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We would normally test these cards in a lower specified system, but today we wanted to see how the HD6790 will fit into the wider scheme of the market, so we are calling upon our Core i7 970 test bed which is overclocked to 4.33ghz. We have used this system to test many of our samples in recent months so it means with the synthetic benchmark testing we can get a better overview of overall market performance levels.
Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: OCZ ZX 1250W
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 7-8-7-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Dell 3011, Dell U2410 UltraSharp, Sanyo 50 inch LCD Television.
Other graphics cards:
Nvidia GTX590
Nvidia GTX580
Nvidia GTX570
XFX HD5970 Black Edition 4GB (QuadFireX)
AMD HD6990
AMD HD6970
AMD HD6950
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850
AMD HD5870
AMD HD5850
Sapphire HD5770 Vapor X Edition (860mhz core)
MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II
nVidia GTX570
nVidia GTX 550 ti (900/1026)
nVidia GTX460 OC (715/900)
Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 11.4
Forceware 266.58 WHQL
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
HQV 2.0 Software
Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Games:
Mafia 2
Resident Evil 5
Far Cry 2
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Home Front
Total War: Shogun 2
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.
Thats a nice looking card for the price. like the cooler a lot. dual fans on a card with a modest power delivery is always going to work well.
Interesting to see they have opted for direct contact heatpipes. seems to work a treat.
Might be a better deal than the £105 HD5850 from sapphire, close call though.
I still think Sapphire have crapped on the 6 series mid range party with the HD5850 at that price, its a better card overall, and costs less. unless you want multiple screens or something, id still opt for it at the reduced price.
Very nice. THese are the cards people buy, not HD6990’s. i could insure my car for a year for that.
Good card, but, and its a BIG BIG but. The HD5850 which sapphire brought out again with awesome cooler.
Surely this is THE buy of the moment? or am I missing something
Big fan of dual fan cards myself, bought an ASUS Direct CU recently and its so much quieter than my last card
CFx is really good, but for £230 you could almost get a 6970.
Great looking board for the price, its 15 euros cheaper than sapphires here.
Dual fan coolers always work well and thankfully the companies know not to cut costs by using crappy fans that make a lot of noise. I think this one is a winner for XFX. price is good too, I was expecting it to be 130.
I want to aim higher, but im having problems getting the funds I need. this might do me and I can upgrade with another later in the year.
Just remember that when you are moving to CrossfireX that it is very driver based. if a new game is out it is a good chance you will have it beaten by the time AMD sort out the profile. it sucks from that point of view.