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AMD 7990 Owners tell me if it's worth it.

12K views 92 replies 29 participants last post by  korruptedkaos 
#1 ·
Hi,

Now that you can get a 7990 for $550 and I'm still working with a 5850, I'm really thinking about buying one, but ...
I've heard a lot of horror stories and since many of these things are hard to really verify, I'm gonna try asking you 7990 owners (and maybe ex-owners).

Have the latest beta drivers truly and absolutely resolved crossfire frame drops, runt frames, microstutters and whatever else there is?
What happens if a game does not support crossfire, i read you can't disable the 2nd gpu, so how does that work?
What other little annoyances have you experienced that I should know? Tell me anything you can think of please.
The 5800 series had an annoying screen flicker bug for example.

So basically tell me why i shouldn't buy a 7990 ...
I kinda want to buy a 290X, but looking at the price/performance it seems like such a good deal to get the 7990.
 
#4 ·
I don't know about the clock-thing, but I can tell I haven't had any real problems with mine. One thing, though. For CPU-heavy games like Battlefield 3 multiplayer, you need a pretty powerful CPU, my stock i7-2600 bottlenecked the crap out of it.

EDIT: Pressed submit too early.

When I got it I noticed insane stuttering in some games, but what I thought was severe micro-stutter was my CPU bottlenecking. And, if a game doesnt support Crossfire you will get 7970 frames. One thing that bothered me was that the temperature was pretty high since I am running triple monitors, which with the original fan curve, means 55-60C idle temperature.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogmatic34 View Post

I don't know about the clock-thing, but I can tell I haven't had any real problems with mine. One thing, though. For CPU-heavy games like Battlefield 3 multiplayer, you need a pretty powerful CPU, my stock i7-2600 bottlenecked the crap out of it.

EDIT: Pressed submit too early.

When I got it I noticed insane stuttering in some games, but what I thought was severe micro-stutter was my CPU bottlenecking. And, if a game doesnt support Crossfire you will get 7970 frames. One thing that bothered me was that the temperature was pretty high since I am running triple monitors, which with the original fan curve, means 55-60C idle temperature.
Actually on games like BF3 multiplayer with a 3770k you get more FPS with HT disabled when overclocked to 4ghz than you do with it on, so its possible that you were getting microstutter as apposed to cpu bottlenecking. I would be very suprised if even a stock 2600 would bottleneck a 7990.

http://chipreviews.com/main-feature/main-news/battlefield-3-revisited/5/

to OP: I would research heavily before you pick up a 7990, not only do you hear daily about people struggling with micro stutter, but also the amount of coil whine is said to be bad too.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by $ilent View Post

Actually on games like BF3 multiplayer with a 3770k you get more FPS with HT disabled when overclocked to 4ghz than you do with it on, so its possible that you were getting microstutter as apposed to cpu bottlenecking. I would be very suprised if even a stock 2600 would bottleneck a 7990.

http://chipreviews.com/main-feature/main-news/battlefield-3-revisited/5/

to OP: I would research heavily before you pick up a 7990, not only do you hear daily about people struggling with micro stutter, but also the amount of coil whine is said to be bad too.
I didn't say it had anything to do with Hyperthreading. Minimum FPS in BF3 would dip into low 40's, with max GPU-usage at ~50-60% per chip. Overclocked to 3.8 (Max for non-k), and the problem is pretty much solved. Still bottlenecks it a little, but not noticeably so.

EDIT: I pretty much only had this issue with BF3 and BF4 beta multiplayer, which is very CPU-heavy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mobkeyman View Post

So does that mean with 3 monitors you can still use the 7990 okay?
Yes, although I haven't tried Eyefinity much, yet. Mainly because I don't want to sacrifice graphics quality for Eyefinity. If you mean temperature-wise, it doesn't generate any more heat at load than normal, just idle. The extra heat is because the memory clock runs at 1500Mhz automatically when using more than one monitor. Which it also will do when gaming, whether you use one monitor or three.
 
#8 ·
The current AMD beta drivers havent fixed the frame pacing issue with regards to eyefinity setups. At the moment they support 1440p max I believe.

That being said, I am not one bit disappointed with the performance of my HD 7990. I run a tripple monitor setup at 3240x1920 and except for a few very demanding games it can run at that resolution at highest settings. It doesnt like CryEngine 3 one bit though.

My biggest gripe with the card is the cooling solution on the reference cards. I got an XFX card with the reference cooler design, and those 3 fans are woefully inadequate for cooling this card. It has several issues:

First off the fans do not exhaust out the backside of the cabinet, but exhaust on the side of the card into the cabinet. That basically means that the card draws in the hot air it just exhausted again and again, over and over. So your load temps will be very high as a result of that.

On top of that, due to the exhaust method you might, depending on your CPU placement, and cooler, and general fan/airflow options, run into a cooling deadspot on the first GPU on the board (The one closest to the rear of the cabinet). Since the card sucks in a lot of air from the 3 fans, you might end up not being able to get enough airflow to the rear of the GPU, creating a spot where the air simply just heats more and more up.

