KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Out of all the component categories, none causes more passionate debate than the graphics card sector. The release of the GTX590 was always going to cause emotions to run high, after all this could have been a monumental release for nVidia – reclaiming the top performance spot from under the feet of AMD.
Unfortunately for nVidia as our indepth testing today shows, the GTX590 struggles to keep up with the HD6990, even when AMD's card is switched to the lower of the two bios profiles. Before we factor in our final verdict, lets have a recap over all the results today.
When we started the review we wanted to try and get as broad a series of results as possible. This meant a combination of older classic titles such as Resident Evil 5 and Far Cry 2, mixed in with newer games such as Dead Space 2 and Total War Shogun 2. No matter how anyone will try and spin it, the HD6990 is simply the faster card. Every publication will have a different system for rating and ranking cards, and if we concentrated on three or four ‘TWIMTBP' titles such as Crysis 2 and HAWX 2 then the HD6990 would get a thrashing, but we feel that the final verdict needs to called from a much wider source of engines and routines.
Unigine Heaven Benchmark is a very ‘even handed' benchmark, and one that KitGuru really does value. Until the latest generation of cards, AMD were getting annihilated, but the HD 6xxx series of cards has been overhauled to improve on tessellation performance. Sure, you could argue it's not indicative of a real world game, but it has the potential to show how future titles will perform.
3Dmark Vantage shows that the GTX590 has the edge, however when we move to the more modern Direct X 11 intensive 3DMark 11, the AMD HD6990 delivers a clear performance lead. HQV Benchmark 2.0 shows that AMD still maintain their position as image quality leader, although Nvidia seem to be closing the gap, especially with recent driver releases.
The GTX590 has a hard time compensating for the very low reference clocks which are much worse than the GTX 580. A quick perusal of results indicates that the pair are running almost 20 percent slower than the individual card solutions.
I have always used Nvidia cards for folding@home, and while I haven't had time to extensively test the hardware over a period of weeks, my findings indicate that while a GTX580 can deliver around 17,000 to 18,000 points a day, the GTX590 struggles to deliver 13,000 points a day from each GPU.
The GTX590 certainly gets a win when it comes to noise levels, and Nvidia do deserve some credit for the very impressive dBa emissions which prove to be much better than the HD6990's reference cooling solution. We are positive that AMD partners will be releasing new cooling solutions in the coming months, with multiple fans and optimised cooling profiles.
Value for both of these cards is almost secondary, as the people who will buy them won't be worried about minor differences in pricing. Unfortunately the GTX590 pricing in the UK right now is extortionate. A HD6990 can be bought for £515 inc vat, whereas the GTX590 is being sold for £570 inc vat. This MSI card recently saw a drop from £600, and many others are being sold for a jaw dropping £650 inc vat. Never mind the free mouse, its time for a second mortgage.
So today we have the new Nvidia solution which is not only slower than the HD6990, but surprisingly costs quite a bit more. It is quieter, but it demands more power, and it also is significantly more expensive than pairing up two similar performing Nvidia cards into an SLI system build.
The Asus GTX590 is without question a very fast video card which delivers insane frame rates across three screens. We love that this card supports up to four monitors out of the box, without having to purchase another. KitGuru firmly believes that multiple screen gaming is the future.
The GTX590 also runs quietly, and generates noticeably less noise than AMD's HD6990 graphics card. Sadly it also demands more power, both when idle and at load.
As a gaming card, it has not usurped the HD6990 from the top spot, but Nvidia have clearly been concerned with long term power demands as the reference clocks are very modest. There is actually a reasonable level of overclocking headroom from the design which means that we should start seeing overclocked partner cards hitting retail over the coming months. We can expect to see modified cards soon from Nvidia partners such as Asus, MSI and Zotac.
Nvidia might still claim that this is the world's fastest video card, but we simply see no way they can justify this. In fairness, there is no single software package or game which is used to judge the ‘overall' performance of a video card, but we would assume that many would be using 3dMark 11 as a yardstick, after all it is the latest DX11 suite from the Industry leaders, Futuremark.
