difference between them. All the previously highlighted nuances of the configuration and placement of the main blocks have already been considered in the laboratory.

Appearance

The length, width and height of the card remained unchanged compared to the HD 5970. The inherent "squareness" in the design is the main feature of the entire AMD HD 6xxx line.

Against the background of other AMD graphics cards, HD 6990 is most similar to its younger sister HD 6850 in terms of design concept. The central location of the fan is due to the desire to evenly cool both graphics cores.

Previously, due to less heat dissipation, AMD used sequential cooling of both GPUs. But the situation has changed, which is not surprising, given the hot temper of the Cayman. The growth in electricity consumption forced engineers to radically rework the cooling system, I will talk about it a little later.

As can be seen from the photographs, the casing has increased slightly in width, with the width of the printed circuit board unchanged. Comparing the length of both cards, one cannot fail to notice the supposedly greater length of the new one, but this is a deceptive feeling. In fact, it is the same, and +/- 2 ... 3 mm do not make the difference significant.

test stand

  • Motherboard: MSI Big Bang-XPower BIOS 1.5B2;
  • Processor: Intel Core i7 920 4305 MHz (205 x 21, 1.31 V);
  • Cooling system: Water cooling system;
  • Thermal interface: Arctic Cooling МХ-2;
  • RAM: Kingston HyperX KHX2000C9AD3T1K3/6GX 6 x 2GB DDR3 1640MHz (7-7-7-19-1T, 1.65V);
  • Hard drive: Seagate 7200.11 320 GB;
  • Power supply: Tagan TG1100-U95 1100 W;
  • Audio card: ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3;
  • Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 x64 SP1;
  • Driver version for ATi/AMD Catalyst 11.2, exception HD 6990 - special version Catalyst 11.3, NVIDIA - nforce 266.xx.

Printed circuit board

The power system is built according to the 4 + 2 scheme, each GPU is supposed to use a 4-phase power converter, plus 2 phases for memory. The HD 6990 has sixteen chips, with a density of 2 Gbps. Manufacturer Hynix, marking T2C, which corresponds to an effective maximum frequency of 5 GHz.

Two PWM controllers, manufactured by Volterra. In general, we have before us the continuation of AMD's tradition of trusting proven solutions in the form of Volterra.

Cooling system

For the first time on video cards of this level, AMD decided to use the entire list of the latest developments, including a special high-performance thermal paste. Two radiators based on the evaporation chamber. Peak performance of the fan-radiator combination up to 450 watts.

A mode switch is installed on the side of the Crossfire connector, in the first version, the standard GPU frequencies are 830 MHz, in the second, they are increased to 880 MHz.

List of used measuring and control instruments and tools

  • Sound level meter: Center 320;
  • Multimeter: Fluke 289;
  • Electricity tariff: E305EMG;
  • Microphone: Philips SBC ME570.

Testing tools and methodology

For the correct measurement of temperature and noise, the following conditions were used:

A closed room with an area of ​​4 m 2, inside which there is an automatic climate control system. In this case, the temperature level was set at 26°C +-1°C. The accuracy of compliance with the set parameters was monitored by four sensors, one of which was located 5 cm from the fan of the video card cooling system and was the leader. According to it, the main correction of the temperature in the room took place.

Noise was measured at a distance of 50 cm from the video card. The background level was 22 dBA. An SSD was used as a hard drive, and the power supply, pump, radiator with fans were outside the room during the measurement. There were no other components on the stand that made any noise.

The sound recording of the cooling system was made at a distance of 10 cm from the fan. The first 10-20 seconds without load in idle mode, then 100% load was turned on using the Furmark program. The highest level of noise is reached at the end of the audio recording. The temperature regime and noise were determined in advance, so that during the recording of the audio track you could hear exactly the maximum noise.

The level of electricity consumption [watts] in idle was estimated according to the readings of the E305EMG tariff immediately after loading the operating system. The values ​​displayed in the graph correspond to the minimum values ​​reached from the device. Under load, the video cards were tested by FurMark version 1.9.0. After 10-15 minutes, the temperature and fan speed reached their theoretical maximum. Then the data was entered into a table.

