Asus GTX590 and HD6990 review

To test these high end cards today, we have built a system with suitable matching components – based around a liquid cooled 12 core Intel i7 970 processor, overclocked to 4.33GHz, with 6GB of GKILL memory running at 1800MHz with tight timings. We will be mixing the resolutions today from 1920×1080 (1080p) to 5780×1080.

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33GHz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage (extreme setting).
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Lian Li X2000F
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 9-9-9-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Lacie 730, Dell Ultrasharp U2410 Rev A00 x 2, Iiyama Prolite E2472HDD x2

Other graphics cards for comparisons:
Nvidia GTX580
Nvidia GTX570
XFX HD5970 Black Edition 4GB (QuadFireX)
AMD HD6970
AMD HD6950
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850
AMD HD5870
AMD HD5850
MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II
nVidia GTX570
nVidia GTX460 OC (715/900)

Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 11.4 Preview
Forceware 267.85 WHQL
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
HQV 2.0 Software

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Nikon D300S with R1C1 kit
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:
Far Cry 2
Resident Evil 5
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Metro 2033
Dead Space 2
Dragon Age 2
Total War: Shogun II
Crysis 2
Left4Dead 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.

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