Review: PowerColor HD 7990 Devil 13

Final Thoughts and Rating

Let's try and put the Devil 13 into context. With no sign of movement on AMD's fabled Radeon HD 7990, PowerColor has taken it upon itself to give the high-flying GeForce GTX 690 some much-needed competition.

That's no small task and the Devil 13 does fulfil its ambition; it goes toe-to-toe with NVIDIA's best, and for those who wear red instead of green, it provides up-to-date dual-Radeon horsepower in a single convenient package.

We got off on the wrong foot with two broken samples, but PowerColor has identified the issue with cooler mounting and tells us that adjustments have been made to the final product to eliminate any such problems.

But getting this €1,000 graphics card to function as intended is tricky for software reasons, too. CrossFire performance in some of today's latest titles is hit-or-miss at best, and though the dual-GPU hardware is clearly capable, relying on driver support for an optimum experience remains an expensive gamble.

PowerColor's presentation is grand and the bundle is a nice touch, but while performance is exceptional at times, there's no getting round the fact that the Devil 13 is bigger, louder, less efficient and more susceptible to driver inconsistencies than the well-engineered GeForce GTX 690.

The Good

Gives GeForce GTX 690 some much-needed competition
Good bundle; includes active DP adapter
Decent overclocking potential
Keeps cool under load (if not broken)
Is very, very fast (CrossFire vagaries aside)

The Bad

Expensive, big and bulky
Erratic CrossFire performance
Takes up three full expansion slots
Can get uncomfortably loud under load
Lacks PowerTune with Boost Technology

HEXUS Rating

PowerColor HD 7990 Devil 13

HEXUS Awards

PowerColor HD 7990 Devil 13

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC.

HEXUS Right2Reply

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