AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Dual GPU Video Card Review

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:

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 640×480, 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:

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.

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.