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HD 7990 Review; PowerColor’s Devil 13
Posted by Philipp Esselbach on: 09/20/2012 10:20 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
Hardware Canucks posted a review of PowerColor's new HD 7990 Devil 13 video card
Unlike some reviews, this one is about a card that almost never was and the efforts of a board partner to forge ahead anyways with a product that flies in the face of adversity. It’s called the HD 7990 Devil 13 and it begs to be noticed.
Ever since AMD introduced gamers to their new Graphics Core Next architecture, rumors of a dual GPU product code named New Zealand and branded HD 7990 ran rife throughout the industry. Naturally, AMD helped things along by teasers within marketing slides and a few other hints along the way but after waiting months for a release, the mythical HD 7990 was nowhere to be found.
In order to properly set the stage here, it is important to discuss why AMD seems to have failed in their efforts to create a bona fide “official” dual GPU product in spite of an initial lead over NVIDIA. The issue here isn’t a lack of intent, strategy or focus but rather technological limitations that caused some insurmountable roadblocks during development. Despite being fabricated on a relatively efficient manufacturing process, AMD’s Tahiti cores tend to run quite hot and require a significant amount of power. Careful binning, judicious application of voltage constraints and lower clock speeds could have allowed a dual HD 7970 card to come to fruition but the competition’s Kepler architecture prevented that. The quick release of NVIDIA’s GTX 690 delivered a crushing blow to AMD’s exclusive claim over the performance crown and shattered the performance per watt ratio for dual GPU products. Competing against it wasn’t impossible but even after numerous delays the effort would have required a massive investment for a limited return. We’re guessing the ROI ratio didn’t sit quite well since those resources could have been –and will likely be- put towards upcoming architectural developments instead.
Ever since AMD introduced gamers to their new Graphics Core Next architecture, rumors of a dual GPU product code named New Zealand and branded HD 7990 ran rife throughout the industry. Naturally, AMD helped things along by teasers within marketing slides and a few other hints along the way but after waiting months for a release, the mythical HD 7990 was nowhere to be found.
In order to properly set the stage here, it is important to discuss why AMD seems to have failed in their efforts to create a bona fide “official” dual GPU product in spite of an initial lead over NVIDIA. The issue here isn’t a lack of intent, strategy or focus but rather technological limitations that caused some insurmountable roadblocks during development. Despite being fabricated on a relatively efficient manufacturing process, AMD’s Tahiti cores tend to run quite hot and require a significant amount of power. Careful binning, judicious application of voltage constraints and lower clock speeds could have allowed a dual HD 7970 card to come to fruition but the competition’s Kepler architecture prevented that. The quick release of NVIDIA’s GTX 690 delivered a crushing blow to AMD’s exclusive claim over the performance crown and shattered the performance per watt ratio for dual GPU products. Competing against it wasn’t impossible but even after numerous delays the effort would have required a massive investment for a limited return. We’re guessing the ROI ratio didn’t sit quite well since those resources could have been –and will likely be- put towards upcoming architectural developments instead.
HD 7990 Review; PowerColor’s Devil 13
