VTX3D HD7990 Review (w/ GTX690 & 6GB HD7970 Toxic CF)

1. Introduction2. The VTX3D HD79903. The VTX3D HD7990 (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage7. Synthetic: 3DMark 118. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.09. Gaming: Alien V Predator (DX 11)10. Gaming: Total War Shogun 2 (DX 11)11. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (DX 10)12. Gaming: Dirt Showdown (DX 11)13. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs (DX 11)14. Gaming: Far Cry 3 (DX 11)15. Crysis 2 (DX 11)16. Gaming: Max Payne 3 (DX 11) - 3 screen17. Technical: Thermal Dynamics18. Technical: Acoustics Performance19. Technical: Power Consumption20. Technical: Overclocking21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

Today we are looking at the VTX3D HD7990 Graphics card, a flagship product created by partners after AMD failed to deliver an official dual GPU product this year. The VTX3D HD7990 in particular has generated a lot of interest as it is the least expensive HD7990 in the UK today available at £679.99 inc vat, significantly cheaper than both Club3D and Powercolor models. Dabs are also offering a £40 cashback voucher in December, bringing the total price to £640 inc vat.

The total cost may still be enough to bring grown men to their knees, but it is worth pointing out that the Nvidia GTX690 is still priced around the £850 point, or around £200 more than the VTX3D HD7990.

The VTX3D HD7990 is based around two Tahiti XT GPU's running at HD7970 speeds of 925mhz core and 1,375mhz memory. The company have added a red button to the card, which we will discuss later in the review.

As the image above shows, the VTX HD7990 graphics card is much larger than a HD7970. The cooling for the card is a custom triple slot design which covers the whole PCB.

Product	AMD HD7970 ‘GHZ' Edition	AMD HD7950	AMD HD7870	VTX3D HD7990
Core Clock speed	1050mhz	800mhz	1000mhz	2 x 925 mhz
Transistors	4.31 billion	4.31 billion	2.8 billion	2 x 4.31 billion
Stream Processors	2,048	1,792	1,280	2 x 2,048
Texture Units	128	112	80	2 x 128
Texture Fillrate	140.8 GT/s	89.6 GT/s	80 GT/s	2 x 118.4 GT/s
ROPs	32	32	32	2 x 32
Pixel Fillrate	33.6 GP/s	25.6 GP/s	32.0 GP/s	2 x 29.6 GP/s
Z/Stencil	128	128	128	2 x 128
Memory Type	3GB GDDR5	3GB GDDR5	2GB GDDR5	2 x 3GB GDDR5
Memory Clock	1,500mhz	1,250mhz	1,200mhz	2 x 1,375mhz
Memory Data Rate	6.0 GBps	5.0 Gbps	4.8 Gbps	2 x 5.5 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	288 GB/s	240 GB/s	153.6 GB/s	2 x 264 GB/s

The two GPU's are allocated six 64 bit memory controllers which are connected to two 256MB GDDR5 modules each, bringing the total memory count to 6GB. Both GPU's have a memory bandwidth of 264GB/s. It is important to note that the HD7990 is not based around two of the latest HD7970 ‘GHZ' Edition cards, hence the more modest clock speeds of 925mhz. We will look at overclocking later in the review to see if we can push both GPU cores to 1,000mhz+.

VTX3D seem to frequently use artwork featuring the old ATI Mascot RUBY. We get very nostalgic when we reminiscence about Ruby.

The VTX3D HD7990 bundle is extensive, featuring a Crossfire cable, power and video converters and a weight lifter device which can be used to support the HD7990 in the socket. As the card weighs 1.8KG it does put a lot of strain on the PCIe slot and motherboard PCB.

The card is simply gargantuan, based around a metal three slot cooling system with a triple fan configuration. The cooler and PCB are all black, with only the VTX3D stickers offering any kind of colourful relief. The PCB also has a black backplate covering the PCB. This will protect the card and help improve cooling proficiency under load.

If you have a large bank balance, then you will be pleased to hear that this card is Crossfire capable in a 2 way configuration. Obviously with two GPU's on each card you would end up with a Quad Crossfire system across the two cards.

Yes, this card requires 3 x 8 pin PCIe power cables to operate correctly. This translates into around 525W of potential power demand.

