Asus GTX590 and HD6990 review

An almost identical box with the same fantasy style warrior on the front. The sky is now red though indicating you have crossed the fence into AMD land. Someone needs to tell Asus that the ‘50% faster Voltage Tweak' really doesn't relate to either of the high end boards on test today.

The bundle contains three cables to help the owner connect the card to various panel configurations. A miniDP to SL-DVI passive, a miniDP to SL-DVI active, and a miniDP to HDMI passive cable are included.

The Asus card is based on the reference design, with an Asus logo on the front. The cooler uses the same, small AMD style fan in the middle of the cooler.

As this is a retail sample, there is a yellow sticker covering the bios switch. . The AMD HD6990 will ship in the default position of ’2′. This is a factory supported clock setting (830mhz) with voltage set to 1.12. Position ’1′ is a ‘hardware’ overdrive option with increased clocks, 880mhz on the core and an increased voltage setting of 1.175. They are naming this the ‘AUSUM’ or ‘Antilles Unlocking Switch for Uber Mode’, which we don’t expect to become a widely used acronym.

The card is crossfire capable and requires two 8 pin power connectors to operate correctly.

AMD are using the latest generation digital programmable Volterra regulators on the card, to deliver increased efficiency with higher current capacity. The regulators are located at the centre of the board, in a symmetrical layout, to provide efficient power delivery to each GPU and its associated memory. Premium ASICs are screened for high speed and low leakage properties.

An overview of the Asus card, both bios modes shown above.

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