I tried cooling it with a lot of fans pushing in air from various directions, creating air funnels etc. with only minor temperature benefits. I tried in two different cabinets (CM Silencio 650 and the CM HAF XB) with various fan options with little positive effect, with and without the cabinet sides on. Under load I ranged from 98 C to 85 C as the best result when running both GPU's at 100%.

And the fans on the stock XFX card are utterly horrid. I've never had fans make that much noise period. I measured 65db at 50 cm distance (with an iphone app, so not super reliable or accurate).

Water cooling changed that completely though. 33 C idle, 47 C load with a 120mm and 280mm rad in a loop with my CPU as well. If I was to get the 7990 again, I'd get one of the ones with custom cooling or closed loop wc solutions.

The card requires a very good cabinet with very efficient airflow. If you have that, it is an excellent card. I saw someone mounting several of them vertically in a servercabinet and that had excellent results on the card temps.
 
#10 ·
Adequate for me was a 5 fan setup plus the three on the card in the CM HAF XB and dedicated air funnels. I had 2 140mm fans pushing in air from the front, 1 140mm fan pushing from the side, 1 120mm pulling in the rear and a 200mm pulling on top.

The 140mm fans supplied air to all the intake zones, 2 for the GPU and 1 for the CPU, and the 120mm exhausted the CPU air, and the 200mm took care of the GPU exhaust. To me, in a high airflow cabinet, it seemed like too much for very little gain for that card.

I couldn't replicate the temperatures mentioned in most reviews, and while being no expert, I spent about two weeks testing various fan options and positions to get it to lower temps to little avail. Water cooling works wonders though.

Found this as an addendum: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-crossfire-overheat,3539.html

It details the heat/noise issues better than I can explain.
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by $ilent View Post

to OP: I would research heavily before you pick up a 7990, not only do you hear daily about people struggling with micro stutter, but also the amount of coil whine is said to be bad too.
That's what I'm trying to do here, it's difficult to find owners with the latest beta drivers ...
As for the CPU bottlenecking, I got my i7 @ 4.2ghz, so I should be good on that end.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Petersson View Post

The current AMD beta drivers havent fixed the frame pacing issue with regards to eyefinity setups. At the moment they support 1440p max I believe.

That being said, I am not one bit disappointed with the performance of my HD 7990. I run a tripple monitor setup at 3240x1920 and except for a few very demanding games it can run at that resolution at highest settings. It doesnt like CryEngine 3 one bit though.
...
First off the fans do not exhaust out the backside of the cabinet, but exhaust on the side of the card into the cabinet. That basically means that the card draws in the hot air it just exhausted again and again, over and over. So your load temps will be very high as a result of that.
...
I tried cooling it with a lot of fans pushing in air from various directions, creating air funnels etc. with only minor temperature benefits. I tried in two different cabinets (CM Silencio 650 and the CM HAF XB) with various fan options with little positive effect, with and without the cabinet sides on. Under load I ranged from 98 C to 85 C as the best result when running both GPU's at 100%.
...
Water cooling changed that completely though. 33 C idle, 47 C load with a 120mm and 280mm rad in a loop with my CPU.
So you don't mind the micro stutter that you get in your setup?
I'm only playing on one monitor at 1080p, not really interested in eyefinity, I rather go for high fps/ eye candy.

So that story about the temps. scares me now ... damn it.

I found a review of an 7990 some time ago, where they used the wrong screws, so the cooler wasn't tight enough on there, after using some washers on the screws they got way better temperatures, do you think anything like this could have been going on on your card?

I was aware that the 7990 would be pumping my case full of hot air and since I'm overclocking and air cooling, that's a major concern ... I have good air flow (i think) but my current card is exhausting outside of the case.

decisions, decisions ...
 
#12 ·
I honestly havent noticed it yet, since my main focus since getting the card was to get the temperatures and noise levels down. This is also my first dual GPU card, so I dont know how to recognize it yet :/

It can deliver high dps and eyecandy no problem, thats certain. I have about 90 average fps on ultra settings (high res textures etc.) in Skyrim at 3240x1920 (tripple portrait mode). I havent tried 1080p gaming on the card at all, so cant share any experiences with that, but I doubt it is a bad experience for anyone.
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petersson View Post

I honestly havent noticed it yet, since my main focus since getting the card was to get the temperatures and noise levels down. This is also my first dual GPU card, so I dont know how to recognize it yet :/
Can you tell me the exact model that you bought? thx

edit: You can get the powercolor AX7990 for $590 it's got a somewhat custom cooler, still 3 fans but takes up 3 slots instead of 2 like the reference. That thing must be good enough ... right?
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petersson View Post

I honestly havent noticed it yet, since my main focus since getting the card was to get the temperatures and noise levels down. This is also my first dual GPU card, so I dont know how to recognize it yet :/
Well if you don't notice any stutter then i suggest not even trying to look for it, it may ruin your experience. (I did that with 60hz vs 120hz displays, now I can't go back lol)

Looks like there are no big issues with this card, so I'm gonna wait for 290X benchmarks, see just how much faster it is than a Titan and how much money and then decide.
If i get a 7990 I will get one with a non reference cooler and hope that's enough.

thx for all the replies
 
#16 ·
Here what I noticed with my XFX 7990 card regarding coild whine and micro stutter.