There is a single DVI port, and a dual link DVI port on the back I/O plate, along with a full sized HDMI port and two mini Displayports. All outputs can be used at the same time. The red button can be depressed to access the secondary bios. Both bioses are configured to 925mhz, however only one of them will allow for successful overclocking. We will explain this in more detail later in the review.

We like the fact that a lot of the hot air generated by the card will be forced outside the case, thanks to the venting design.

Above, we can see this card is a beast and will only fit into a case which can accommodate a 312mm length graphics card. Worth checking into before parting with the money. VTX3D asked us not to dismantle this card as it had to be returned for an important event. We do know that the card features a total of 16+1 power phases, with six phases allocated for each GPU and two for each set of memory chips.

A GPUz overview of the hardware as discussed in detail on the previous page.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

For this review today we aren't comparing against the array of products we tested in 2012. Instead we are comparing directly against an ASUS GTX690 and two Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition cards running in Crossfire. All cards are using the latest Beta drivers at time of release from both Nvidia and AMD, placed inside an overclocked Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition system with 16GB of 2,400mhz memory.

The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition was one of the fastest cards we tested in 2012, so we thought that adding two of them into a Crossfire configuration would make for an interesting comparison.

The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition is hard to get hold of now in the United Kingdom but the retail price is around £550 for each card, bringing the total cost to around £1,100. This is the most expensive solution on test today and has a combined GDDR5 memory count of 12GB. We run both cards with ‘Lethal Boost' enabled, setting the clock speeds to 1,200mhz core and 1,600mhz memory.

Test System

Processor: Core i7 3960 X Extreme Edition @ 4.4ghz
Graphics Card: VTX3D HD7990 (Catalyst 12.11 Beta)
Cooler: Antec 920 H20
Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung
Monitors: Dell U3011 and Dell U2410 x 3.

Comparison cards:
Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition x 2 (Crossfire w/ Lethal Boost Enabled) (Catalyst 12.11 Beta)
Asus GTX690 (Forceware 310.70)

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:

Far Cry 2
Far Cry 3
Alien V Predator
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Shogun 2
Dirt Showdown
Crysis 2: Maximum Edition
Max Payne 3

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.

The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Editions in Crossfire averages the highest frame rate, although the minimum frame rate is also the lowest as we experienced a couple of micro stutters during specific parts of the benchmark. The VTX3D HD7990 and ASUS GTX690 are very evenly matched, although the VTX3D HD7990 averages just over 2 frames per second higher throughout the benchmark.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

Again, the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition in CrossfireX claims the top position, scoring 61,825 points. The VTX3D HD7990 takes second place scoring almost 56,000 points. The Asus GTX690 takes last place in the chart with a score of 52,590 points.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition cards in Crossfire take top spot, however the VTX3D HD7990 and Asus GTX690 trade positions for 3rd and 2nd place respectively.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here

	VTX3D HD7990
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	7
Total	196

A score of 196 points is class leading right now, the ideal solution for high definition media playback on a big screen.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 2560×1600 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so cards are comparable throughout reviews.

The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Cards in Crossfire average 211 frames per second, ahead of both VTX3D HD7990 and GTX690. This engine has always favoured AMD hardware, but the results are clearly in favour of the VTX3D HD7990 averaging 180 fps v 163 fps for the GTX690.

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.

We run the DX11 Graphics High 1080p benchmark, available for this game in STEAM. You can therefore directly compare against your own system. Frame rates are rounded up or down to the nearest digit.

As expected by now, we can see the Toxic 6GB Edition cards claiming top spot by a comfortable margin. The VTX3D HD7990 outperforms the GTX690 in this engine by around 19 frames per second.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 2560×1600, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High).

This engine is strong with Nvidia hardware and drivers, and we can see the Nvidia GTX690 outperforming the VTX3D HD7990 by around 10 frames per second. That said, the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition cards in Crossfire are around 9 frames per second faster than the Asus GTX690.

Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

We configured the game at the ULTRA preset with a 1080p resolution and 8x MSAA.

A strong engine for AMD hardware and drivers. We can see the Asus GTX690 slots in at the bottom, with an average frame rate of 109, dropping to 80 in the most intensive sections of the environment. The VTX3D HD7990 is significantly faster with this title, averaging 135 frames per second. The Sapphire HD7970 Toxic Edition 6GB claims the top spot.

Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

We are using the highest possible image quality settings at 1080p, including the high resolution texture pack.

