AMD Radeon HD 6990 Dual-GPU Graphics Card Review

Although we generally shun automated gaming benchmarks, we do like to run at least one to see how our GPUs scale when used in a ‘timedemo’-type scenario. Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 is without question the best such test on the market, and it’s a joy to use, and watch. The folks at Futuremark are experts in what they do, and they really know how to push that hardware of yours to its limit.

Similar to a real game, 3DMark 11 offers many configuration options, although many (including us) prefer to stick to the profiles which include Performance, and Extreme. Depending on which one you choose, the graphic options are tweaked accordingly, as well as the resolution. As you’d expect, the better the profile, the more intensive the test. The benchmark doesn’t natively support 2560×1600, so to benchmark with that, we choose the Extreme profile and simply change the resolution.

According to 3DMark 11 and its wondrous ability give us the best-case scenario when comparing one graphics card to the next, AMD’s Radeon HD 6990 is 83% faster than NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 580 at 2560×1600, and 75% faster at 1920×1080. Anyone else with me in saying, “Whoa!”?