In this case then the HD6990 is a clear leader, scoring over 9,600 points, when compared with just under 9,000. Driver optimisations may improve this score slightly over time, but the gap is just too big to negate. Measuring performance across a wide suite of modern gaming titles indicate that the HD6990 is also the best card for enthusiast gamers.
Pros:
- smaller than HD6990
- quieter than HD6990
- 3D Vision Surround from one card (finally)
- Overclocks pretty well
Cons:
- Slower than HD6990.
- Takes more power
- more expensive than HD6990.
Kitguru says: nVidia's GTX590 is not as good as the Radeon HD 6990. We do however like that it supports more than one screen.
The Asus HD6990 is a stunning card, built on the reference AMD design which we have reviewed before. AMD have been the ultimate performance leader now for many years, since the launch of the Radeon HD 5970. Nvidia have not been able to answer the challenge set down by the Radeon HD 6990. This is our favourite high performance video card on the market and there are many reasons why.
It is the fastest video card on the market, by a significant margin. New games such as Total War Shogun 2 and Dragon Age 2 run much better on the HD6990, especially across multiple panels. While the GTX590 can now support multiple screens, the AMD solution has better support, for up to 6 screens, per card.
The HD6990 is not a quiet card, but the power optimisations are fantastic, especially when factoring in the insane performance levels. At peak, it draws at least 27 watts less than the GTX590. Even at idle it demands around 13 watts less than the GTX590, which is not to be overlooked, especially if your system is left on for many hours a day.
Pros:
- the fastest graphics card on the planet
- power demands are very good, considering the performance
- cheaper than the GTX590
- good scaling in QuadFireX
Cons:
- very long card, much larger than GTX590
- can get fairly loud under extended load
Kitguru says: The ultimate video card.
HD6990 is much better, good review thanks.
£666 for a GTX590 ? is that a joke or an April fools. its still march.
GTX590 is a pretty good card, but at that price it would be a cold day in hell before I would hit the credit card. HD6990 is almost justifiable at that price, but id still opt for a GTX580 or HD6970.
I dont think the gtx590 is getting hammered, its beaten for sure. I dont think anyone would argue that (well the fanboys might).
The pricing is the disaster. its way overpriced. It needs to drop to £500 inc vat, or even less.
So its more power hungry, is worse with DX11 games and costs more. Yeah, sounds like a great product. 8/10 my ass.
8/10 is fair, cause Nvidia have brought out a single card which supports multiple screens. everyone needs to calm down, its like AMD central here.
Seems fair all round. I wouldnt even have included HAWX 2, as its so biased its unreal.
A lot of people are missing the point, the GTX590 is smaller, quieter and looks nicer. It is also close performance to the HD6990 regardless of whether its slightly slower. I think its a win for nv
@ Sarajam – the ‘card looks nicer’. lol, seriously, get a clue.
It was all fine and dandy until the conclusion page. the pricing is just ludicrous. Someone needs to bash a few heads and figure out what they are doing.
I cant see them selling tons of these. they might do if it ate the 6990 for breakfast, but its slower and more expensive? Hey nvidia, you arent apple. Honestly.
Rather disappointed. I trust Z’s reviews and im a little underwhelmed. especially with the folding performance, thats a great indicator. my GTX570 scores more than one of those GPUs.
Its just out 4 months too late. they might have had a good run with this, although at £600 I doubt it. I wonder how many of these cards they will sell.
GTX590 is a monster card, its a powerhouse.
AMD have just excelled this time, everyone knows it, Nvidia must have just uttered a monumental grown when it was released. The 590 will still sell well as people dont trust the Catalyst drivers. even if they are better now.
@ hank. I think what he was saying was that the card is a nicer design all round which it is. its smaller, quieter, will work in more chassis designs.