For a visual comparison of video cards, all games used as test applications were launched at 1680 x 1050, 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1440 resolutions.

In some games, where possible, built-in performance measurement tools were used:

  • 3DMark Vantage - Extreme 2560 x 1440 Gpu Score, Extreme, High, Performance;
  • 3Dmark 2011 - Extreme 2560 x 1440 Gpu Score,Extreme;
  • Aliens vs Predator DX 11 Benchmark v1.03;
  • Colin McRae DIRT 2;
  • Unigine Heaven Benchmark v 2.0 Dx;
  • Mafia II;
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (final values ​​- averaged over four modes).

For the following games, performance was measured using the FRAPS v3.2.5 utility:

  • Battlefield Bad Company 2;
  • Metro 2033.

VSync was disabled during testing.

To avoid errors in the measurement error, all tests were performed three times. When calculating the average FPS, the arithmetic mean of the results of all runs was taken as the final result.

Temperature, noise level and electricity consumption

Operating temperatures

Degrees, °С

Noise level

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Electricity consumption

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Main characteristics

AMD Radeon HD 6990; processor frequency: 830 MHz; memory frequency: 5000MHz; video memory size: 4GB; video memory type: GDDR5; support: CrossFireX; DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.1; add. power supply: 8+8 pin; power supply not less than: 750W; delivery type: Ret

Interface Interface Video card interface. The PCI-Ex16 1.0 bus interface has a throughput (one way/both directions) of 32/64 Gbps, The PCI-Ex16 2.0 bus interface has a throughput (one way/both ways) of 64/128 Gbps. The PCI-Ex16 2.1 bus interface fully corresponds to the PCI-Ex16 2.0 interface, the difference concerns only the software part, which has added functions planned for implementation in the PCI-Ex16 3.0 version. PCI-E 2.1
video chipset Video Chipset GPU manufacturer and model. AMD Radeon HD 6990
GPU frequency The frequency of the core of the GPU installed on the video card. The graphic processor of the video card processes the graphic image, which reduces the load on the computer's central processor. The higher the frequency of the GPU, the more powerful the graphics card. This increases the power consumption and heat dissipation of the graphics processor installed on the video card. 830 MHz
Process technology Technological process The technological process by which the GPU is manufactured. The technical process determines the dimensions of the semiconductor elements that form the basis of the internal circuits of the graphics processor of a video card. 40 nm
Video memory sizeVideo memory size The amount of video memory installed on the video card. Video memory acts as a frame buffer, which stores the image generated by the graphics processor and displayed on the monitor screen. 4 GB
Video memory type Video Memory Type The type of video memory installed in the graphics card. There are several types of video memory, differing in access speed and operating frequency. GDDR5
Video memory frequencyVideo memory frequency The frequency of the video memory installed on the video card. The higher the frequency of the video memory, the more efficient the video card. This increases the power consumption and heat dissipation of the memory chips installed on the video card. 5000 MHz
Video memory bus widthVideo memory bus width Bit width of the video memory bus installed in the video card. Indicates the number of bits of information transmitted per clock. An important parameter in the performance of the video card. 256 bit + 256 bit
Maximum ResolutionMaximum Resolution The maximum display resolution supported by the graphics card's interface outputs. 2560 x 1600
Mode supportMode support Support for SLI and CrossFire technologies. These technologies allow you to combine the power of two video cards in one computer. CrossFireX
Technology supportTechnology support Versions of DirectX and OpenGL supported by the graphics card. The ability of the video card to perform a certain set of functions at the hardware level depends on the version of DirectX and OpenGL. DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.1
DVI Connectors DVI connectors The presence of a DVI (Dual-Link) connector in the video card, which is used to transmit a digital video signal. 1
Mini Display Port ConnectorsMini Display Port Connectors The presence of a Mini Display Port connector in the monitor, which is used to transmit a digital video signal. Unlike DVI and HDMI connectors, the Display Port interface has a wider data channel and a longer maximum cable length. 4
Additional power connectors The need for additional power for the video card directly from the computer's power supply. Modern high-performance video cards consume a significant amount of electricity, so the power supply through the motherboard slot is not enough for them. 8+8pin
Manufacturer's recommended PSU power Recommended by the graphics card manufacturer. The minimum power supply of the computer in which this video card will be installed. 750 W
Recommended PSU Power for SLI/CrossFire Recommended by the graphics card manufacturer. The minimum power of the computer's power supply, in which several video cards will be installed, combined using SLI / CrossFire technology. 1000 W
Video card lengthVideo card length The length of the video card from the bar with video outputs to the end of the PCB or cooling system. 305 mm
Cooling systemCooling system GPU and video memory cooling system. The higher the performance of the GPU and memory, the more heat they generate during operation. The cooling system allows you to reliably cool the video card and remove heat from the computer case. active (heatsink and one fan)
Video Card WidthVideo Card Width The width of the video card characterizes how much space in the case during installation a specific video card will take. Due to the high heat dissipation of high-performance video cards, the cooling system can take up several expansion slots in a computer case. At the same time, the video card cooling system overlaps adjacent connectors on the motherboard and does not allow them to be used. dual-slot cooling system
Delivery type Delivery Type The type of delivery of the video card. Video cards with delivery type ret are supplied in boxes and usually have a set of adapters and cables. Video cards that have the oem delivery type are usually supplied in a package and have only a set of drivers in the kit. retail
Guarantee36 months
Products webpage www.asus.com

