6990M review at anandtech.

AnandTech - AMD Raises the Mobile Performance Bar with Radeon HD 6990M

EDIT: After reading, more of a preview, but it looks good for a nice performance increase.

 

Woah its so much faster it them scales where real. :3

Thanks for the link anyways.

 

Wow! 10-20% faster than the 580m. Home run AMD! That's a HOME RUN!

 

Hey now, lets not jump that far, remember those graphs are from AMD themselves.

However I think they will be on the same level with an advantage to the 6990M in crossfire.

Certainly the cheaper option too.

 

This is why I love AMD and am a fanboy : cheaper than nvidia, but much, MUCH better.

Nvidia guys can't brag about PhysX and CUDA anymore, since AMD has it now . ( AMD EyeSpeed, AMD Stream and AMD APP )

 

wait...AMD has PhysX now? for like Batman Arkham City and Alice: Madness Returns? Does this mean I can fianlly enable High/Ultra PhysX in the settings?

if so....this is awesome!

 

Thats a great mobile video card . nVidia is very expensive; but i buy always ATi graphics cards because when 3dfx was bought by nVidia the geforce 3 Ti flow out of the window because i was very angry xD. I have made with nearly all ATi ( now AMD) cards good experiences.
The HD6690M will definitely come into my new laptop wich i plan to order soon as a desktop replacement.

 

I dont think AMD has built in PhysX i am expecting something like Havok wich is compatible to PhysX

 

Nooo!

It is a AMD equivalent : meaning AMD has that tech which is as good as nvidia's counterpart, now it's left to devs to use it.

Also, AMD Bullet Physics >>>>>>>>>>>> PhysX.

Just sayian'

And you CAN play batman with PhysX. but stupid nvidia bottlenecks the performance to make us buy nvidia. Otherwise, AMD is MORE than capable of running PhysX.

 

If the claims are true then yes... AMD has a winner.
Reminder... there are no true benchmarks there from non-AMD sources.
Also, it depends on price...

 

I would accept something around the geforce 580 m prices perhaps even 100 Euro more. But the performance is great.

 

I don't really care if the performance is hindered--but can I at least enable the high PhysX setting in the menu?

 

It won't be 10-20% faster than the 580M unless Cat 11.7 is a miracle worker. I expect it to be a tiny bit faster (like 5%), but most importantly, cheaper.

 

its like 10-20% faster than 6970m. how would that make it 10-20% faster than 580m lol.

it is alot cheaper though which is nice

 

yeah, the comparisons are directly from AMD.

I can believe 10-20% faster than a 6970..., which is a nose-hair slower than a 485m. The 580m is 10% faster than a 485m. Which means, more than likely the 6990m and 580m will be close with the 6990m having the edge.

Again, benchmarks from neutral sources are in order.
Its not wise to take either AMD or Nvidia's word who is the fastest...

 

Apparently you didn't look too closely at the benchmarks:

 

the problem is that they emulated the gtx 580m, by downclocking a gtx 560 ti, and using a phenom II clocked at 3.4ghz

and to add I hate those graphics! they are too misleading

 

I agree, but so far that's the story. I don't think a Phenom II would cripple performance of any of those games.

Third party results will tell the true story. Hopefully AMD sent samples out to various publications so we can get some real answers!

 

These are the non-graph numbers, according to AMD:

Some custom resolutions require user configuration.
In tests conducted in AMD performance labs at 1920x1080, simulating mobile performance with a down-clocked desktop test system the AMD Radeon™ HD 6990M-based system was measured to be faster than the Nvidia GeForce 580M in the following benchmarks:

Dragon Age 2 at 4AA/16AF: (23.69% faster)
Total War: Shogun 2 at 2xAA/16xAF: (10.36% faster)
Aliens vs. Predator at 2xAA/8xAF: (13.19% faster)
Batman: Arkham Asylum at 4xAA/16xAF: (16.85% faster)
ET: Quake Wars at 8xAA/16xAF: (25.82% faster)
Just Cause 2 at 0xAA/2xAF: (14.22% faster)
Left 4 Dead 2 at 0xAA/0xAF: (8.30% faster)
Metro2033 at AAA/4xAF: (11.40% faster)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena at 4xAA/8xAF: (15.32% faster)
Wolfenstein MP at 8xAA/16xAF: (16.59% faster)

Tests conducted with the following configuration: Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3, AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 (2.4GHz), 4GB (2GBX2GB), DDR3 system memory, Microsoft® Windows® 7 64-bit Ultimate operating system. Drivers: AMD Catalyst 8.861 RC1, NVIDIA Driver 275.33 WHQL.

 

Yes you can, but you will have the performance at 10-13 FPS in PhysX-intense scenes.

 

So glad I waited on buying a 6970m.

 

It is still a win either way. Cheaper and on par with the 580m in the worst case.
I say "on par" because AMD are exaggerating their benchmarks a bit when they make announcements (a bit more than Nvidia, hehe).

The interesting thing here will be the price over the 6970M and availability on the majority of Clevo retailers.

When the 580M came out the availability on them was almost instant.

 

...except that noone is actually using AMD's versions. Name me 3 games that support AMD physics? One at least?

AMD sure does provide the best bang for your buck when it comes to 3D processing power, but if you need extra features like PhysX and especially 3D, nVidia is your only choice.

 

3DMark 11.

AMD's features are incredibly recent. Not even 1 year.

