7990 new Vbios helps quad fire issues

dragonstongue

dragonstongue

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 18, 2008
Messages
3,162
http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...ew-vbios-update-for-older-hd7990-bridge-chip/

(I am assuming they are referencing the powercolor card?)
We received some queries from Kitguru readers after our initial Radeon Quad HD7990 testing back in January this year. We had a crash happy disaster of monumental proportions and based on emails, we weren’t the only users experiencing problems. We had assumed at the time that AMD had not focused on Quad Crossfire profiles for these cards. Considering they weren’t official AMD designs, it seemed the most logical conclusion.

Fast forward to last week and we tested the official AMD HD7990 Malta card in QuadFire … the result? Extremely positive. All of the synthetic benchmarks scaled well and we noticed some commendable frame rate improvements with many of the leading Direct X 11 titles.

We had a chat with AMD today and they told us that the issues back in January were not caused by the driver. There was apparently a VBIOS issue that incorrectly set several settings for the bridge chip. This triggered the system hangs and PCI-e lockups.

The AIB has since released new BIOS/firmware revisions which avoids these issues with the bridge chip. These same new settings are included by default with AMD’s new reference HD7990 ‘Malta board’, which explains why it worked well for us recently.

The AIB is distributing the VBIOS update via their tech support, and pre-flashed on new boards.
 
While awesome news...

-_- stop making me want to spend $2000 on dual 7990s instead of saving up for car

Also, they're probably referencing all Unofficial 7990s when they talk about "earlier" 7990s, which include the Powercolor cards (Devil 13 and regular Unofficial 7990) and ASUS ARES II. I think there's another out there but I forget offhand.
 
Last edited:
Asus one I assume is tweaked like crazy judging by the reviews I have read, I assume they reference the devil 13 I think there was another as well just cannot remember name of it. And sorry, did not mean to tempt you, just figured it was "good" news for those who have them, unfortunately Drivers are the other side of the coin and as of yet a lot of the newer drivers are unusable for many of us, for me its a loss in bitcoin performance and various other quirks compared to 12.8 which has graphical flairs sometimes, just cannot win it seems, not sure how AMD or Nvidia test their drivers but they need to do more solid testing with the cards they say they are for, yes Nv has many issues as well(numerous posts over many sites allude to that)

Ah well just another day at the office lol.
 
there you go Club3d as well has one it is based on their parents design(TUL/Powercolor)
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Radeon-HD-7990-Malta-AMD,22233.html basically if based on 7990 Malta reference from sounds of it no issues, if based on earlier (club3d, Asus maybe, powercolor) then anything prior to now shipping or has been returned will have old Vbios.

But yes far as I can tell Asus, Powercolor, Club3d and possibly HIS with their 7970 X2 IceQ are custom prior to malta as they are using Tahiti silicon
 
Which of them do you have if any? I just wonder if it's worth getting into Unofficial 7990s at all now that Official has been released. I've seen them go down in price but the extra power requirement would mean my 700W PSU would need to be upgraded -_-

Otherwise, mostly been waiting for Official 7990 to appear at normal price on somewhere that doesn't charge tax. Newegg and its California tax = an extra $91.88 depending on which county they're selling from -_-. Not trying to be a cheapass, but every bit helps when the thing is $1050
 
Last edited:
I do not own a 7990, I have 2 7870s MSI TFIII overclocked of course.

A 700w PSU would be enough provided you have enough amps on the 12v rail. recommended seems to be 63a total for most systems single 7990, not to mention the "new" official malta version is slightly more lenient on the power then the older ones, most 650w will be enough but a 700-850 is recommended obviously for a bit of headroom, 347w max LINK HERE or 28.91a just for the card itself devil 13 power use seems to be 574w full load entire system with a highly clocked 3960X and a bunch of high performance parts, so I would say ~480-520w for most systems with a bit of overclocking.

Hope this helps, and yeh its an expensive card, it was meant to be to appeal to enthusiasts shopping for Titan and the 690 which are also very expensive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top