The manufacturer reserves the right to change the characteristics of the product, its appearance and completeness without prior notice to the seller.

The offer for the sale of goods is valid during the period of availability of this product in stock.

Description ASUS AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics card

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AMD Radeon HD 6990M is a high-performance graphics card for laptops 17" or larger. Based on the HD 6870 desktop graphics card, but with a lower clock speed, new UVD3 GPU and Eyefinity+ technology.

The 1120 stream processors are based on an old 5D architecture similar to that used in the 5000 series. Therefore, the number of shaders is not entirely correct to compare with one-dimensional cores in Nvidia GPUs. Tessellation with the HD 6990M performs much better (same as with the 6800 series for home PCs) in the newer graphics cards. Stream processors can use DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1, DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL. With the latter two technologies, the kernels can also be used for general computing, such as video transcoding.

3D performance should be similar to that of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M in the high performance class of notebook graphics cards. Therefore, the most modern and demanding games (2011) should run at Full HD resolution with maximum settings quite fluently. Only for Metro 2033 and Crysis (DX11) you may need to lower the settings.

The new UVD3 video decoder supports MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, Flash, and now also Multi-View Codec (MVC), and MPEG-4 MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid ) HD video on the graphics card.

In addition, the series HD 6900M Equipped with a built-in HD Audio controller to deliver high quality audio (TrueHD or DTS Master Audio) via HDMI and DisplayPort (such as Blu-ray video).

AMD HD3D technology supports Blu-ray 3D and 3D display connectivity (built-in and external). However, this solution is not as well thought out as Nvidia 3D Vision. Thanks to Eyefinity technology, the graphics chip is theoretically capable of connecting 6 monitors at the same time. However, this is only possible if the laptop in which this graphics adapter is installed has the appropriate number of DisplayPort or HDMI ports.

The high power consumption of the chip allows it to be used only in large laptops with good ventilation, for example, in Alienware M18x or Clevo X7200.

Manufacturer: AMD
Series: Radeon HD 6990M [email protected]
The code: Blackcomb XTX
Threads: 1120 - unified
Clock frequency: 715* MHz
Shader frequency: 715* MHz
Memory frequency: 900* MHz
Memory bus width: 256 Bit
Memory type: GDDR5
Maximum memory: 2048 MB.
Common memory: No
DirectX: DirectX 11 Shader 5.0
Transistors: 1700 million
Technology: 40 nm
Notebook size: big
Release date: 12.07.2011

* Specified clock speeds are subject to change by the manufacturer

Surely many of you have asked yourself the question - why do we need a prestige race among the manufacturers of graphic accelerators? It would seem that the main profit for companies comes from the sale of medium-priced or even low-cost devices, so why go out of your way just to show brute force, especially if this has little effect on profits? It's all about the image. If a company, be it AMD or NVIDIA, demonstrates absolute technical superiority, then for many this factor is decisive when choosing graphics, albeit a budget one. The logic of an inexperienced user is simple - the leader cannot make bad accelerators, so I'd rather be on the side of the winner. That's why the giants of the graphics industry are so eager to prove to the world that their graphics have the most computing power.