3D can be achieved easily with AMD ( iZ3D and HD3D and DDD ). Even in proprietary games like Metro 2033.

 

AMD's physics are from the Bullet Physics library which has been an open source effort for many years. I do not know how many games actually offload the physics to the GPU, but with Bullet Physics is used in many projects. On open source merits alone, I'd recommend Bullet Physics. But given that it also uses a standardized method to offload computation to the GPU (via OpenCL or DirectCompute) and that it can also work on Nvidia GPUs, I must say it is a vastly better product, and for free. PS: 3dMark11 uses Bullet Physics.

As for this graphics card, it looks very nice. I have no need for it, but I'd like to see actual benchmarks sooner than later

 

Yay, another PhysX/Havoc argument.

*Goes to get blanket and popcorn*

 

1 - What about the remote and the couch?
2 - Havok is made by Intel. This is an AMD/Nvidia argument, since Bullet Physics is by AMD and PhysX is by Nvidia.
3 - The ticket isn't free man... Price is 5 cookies

 

I "kinda" care about PhysX (since I wanna play Arkham City and Alice: Madness Returns at max!!! fluently) but 3D I don't care at all (mostly since I percieve mobile GPUs too weak to play maxed out with 3D).

 

If you have AMD, you'll never max those fluently ( with PhysX ). Nvidia bottlenecks the performance too much. But you can still enable PhysX. You'll need to download this though : NVIDIA DRIVERS 9.10.0513

PhysX can be EASILY achieved by Havok or AMD EyeSpeed.

 

So...a AMD 6990m will be able to max those games out even with PhysX?

 

As far as price goes, Alienware are charging $500 to upgrade to crossfire 6990s and $1200 to go to SLI 580ms.

 

lol
At those prices, even if the 6990m is 1% SLOWER than the 580m, they are still a STEAL.

 

Nope. Nvidia bottlenecks us, so even 1000x 6990 in Mega crossfire ( lol exageration ) won't run it with PhysX on High fluently ( will stay at around 10-20 FPS, instead of 60+ ).

 

Yeah. There's probably no way to justify a $700 difference between SLI GTX580M and Crossfire 6990M for all but a select group of users. Even if it's 10% slower, not faster (which it appears to be).

Cheers .

 

Some more benchmarks, not sure how accurate they are but someone posted this in the CLEVO section. If this is true the results are not too surprising
http://www.logicalblueone.com.au/docs/GPU Performance August.pdf

 

Stream? I thought they went for OpenCL which IMO is not in a very strong position as opposed to CUDA.

 

Who needs PhysX lol, not many games support it either and when it is supported its just minor stuff. its more of a gimmick than anything IMO. 3D is a gimmick too, though I admit a fairly popular one.

Running 3d is way harder on the GPU its not really suited for moble gaming anyways as most newer games can already push the gpu to the limit to get 60fps on high graphics settings, turn on 3D and now your watching a 3d slide show.

 

....Um whats the blanket for??

 

To get comfy of course, 'cuz that could be a long one.

 

I believe they use both, since I didn't have OpenCL in GPU-Z, but with new drivers, I have it. AMD Stream is like CUDA just like OpenCL. And AMD EyeSpeed is PhysX. Still, Havok and AMD Bullet Physics beats them all

 

Oh yeah, what a great game that is.

iZ3D and DDD are third party 3D solutions, neither holding a candle to nVidia's implementation and support. And HD3D is just a library that AMD has left for developers to implement, and nobody did.

95% of people who say "3D is gimmick" have not played a 3D game, or have some medical condition that prevents them from properly seeing 3D. Stereoscopic 3D is absolutely awesome.

 

Somehow I doubt a single 6990m costs $250.

 

That's a pretty solid card. Eager to see the price and see them in some Sager's.

 

I really don't know the cost of a single AMD 6990M.
In my post I was referring to dual GPU setups with top of the line components from both companies (which is the best performance you can get from them).
So, the best performance from NVIDIA costs $700 more than AMD's (through Dell, the only provider of these options for now). Is the difference worth that money? For most users, probably not. Emphasis on most (not all).

 

According to the price tag on Mythlogic website.

The 6990m which is better than the $580m cost $320, which is $25 more than teh 485m (which a better performance than the 580m) and cost $175 dollars less.

So in conclusion>>>6990m is 175 dollars cheaper and better than the 580m.

Weird

 

no it aint, nvidia hardware is usually more expensive

 

Before someone comes running with an axe, I'm going to say the GTX 580M is faster than the GTX 485M. Maybe not worth the price difference to some, but it has more power.

 

*runs at you with a flamethrower with an axe embedded to the tip*

And you're correct : the GTX 580M is better than the 485M, but apparently worse than the 6990M

 

Stream should be on the outs next generation to make way for FSAIL and more OpenCL support. If adopted, AMD's open-source standard should put significant pressure on CUDA.


As for game physics, what should really put AMD's solution over the top is the ability to dedicate the graphics cores on future Fusion APU to handling physics effects while the discrete GPU(s) render graphics. That's just not something Nvidia can match in a mobile platform without abandoning their stance on GPGPU compute and optimizing PhysX to run on an Intel CPU.

 

Interesting... I think we can all agree that, at first, it was nvidia > AMD. Now, without a word, is AMD > Nvidia

You mean that AMD's IGP will be the physics renderer and the GPU will render all the remaining graphical stuff?