Legit Video Card Reviews

AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Dual GPU Video Card Review

Manufacturer: AMD
Product: Radeon HD 6990 - Antilles
Date: Mon, Mar 07, 2011 - 11:00 PM
Written By: Nathan Kirsch -
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Temperature Testing

Since video card temperatures and the heat generated by next-generation cards have become an area of concern among enthusiasts and gamers, we want to take a closer look at how the graphics cards do at idle and under a full load.

AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Video Card Idle Temperature:

AMD Radeon HD 6990 Video Card GPU-Z 0.5.1 Details

As you can see from the screen shot above, the idle state of the Radeon HD 6990 drops the GPU core clock frequency down to 250MHz and the memory clock down to 150MHz to help conserve power and lower temperatures.  At idle on an open test bench the Radeon HD 6990 video card temperature was observed at 40C with the fan spinning at 1337RPM or 30%.

We fired up FurMark and ran the stability at 640x480, which was enough to put the GPU core at 100% load in order to get the highest load temperature possible. This application also charts the temperature results so you can see how the temperature rises and levels off, which is very nice. The fans on the video cards were left on auto during temperature testing. When we hit the space bar to stop the rendering the temperature dropped.

AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Video Card Load Temperature:

AMD Radeon HD 6990 Video Card Load Temp

The AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB peaked at 77C according to Furmark, but we noticed that GPU-Z 0.51 and Furmark were reporting two different load temperatures.

AMD Radeon HD 6990 Video Card Load Temp
AMD Radeon HD 6990 Video Card Load Temp

GPU-Z showed the one core hitting 76C and the other hitting 82C. We aren't sure which core is which, but one core looks to be running hotter than the other.

When it comes to noise levels the Radeon HD 6990 was at about the same noise level as our CPU cooler, but at full load it was a bit loud.  At full load we noticed that the RPM on the single fan got up to nearly 5800RPM and at that speed you could most certainly hear it over anything else on the test system by a long shot.  We hope to see companies bring out custom cooling solutions for this card in the future! It should be noted that we tested the card on the open test bench in a room that was 70F.

Next Page - Power Consumption


Review Index
Page 1 - Antilles Arrives with 2 GPUs and 4GB of GDDR5
Page 2 - A Closer Look At The Radeon HD 6990
Page 3 - The Test System
Page 4 - Aliens vs. Predator
Page 5 - Just Cause 2
Page 6 - Metro 2033
Page 7 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Page 8 - 3DMark Vantage
Page 9 - 3DMark 11
Page 10 - Unigine 'Heaven' DX11
Page 11 - FurMark 1.8.2
Page 12 - Temperature Testing
Page 13 - Power Consumption
Page 14 - Radeon HD 6990 Overclocking
Page 15 - Final Thoughts & Conclusions