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AMD launches Radeon HD 6990M
NVIDIA recently released "Fastest Notebook GPU Ever" - the GeForce GTX 580M - less than two weeks ago. Considering the top AMD GPU at the time - Radeon HD 6970M - featured a cut down Barts core with a conservative price and TDP (compared to NVIDIA competition), a spruced up Radeon HD 6990M was always on the cards. AMD is releasing the Radeon HD 6990M, claiming the "World's Fastest Mobile GPU" title away from the barely 2-week old GTX 580M.
There are no major surprises with the Radeon HD 6990M. It features a full Barts core with 1120 SP and 56 TMU enabled (as opposed to 960 SP for the HD 6970M). The clock speed is up to 715 MHz as well. The memory bandwidth continues to be the same. However, the HD 6990M feature 2GB GDDR5, doubling up on the HD 6970M.
AMD's internal benchmarks show the Radeon HD 6990M performing 10% faster than the GTX 580M. Of course, these internal benchmarks are often cherry picked, and we will have to wait for independent reviews to confirm AMD's "World's Fastest Notebook GPU" claim. This is a direct reprise for the HD 6870 vs. GTX 560 Ti battle in the desktop arena. Like the desktop battle, the AMD product is based on a much smaller die with much lesser power consumption. Crucially, it is worth noting that the HD 6990M is clocked closer to the HD 6870 than the GTX 580M is to the GTX 560 Ti - so all indications suggest HD 6990M will indeed suprass the GTX 580M, likely with a lower pricing.
The HD 6990M will soon be found in high-end laptops by OEMs such as Alienware, Clevo and Eurocom. Some uber enthusiast laptops may also offer 2x HD 6990M in CrossFire.
For more details, visit AMD's HD 6990M page.