This is a very demanding game and the settings we have selected today can drop below 25 fps with a single GTX680. The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition cards in Crossfire average over 100 frames per second, which is an incredible result. The VTX3D HD7990 is only a little behind, averaging 90 frames per second. The Asus GTX690 takes the bottom position averaging 73 frames per second.

All solutions are perfectly playable at these settings which is impressive.

Far Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal in conjunction with Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Red Storm, Ubisoft Reflections, and Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to 2008′s Far Cry 2. It has received a lot of acclaim from the public and is up for contention as Game of the Year via many publications.

We configured this game to run with extremely high image quality settings, as shown above.

While the Sapphire Toxic cards are out in the front, the battle between the VTX3D HD7990 and GTX690 is closely run and too close to call in the real world. We did notice a very slight edge for the HD7990 however, averaging a couple of frames per second extra in our test environment.

A sequel set 3 years after the original game, Crysis 2 takes place in New York City in 2023. The player controls Alcatraz, a US Marine who is found almost dead by Prophet, and given the upgraded Nanosuit 2 before he (Prophet) commits suicide. He is then tasked by Prophet to rescue a scientist named Nathan Gould. At first, Alcatraz has to face Crynet's CELL agents, a mercenary force who police Manhattan, still thinking that Alcatraz is Prophet. After discovering Ceph capsules and Catalyst, the Ceph take over as the main antagonists for the rest of the game.

Alcatraz and Gould team up with Tara Strickland, an undercover CIA lieutenant, and Jacob Hargreave, the original creator of the nanosuit. Alcatraz eventually enters the Ceph core spire and wipes out all the Ceph in New York. Now facing death again, he meets a memory pattern of Prophet, whose DNA is merged into Alcatraz's. The game closes with Alcatraz being contacted by Karl Rasch, a nanosuit scientist, and vowing to continue the war against the Ceph.

We configured the game to run at maximum image quality settings with the high resolution texture pack installed.

The battle between the GTX690 and HD7990 is interesting because while the HD7990 averages a little higher, the minimum frame rates are also lower.

Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Max Payne 3 features a similar over-the-shoulder camera as its predecessors, with the addition of a cover mechanic, while also retaining much of the same run-and-gun style of gameplay. Max Payne 3 also marks the return of bullet-time in action sequences, for which the franchise is notable.

In bullet-time it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. New to the series is a “Last Stand” mechanic, which gives the player a grace period after losing all health during which time the player may kill the enemy that wounded them in order to continue playing, however this mechanic is only usable if the player has one or more bottles of painkillers in their possession.

For this Max Payne 3 test we set the anti aliasing to 2x and Tessellation to High, enabling Direct X 11. At these settings, the game demanded 1813MB of memory.

Max Payne 3 ran very well on both AMD solutions, but we experienced a crash with the GTX690 which we couldn't fix for the review.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The VTX3D HD7990 cooler is actually very capable, maintaining temperatures under 70c when gaming. The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition cards run hotter in CrossfireX as they are closely situated in the slots.

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Nvidia win this round easily, as their GTX690 is the quietest of the cards on test, by a noticeable margin. The Sapphire HD7970 6GB generates a noticeable level of noise in single card formation with Lethal Boost enabled. With two of them in Crossfire, the noise rises significantly to around 40 dBa when gaming. The fastest solution is also the loudest.

The VTX3D HD7990 can be heard under gaming load but the noise level is acceptable for a gamer who wants ultimate performance.

To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.

In such an energy aware climate, AMD are making a big deal out of their new ‘ZeroCore Power’ technology. Many solutions today use power gating, clock gating and memory compression to reduce idle power requirements, but ZeroCore power technology can completely power down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.

The Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition drains a lot of power at the socket, and when two are combined into a CrossfireX system, you will easily be sucking over 500Watts from the power supply under gaming load. The fastest configuration is also the most power hungry.

The VTX3D HD7990 demands just over 300 watts when gaming, rising to over 560 watts under a synthetic stress test. The Asus GTX690 takes our top position, a very efficient design which only demands 276 watts when gaming.

It would be fair to say that none of these solutions are a great choice to reduce your electricity footprint however!

Ideally you would want a quality 850watt+ power supply for the VTX3D HD7990.

To overclock today we are using Catalyst Control Center. Overclocking initially was problematic.

On the I/O plate of the VTX3D HD7990 is a red button. This is a dual button BIOS switch, with both core speeds configured to a turbo of 925mhz. You can however only overclock this card with the button pressed inwards.