For the coil whine, it was ridiculously loud at first but I did managed to make it go away in some games or at least get it down to a whisper. I get the loudest coil whine when the video card pumps out over 1000 fps so I would definitely recommend using something like radeon pro to force limit the frames to match your monitors refresh rate. Also, whisper may be a bit subjective. I live in a high rise that is close to a major road. What is a whisper for me might be annoying for someone in a suburban neighborhood.

Micro stutter has rarely been a problem for me for most games. I've played Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3, BF3, skyrim with mods and ENB, simcity, Tomb Raider, Farcry 3, CS:go, HL2 and all of them were smooth and buttery. The only game that I noticed some stutter is from Diablo 3 but I'm not 100% sure yet if its caused by the video card or due to my crappy HDD. If it is due to the vid card, it's definitely noticeable but nothing that will stop me from playing.

Next to that, I think it is a great card. Regretted it at first but after some tweaking, its well worth the $660 CAD I paid for it. Best bang for the buck when it comes to performance.
I have it installed in a Corsair 350D, which is an mATX case, and temps don't seem to go above 85. It went to 95 when I first got it but since then it has gotten a lot cooler for some reason. Fan noise isn't that loud either unless the gpu goes over 90 degrees. Once it hits 90 the card makes it sound like I have a jet engine in my computer.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmoonb View Post

Here what I noticed with my XFX 7990 card regarding coild whine and micro stutter.

For the coil whine, it was ridiculously loud at first ...

Micro stutter has rarely been a problem for me for most games. ...

I have it installed in a Corsair 350D, which is an mATX case, and temps don't seem to go above 85. It went to 95 when I first got it but since then it has gotten a lot cooler for some reason. Fan noise isn't that loud either unless the gpu goes over 90 degrees. Once it hits 90 the card makes it sound like I have a jet engine in my computer.
Seems like you have the same card as Petersson which is a reference design, if I buy a 7990 it will be a non reference card, I will report if i notice any coil whine or high temps.
 
#19 ·
I would recommend the 7990 but I only went this rout to have enough power for eyefinity. But running in one screen it dose damn good on most games. As for eyefinity when push comes to shove, with some tweaking (massive overhauls to software and hardware alike) I can run bf3 at around 80-90-100 capped rather well at 6048 x 1080. Running at 1ghz of course and quadfire (2x Devil 7990s) Still get micro-stutter and bioshock infinite which i just bought this week has been a real pain to get working smothly. BF3 stutters as well but ive noticed its smother with just 2 cores (1 card) running. Water cooling helps! Another major problem for me at least is that bf3 will crash unless i use CCC 13.4 and 13.5 cap1. A complete catastrophic experience otherwise. Hurray for Hilea Chillers
biggrin.gif


 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximus Thalos View Post

I would recommend the 7990 but I only went this rout to have enough power for eyefinity. But running in one screen it dose damn good on most games. As for eyefinity when push comes to shove, with some tweaking (massive overhauls to software and hardware alike) I can run bf3 at around 80-90-100 capped rather well at 6048 x 1080. Running at 1ghz of course and quadfire (2x Devil 7990s) Still get micro-stutter and bioshock infinite ...
Another major problem for me at least is that bf3 will crash unless i use CCC 13.4 and 13.5 cap1. A complete catastrophic experience otherwise. Hurray for Hilea Chillers
biggrin.gif
Nice water cooling, do you have any air going to the passive heatsinks or are they fine that way?
As far as i know there is no frame pacing for eyefinity yet, but they say its coming. Have you tried the latest beta drivers 13.10v2 ?

edit: just saw you still have a first gen. i7 @ 4.2ghz just like me, is that really enough for 2 7990s?
 
#21 ·
I had no microstuttering on mine, even with pre 13.8 drivers, however, on both cards I have had, they were plagued with horrible coil whine at idle. Now this is the powercolor model mind you, so the reference is a bit different. If at all possible I would look at 2 7970s/280x's. Perhaps a 780 is you need single slot.

Very dissapointed in mine.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avrion View Post

Nice water cooling, do you have any air going to the passive heatsinks or are they fine that way?
As far as i know there is no frame pacing for eyefinity yet, but they say its coming. Have you tried the latest beta drivers 13.10v2 ?

edit: just saw you still have a first gen. i7 @ 4.2ghz just like me, is that really enough for 2 7990s?
I hope it's enough. I asked around in the forum before hand and got assurances that it should. 980x is a trooper. Those pics are old need to update my rig too. I've since put copper heat sinks on the mem that the fans off the rad push air through. I did try the beta drivers and that sucked. There are new drivers up so I'll try them as well.
 
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