In the production of accelerators, NVIDIA and AMD, as we have repeatedly mentioned, have chosen different ways to achieve their goal. NVIDIA primarily relies on powerful single-chip solutions, while AMD creates not very complex GPUs and prefers to put them in pairs on a single board in order to achieve maximum performance. But what about Cypress, you ask? After all, at the time of its release and for half a year this GPU was the most powerful in the world, and cards based on it overtook all equivalent competitor products! It's fair, though, if you think about it, at the time AMD Cypress was released, the strength of this GPU was only visible against the backdrop of the weakness of NVIDIA, which faced a number of technological problems in the production of the GF100. And if you remember the existence of the Radeon HD 5970 accelerator, everything falls into place. The strategy chosen by the company is in force.

With the release of the Cayman GPU, the situation has changed slightly, except that now the new GPUs do not show such outstanding results against the competitor, as it was at the time of the announcement of Cypress. Radeon HD 6970 accelerators are able to compete only with the GeForce GTX 570, but not with the flagship of the "green" - GeForce GTX 580. As part of the chosen strategy for AMD, it is quite a logical step to release a dual-processor solution based on the Cayman GPU, and today we are in once again offer to witness the change of power. This time the AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics accelerator, also known under the code name Antilles, claims to be the champion. We will talk about him today.

I would like to say right away that no revolutionary changes in the architecture of the Radeon HD 6990 GPU have occurred. As in the case of the Radeon HD 5970, the new product is nothing more than a slightly slow Cayman CrossFireX tandem on a single board. However, this doesn't make the dual-chip monster less interesting, because when developing the HD 6990, AMD engineers used a number of unusual solutions, which you will learn about below. And now let's finally explore the new features and see how the Radeon HD 6990 differs from its predecessors. To do this, refer to the corresponding table with the characteristics:

Video card name AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB AMD Radeon HD 6850 1 GB AMD Radeon HD 6870 1 GB AMD Radeon HD 6950 2 GB AMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB AMD Radeon HD 6990 / 6990 OC 4 GB
Kernel codename Cypress XT Barts Barts XT Cayman Cayman XT 2 x Cayman XT (Antilles)
Process technology, nm 40 40 40 40 40 40
Number of transistors, mln. 2150 1700 1700 2640 2640 2x2640
Maximum power consumption, W (PowerTune Maximum) 188 127 151 200 250 375/450*
Typical power consumption, W ND ND ND 140 190 350/415*
Power consumption at rest, W 27 19 19 20 20 37
GPU core frequency, MHz 850 775 900 800 880 830/880*
Number of ROP blocks, pcs. 32 32 32 32 32 2x32
Number of TMUs, pcs. 80 48 56 88 96 2x96
Number of universal processors 1600 960 1120 1408 1536 3072
Video memory type GDDR-5 GDDR-5 GDDR-5 GDDR-5 GDDR-5 GDDR-5
Memory bus width, bit 256 256 256 256 256 256
Effective video memory frequency, MHz 4800 4000 4200 5000 5500 5000
Video memory bandwidth, GB/s 153.6 128 134.4 160 176 160
Estimated retail price according to Market 3Dnews (RUB) / recommended retail price (USD) 12 500 6 500 8 500 $299 $369 $699

The AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics accelerator is based on two CaymanXT GPUs, which have 4 GB of GDDR-5 video memory at their disposal. .)