Another obstacle had to be removed. AMD's ULPS needs disabled – this is the way that AMD reduce power demand from the second card in Crossfire, although it causes issues for overclocking, causing a BSOD with the VTX3D HD7990. Open REGEDIT, search for ‘enableULPS' and change the registry value from 1 to 0.

To confirm ULPS is off you can check the second card readings in GPUz. If GPUz shows ULPS is still active then it hasn't worked.

It is important to note that you need to overclock both HD7970 GPU's in Catalyst Control Center to the same speeds and apply the changes.

We managed to push both GPU cores to 1,050mhz, from 925mhz which translates to a 13.5% increase. The GDDR5 memory could be overclocked from 1,375mhz to 1,500mhz, translating to a 9% increase. Every sample will be slightly different although this takes each of the GPU cores to the latest HD7970 ‘GHZ' AMD Edition standard.

The high overclock helps generate another 1,100 points, from 15,113 to 16,244. A healthy increase.

There is no doubt that the new VTX3D HD7990 is a heck of a performance solution targeting the high end audience. We tested today with a couple of older titles such as Crysis 2, Far Cry 2 and the latest Direct X 11 games such as Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3 and Dirt Showdown. While certain games will run better on the GTX690, there is no questioning that the VTX3D HD7990 can battle head to head against the Nvidia GTX690.

The Asus GTX690 is a fantastic card that delivers incredible frame rates with the most demanding games on the market today. The only problem has been the price point, which at one stage was close to £1,000. Pricing is dropping however and the bigger UK stores such as Overclockers have deals on specific brands for around the £770 inc vat mark.

The VTX3D HD7990 is very interesting however, primarily because of the very competitive price point. DABS are selling the card for £679.99 inc vat with a voucher code to get £40 off immediately. This drops the price to a very competitive £640 inc vat. These are strictly limited edition cards and there are only 5 left as we publish this review.

Today we included some results from two of the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition graphics cards running in Crossfire. When these cards were released they were selling for around £550 inc vat each. There is no doubt that this is the fastest solution on test today, but at well over £1,000 for a pair it is also clearly the most expensive. The power drain from two of these cards in Crossfire is also significantly higher than either VTX3D HD7990 or GTX690, demanding 530watts under gaming load. With two cards running at the faster 1,200mhz ‘Lethal Boost' setting, noise emissions are also irritating.

This is when the Nvidia GTX690 chalks up some points. The reference cooler is the quietest, and the design is also the most power efficient, demanding around 275 watts under gaming load.

The VTX3D HD7990 is louder than the GTX690, and it also requires around 30 watts more from the power supply when gaming. Nvidia's solution has many praiseworthy characteristics to warrant a recommendation to the wealthy gaming enthusiast. That said, The VTX3D HD7990 cooler has clearly been tweaked to deliver a high level of cooling proficiency, as it produced the best results from any of the high end solutions on test today.

Overclocking the VTX3D HD7990 can reap a noticeable reward, however you need to be sure you have the red switch configured with the correct BIOS setting and will then manually disable AMD's ULPS feature in the Windows registry. We explained how to do this on the overclocking page, but if you try to overclock with the secondary bios and ULPS enabled, the system will BSOD.

While every card will overclock to a different level, there is noticeable headroom with this card, as we managed to push both cores from 925mhz to 1,050mhz and the GDDR5 memory to 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective). This is obviously still not as quick as two Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Editions (1,200mhz) in Crossfire, but the savings of £400+ are certainly not to be ignored.

If you are in the market for an ultra high end graphics card, then the VTX3D HD7990 is priced the lowest of them all. When you factor in that PowerColor and Club3D HD7990 cards are all built around the same design, then it makes sense to get the cheapest option. Pick one up from DABS for only £640 inc vat (after the £40 voucher saving is factored into the price), while they are still in stock.

Pros:

• Fantastic frame rates.
• Great cooling proficiency.
• Plenty of Overclocking headroom.
• Decent power drain characteristics when compared to two high end HD7970's.
• ‘Bargain' Dual GPU HD7970 price.

Cons:

• Clearly audible under load.
• An overclocked bios setting at 1,000mhz would make sense, rather than both the same.
• Very heavy.
• Needs a good 850W+ power supply.

Kitguru says: This is an excellent card which is competitively priced, especially when considering the flagship dual GPU competition.

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