Review AMD Radeon HD 6990 vs Asus GTX 590

Can not every year the two major tenors next to each other with graphics cards that contain two processors. Last year, Nvidia has missed the boat, two years AMD has the fastest graphics card on the market. This year AMD Nvidia put the guy off by two weeks for the launch of Nvidia's flagship itself a reference card on the market.

Now both are on our test bench, ready to sweat.

Giant Cards
Since both processors contain two graphics cards, they are exceptionally large. The GTX 590 measuring 27 cm, the Radeon HD 6990 is doing with some centimeters to 31 cm. Such major draw cards for great performances. Asus has given us his version of the GTX 590 sent. Which hardly differs from the standard Nvidia solution.

AMD's flagship not only looks impressive from, it also contains a special switch to card a boost. This lets you easily switch between two different BIOS settings. By default it comes with a maximum consumption of 375 watts and clock speeds are lower than the Radeon HD 6970. Turn up the second set, then climbs the maximum power to 450 watts.

Because it lies outside the formal specifications of a computer power supply, AMD recommends that this function only with quality power supplies with high power. If you use the fastest setting, each core is equivalent to a Radeon HD 6970. In theory, this doubles the speed to ensure, but experience teaches us something that rarely succeeds.

Nvidia's GTX 590, but has a BIOS setting. The clock speeds are compared to the GTX 580 significantly reduced from 772 to 608 MHz. Nvidia has done this to avoid heat problems and consumption within limits. The result is a pretty quiet card, compared with AMD's Radeon HD 6990, thanks to a fan at low speed the card perfectly cool.

Little difference
The test results indicate that there is little difference between the two cards. One test shows a clear advantage to AMD, and Nvidia better scores in other benchmarks. The main benchmark for DirectX 11 is 3DMark 11, and there let Nvidia AMD far behind.

When we found the 2.5-Heaven's also a heavy DirectX 11 benchmark, then Nvidia gets very narrow margin. Even in games with DirectX 10 support and the 3DMark Vantage benchmark, the difference slightly in favor of Nvidia.

It is difficult to indicate a pronounced winner, because the results are so close together. Future drivers will have control over who can definitively distinguished. With the price in mind, we prefer provisionally to AMD's Radeon HD 6990.

AMD Radeon HD 6990
Price: 599 euros (May 2011)

PRO: four DisplayPort outputs, scores well in DirectX 11 applications.
CONTRA: extremely large, very noisy under load, but a DVI connection.

Asus GTX 590
UK Price: 713 euros (May 2011)
UK Price: 699 euros (May 2011)

PRO: relatively quiet, three DVI connectors.
CONTRA: can be very hot; price.