However, not all performance values ​​of AMD Radeon HD 6990 have doubled relative to the single-chip Radeon HD 6970. Limiting factors in building dual-chip solutions, as you know, are the power consumption of the accelerator and the ability of the air cooling system to effectively remove heat from hot board elements while maintaining acceptable acoustic characteristics. As expected, AMD engineers lowered the base frequencies of the Radeon HD 6990 a bit to cope with the appetite and hot temper of their offspring. However, the already impressive performance of AMD's flagship accelerator can be improved without much tweaking. We'll tell you how to do it a bit later, but for now, I'd like to say a few words about the position of the novelty in relation to competing NVIDIA products. True, to be absolutely precise, there is, in fact, only one competitor - the flagship GeForce GTX 580 accelerator based on the GF110.

Currently, the most humane price for the GeForce GTX 580 is around 14,500 rubles, which is quite a lot, but noticeably less than the recommended retail price of the Radeon HD 6990, which at the time of the announcement is about 20,000 rubles. However, for fans of royal accelerators, the price is unlikely to be a deterrent, especially since we quite rightly expect a confident victory over the competitor from the Radeon HD 6990.

The dual BIOS appeared in serial samples of AMD accelerators, starting with the Radeon HD 6950/6970, then the reference samples of AMD accelerators were equipped with a duplicate microcircuit, write-protected and containing settings that were safe from the manufacturer's point of view. Now the second BIOS chip contains a slightly modified firmware, in which, in addition to the increased voltage on the GPU (from 1.12 to 1.175 V), the clock frequency of both graphics chips has been increased from 830 to 880 MHz (exactly like the Radeon HD 6970) . True, by providing such an opportunity, AMD refuses warranty obligations in case of damage to the video card when using alternative firmware.

Another good news for all enthusiasts is the expansion of the clock speed limit, which can be set using the AMD OverDrive utility built into the Catalyst drivers.

The maximum power consumption of the Radeon HD 6990 with the active PowerTune technology is 450 watts. I must say, the Radeon HD 6990 is a very voracious little thing, so for the stable operation of the accelerator, AMD engineers modified the PCB wiring and improved the power system compared to analogues of previous generations. Symmetrical wiring allows you to provide stable power not only to both GPUs, but also to the sets of memory chips that serve them. In addition, colder elements were used in the power system.

As a cooling system, a significantly redesigned turbine is used, which, in comparison with previous counterparts from AMD, should provide 20% more powerful airflow. The thermal interface between the cooling system and the graphics chips is performed by a special compound called Phase change material, thanks to which, according to AMD, the heat transfer efficiency has been improved by 8%. We will consider the design of the cooling system in more detail a little later.

It is already obvious that the performance of the AMD Radeon HD 6990 is at a fairly high level, which is why AMD is literally pushing the owners of new cards to build Eyefinity configurations. To do this, each Radeon HD 6990 accelerator will be supplied with three adapters: passive miniDP->SL-DVI, active miniDP->SL-DVI and passive miniDP->HDMI.

The leitmotif of the presentation dedicated to the Radeon HD 6990 was the idea of ​​achieving maximum quality in existing games. To do this, AMD suggests using multi-monitor configurations, coupled with image quality improvement techniques such as Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA) and Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing - EQAA. The manufacturer claims 69 games certified for Eyefinity and hundreds more projects that are compatible with this technology.

By the way, the new Eyefinity 5x1 portrait mode will be supported by such expected novelties as Dragon Age II, Total War: Shogun 2, DiRT 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Previously, we have already tested AMD Eyefinity in action, and first on three, and later on six monitors, now, on occasion, we will look at such a configuration.

On the day of the announcement of the Radeon HD 6800 series, a new method of full-screen anti-aliasing, the so-called Morphological AA, was introduced. In fact, this is a special post-filter that smoothes the finished image immediately before displaying it on the screen. As for Enhanced Quality Anti-aliasing (EQAA), a new anti-aliasing option is available on all Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards. Enabling this mode doubles the number of samples per pixel while maintaining the same number of color/depth/pattern samples. This method offers improved smoothing of jagged edges without requiring additional video memory and with minimal performance loss. Note that EQAA can be used in conjunction with modes such as Adaptive AA, Super-Sample AA and MLAA.

