WindowsGeek's brave quest for Radeon HD 6990

Ahhh, it's good to be back on my favorite forums

Now, I am looking for a Radeon HD 6990. Newegg is out of stock, they sent me a fancy message - that they ran out of the cards and don't know when they will have them in stock. Turns out every major site is out of 6990s.

Does anybody know where I may be able to find said 6990 in stock (shipping to US)? Or, does AMD even still produce the GPUs for the board?

Here it is, they're expensive, but it's new. Get it while it's here!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Powercolor-Radeo...item45fad88a79

Cat

Try these locations
XFX Radeon HD 6990

Edit:
or these locations.
Shop AMD: Radeon HD 6990

The 1st, 5th & 10th link of the above list still had them in stock, although the 10th link was as almost as high as the one that I found on eBay, after shipping. Still, you can save $200 on the first link.

Cat

Stay away from the XFX HD6XXX card's they all run at 70+ degrees celcius compared to the othe manufacturer's cards that run 40-50 degrees celcius during heavy gaming. I'm personally getting a HIS IceQ X Turbo HD6950 2.0 GB. card next Friday from Newegg.

brkkab, that card is a third of the price as the one the OP's looking for. Plus, it's a 4GB card, not a 2GB one.

While I have neither at this time, if I had the choice, and could afford it, I'd rather have twice the capacity, even if it does run a bit warmer. For what I'd use it for (folding@home), I'd probably double my productivity, too.

Here's the review:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6990-review/1

Cat

Sweet lord that 6990 is a monster of a video card. I'd love to experience those lovely framerates but my pockets aren't that deep right now.

I'm personally still debating in my mind if I should get a 6870 (hopefully prices are lower then) in the coming months with games like Battlefield 3 up and coming. Though, my 5770 still packs enough punch in it and I still run games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Starcraft 2 maxed out at my native resolution of 1600x900 like candy so I'm not sure. I may just end up waiting for the Radeon 7000 series if the upgrade isn't worth it.

So are you saying that these cards run 7-9 degrees Celsius higher than the 40-50 degrees or that they run at 70 degrees?

I believe you're very mistaken about this... the statement that "they all run at 7+ deg" is a blanket generalization and where are your facts to back it up? These do use two GPU chipsets so that makes a difference too. The other HD69XX series only use one GPU chipset A HD6950 is nowhere the card the HD6990 is by any comparison. I have checked many reviews and various sites and the heat issue is hardly mentioned.

The HD6990 is a monster of a video card to say the least! It will kick out some high temps too when overclocked and it chews up a LOT of wattage at the same time in full mode. More watts used equals more heat output.

If the card is overclocked it will heat up. Also the Catalyst Control Center allows one to adjust the fan speed too. If you kick up the fan via manual control versus the AUTO setting the heat will drop quite a bit.

Besides XFX has one the absolute best warranties in the business; which is a double lifetime warranty, meaning that the original owner may sell the card to someone else and that person is covered too.

Cat. The point I was making was this. When I checked Newegg for the HD6950 2.0GB and HD6970 card's and read the reviews of people who purchased them. The XFX card's ran atleast 10-20 warmer and didn't perform any better than the other companies cards. For example the card I'm getting is the best perfing card and it's factory overclocked. The warranty fully cover's it, because it's factory overclocked and at full bore it only runs 50 degress celcius. At stock, non-overclocked factory setting's the XFX card's run 70 degrees celcius. The card I'm getting is cheaper than a MSI or Asus card, plus I don't need to use AMD Overdrive or MSI's Afterburner, as it's factory overclocked. Plus do that I have one or two less program's that need to load at every startup. Though, I'd love to have a HD6990, I can think of better way's to improve my computer with the $600-$700 that card cost's. Namely a SSD, a Phenom 2 1100T cpu or a 990FX motherboard and a AMD Bobcat AM3+ cpu. When they come out. I can also add another HD6950 2.0 GB. card to my pc and have the 4.0GB's. of ram still for less mony.

Thank you all, especially you Cat & Cliff, I did cancel my order on Newegg. I'll investigate a little deeper into buying one of the cards on Cliff_Cooley's list when I get up tomorrow. I plan on making some of my money back using it in my "offline hours" for mining Bitcoin, but when i'm done there I swear i'll fold

Also, brkkab, you're talking about the 6970. That is almost a completely different product, as it only uses one GPU. The 6990 uses two 6970 GPUs, and as such, has much better cooling. I have also done quite a bit of homework here (I wouldn't want to take a shot in the dark with $700) and I read some reviews. Only one out of about 15 reviews actually mentioned heat as a problem, and besides my "case" has awesome airflow so I'm not worried. Thanks for the concern though, it is much appreciated!