3DNN

This comparison is the most interesting because we think the AMD Radeon HD 6990 might be overpriced. At $699 it just can't compete with the lower prices that are currently available on single Radeon HD 6970 video cards. Right now, you can purchase a Radeon HD 6970 for $320 with rebate. At that price, the total cost for 6970 CrossFireX comes to $640; a $60 savings compared to the lesser performing Radeon HD 6990. The less expensive Radeon HD 6970 CrossFireX setup will give you the full 880MHz GPU core frequency and 5.5GHz memory frequency per GPU out-of-the-box.


In our testing today, we have shown that the extra core frequency and memory frequencies did add up to better performance with 6970 CrossFireX. In fact in Civilization V, this allowed us to play at a higher AA setting, providing a better gameplay experience on the Radeon HD 6970 CrossFireX setup. We were also able to run at 8X MSAA on the HD 6970 CFX setup vs. 4X AA on the HD 6990 in F1 2010. In every game the HD 6970 CFX configuration was always a bit faster in framerates.

We had high expecations of the HD6990 and the card definitely delivered. It is extremely gratifying to know that we can play just about any game at the maximum setting and still get great framerates. Needless to say, this card is fast. We liked Eyefinity and the fact that it is possible to set up a 3-monitor Eyefinity setup with DVI monitors is great news, as it means that creating such a cool multi-monitor setup will no longer be as expensive. While the dual-BIOS solution with the overclocked BIOS is an interesting idea, we are not sure if it is that useful, since our testing showed a negligible performance increase.