Hokie, How's the noise on the card? I didn't see any mention of it in your review.
Anand and Toms (I haven't read other reviews yet) made it sound like it was a pretty big deal, perhaps a deal breaker. I'm interested in your thoughts.
Depends on what noise you're referring to. I didn't think the fan was any louder than the 6970 before it. BOTH of them are entirely too loud to reasonably use at 100%. Even at the 75% used for temperature testing it wasn't quiet, though it was on a test bench rather than inside a case. For gaming, in my very subjective opinion, 60% is reasonable, even without headphones.
Everyone knows by now that squirrel cage fans are just plain loud. If you're going for quiet and cool, this card with its stock cooler is not your cup of tea. It was made for performance, puts out plenty of heat to boot and needs plenty of airflow to cool it off.
Now, if you're referring to the GPU and/or memory 'squeal', that's a different thing altogether. There has been some discussion of it over at XS this morning. My sample wasn't too bad. Unless you were benching at high FPS (such as between 1000 and 3000FPS in 3DMark03, when it was rather loud), it wasn't bad. In gaming tests I didn't notice it.
On the other hand, HardwareCanucks' sample was audible even in game tests.
While its level varies from sample to sample, I think it likely that you'll hear it in some form or another if you purchase one of these.
Another comment from
my post over there:
FWIW, I was a little surprised in hearing how loud it was when benching, but I distinctly remember being surprised by the 6970 too. Considering this is essentially two 6970's (with slower memory speed of course), the difference made sense. It doesn't sound great when it happens, but wasn't entirely unexpected after its single-GPU little brother.
I'd say a pair of bios boosted 6950's is the best value for money for sure, around $550 and you get same or better performance than the 6990
Agreed here; there is very little bang for your buck until the price drops on these. What people will pay for here is going to be the best-of-the-best and to have it right when it is released. Or you need it for a small form factor where crossfire isn't an option, at which point airflow becomes a large concern.
I called it Overclockers Approved because it really
is the fastest graphics card in the world and it clocks decently, even without voltage increase. If I were trying to be anywhere near frugal, I wouldn't be looking the direction of the 6990.