AMD did not forget about drivers either. Recently, the Catalyst Control Center, aka CCC, has gained a new user interface, from our point of view, more thoughtful. AMD drivers are gradually becoming more convenient and "overgrown" with new functionality, for example, Catalyst 11.4 should have a function to automatically check for updates. AMD is now applying a new branding scheme:

AMDVISIONcontrolCenter. For systems with AMD APUs, systems with GPUs and CPUs made by AMD, on systems that support PowerXpress.

AMDCatalyst Pro Control Center. For systems with AMD FirePro or FireStream installed.

AMDCatalystcontrolCenter. For systems with AMD GPUs, in systems with PowerXpress support, but all other components may be manufactured by other companies.

Well, this time with the theory everything. Let's move on to the external examination of the Radeon HD 6990 accelerator.

We received a reference sample of AMD Radeon HD 6990 in OEM configuration for testing. The design of the cooling system is not much different from what we saw in the Radeon HD 6970, except that the accelerator itself has become larger and the turbine has moved from the “tail” to the center of the video card. By the way, the dimensions of the Radeon HD 6990 are comparable to those of the Radeon HD 5970, so if your case could fit the latter, then the Radeon HD 6990 will fit without difficulty.

There are 4 miniDP connectors and one DL-DVI connector on the output panel. Connecting devices that are incompatible with these interfaces, AMD suggests using appropriate adapters. Since the company promised to put three adapters in each box with the Radeon HD 6990, the owners of these video cards will have no problems with connecting output devices. Thanks to the placement of all connectors in one row, the upper part of the plug was completely given over to the ventilation grill, through which hot air is ejected by the turbine outside the system unit.

Not far from the CrossFireX connector is the BIOS chip switch. By default, it is set to "2", which means that the video card will work with the frequency formula 830/5000 MHz for the graphics core and video memory, respectively. But as soon as you switch it to position 1, the video card starts working at 880/5000 MHz. Of course, it is necessary to change the position of the toggle switch when the system is powered off.

To power the Radeon HD 6990, you need to connect two eight-pin PCI-Ex connectors.

On the reverse side of the Radeon HD 6990 there is a heat-dissipating plate, in the upper part of which there are a pair of soft "pillows", which apparently serve to prevent contact with other devices installed just above the PCI-Express slot.

The AMD 8647 chip (in fact, the PLX bridge we have long known), which is a PCI-Express switch, contacts the Radeon HD 6990 cooler through a special thermal pad, just like GDDR-5 memory chips. A similar thermal pad is installed on the elements of the HD 6990 power subsystem.

In turn, graphic chips contact with the copper soles of radiators not through a layer of thermal paste, as we are used to seeing, but through the same Phase change thermal interface, which is well known to us from boxed coolers manufactured by Intel. It is worth disassembling the video card once, as, most likely, it will forever lose its original appearance. Of course, no one bothers to remove this thermal interface and apply the paste, however, the cooling system is unlikely to retain its presentation and original properties. By the way, the heatsinks are still based on evaporation chambers that effectively transfer heat from the GPU to the aluminum fins.

The power supply system of the 6990 uses the same components as on the 6970/6950, only here there are almost twice as many of them, because each "half" of the video card has its own GPU and memory power supply system, which is not connected with the second "half". The main difference from the 6970/6950 is that the number of phases on the GPU has been reduced from six to four.

Vgpu - Volterra VT1556MF - 4 phases (for each of the two GPUs)
Vddci - Volterra VT262BWF - 2 phases (for each of the two GPUs)
Vmem (Vdd) - Volterra VT243WF - 1 phase (for each of the "halves" of memory tied to one of the two GPUs).

On the Radeon HD 6990, Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR T2C chips are soldered, the nominal frequency of which is 5 GHz. The total amount of installed video memory is 4 GB, and the operating frequency, regardless of the BIOS chip involved, is 5 GHz.

This is where we finish the external examination of the Radeon HD 6990 and move on to practical tests of the accelerator.