It is a fault of AMD, they rely too much on those tiny tiny red fans, no matter what coolers they make. Nvidia have some sense on their cooler designs. AMD need to really sort this out, but they keep doing it, for years and years. Its a little like making the fastest car in the world then putting the cheapest tyres on it that you can find.
all of the games nv won are: ”twimtbp”
Not really a shock, as they well known to ‘optimise’ specific engines
amd/ati has come up with a very good performance card which performs nicely under all situations. nvidia has always had some flaws and unfortunately even though i has some good cards almost all of them have the same flaws which is 1) price 2) power consumption 3)next gen compatibility (since ati has always been a tad bit ahead when it came to utilizing directX features in its cards).
and i read somewhere that someone said amd is still using the same “small” fans. its not about the size its about how many cfm of air it sucks in and how well the cooling options work givien with that amount of air..which i also know is better then nvidia with thier “big” cooling fans.
Excellent, well detailed and fair all round. It’s a good card but just outclassed by 6990. At least it was made very clear here.
For those who still believe in better cooler designs by nVidia please visit hardware.fr for thermal shots. HD6990: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/822-4/dossier-amd-radeon-hd-6990-carte-tous-records.html
GTX 590: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/825-4/dossier-nvidia-repond-amd-avec-geforce-gtx-590.html
Who still believe that nVidia has a better cooling solution must have their eyes checked. All nVidia did is calibrated their fan to work as silent as possible at the edge of temperature limits acceptable for work. The thing is that such calibration significally increase chanses of failure. What AMD does with fan calibration on their cards – is a greater reliability at a cost of higher noise. Their cooling solutions are at the same level of effectiveness as Nvidia’s if not better.
Great review! While I was always more of an NVidia user, I never turned into a “fanboy” and always preferred to choose between ATI/AMD and NVidia based on the performance-price ratio and not on the brand. It’s good that the two brands continue to compete – that way every user gets something that suits their needs. Respect to AMD for making something that powerful (though £515 is still way too much for me – I’d rather go with SLI/Crossfire with two cheaper cards). Meanwhile, NVidia should think of revising the price of GTX590, unless they want the HD6990 to steal all their customers =) And the “tiny red fans” are not AMD’s fault: if you have noticed, both cards in the review are released by Asus. They could have upgraded the cooling there.
Hmm, I wonder about the SLI/Crossfire performance of these two cards… Must be pretty insane 🙂
Daimler, if the AMD cooler is just as good, if not better, then how can you explain why the 6990, a card that uses less power, is noisier than the GTX590 without being any cooler, if not hotter if other benchmarks are to be believed.
Redemption80
Ok, if my last post was not clear enough… all other reviewers are not actually testing the temperature! They just take readings from the driver and post them as results. So basically they take nVidia’s word for the results, they’re not proof testing them at all (!!!). nVidia calibrates their thermal sensor and nVidia can make their driver/BIOS to report ANY TEMPERATURE THEY WANT! And if it is in their best interest to manipulate temperature readings – they will manipulate them. There is only one site I know, where people actually performed a temperature testing by taking pictures with thermograph. Links to those pictures are in my post above. They speak for themselves. Forget about all other “temperature tests”, because they are NOT RELIABLE.
The thermal shot of GTX590 shows that the temperature of the board rises up to 112 Celsius in stock mode!!! And man – THAT’S A LOT. From my personal experience – reaching 116-117 Celsius will cause GPU and/or components failure in 99% of cases (usually this failure will force a system reboot, preventing permanent damage to the components). Long term work at 112C will fasten component degradation in 100% cases. GTX 590 is simply not built to last. I’m not even talking about overclock. Lots of dead cards in the first week after the product launch supports my argument.
And now look at the HD6990’s thermal shots at the same site – it barely exceeds 90 Celsius in stock mode. Now that’s a difference!!! This temperature ensures long term operation and safety of the components at a cost of a higher noise level. Basically you can tweak HD6990’s cooler to be quieter with temperature closer to GTX590 and the card still will be completely operational, but no as safe as with stock cooler calibration.
PS sorry for my bad English 🙂
Your english seems pretty good to me Daimler.; thanks for taking the time to post the information.