AMD Challenges Nvidia Over Who Has 'World's Fastest Graphics Card'
Although both companies have sought to one-up each other by offering discrete GPUs and, more recently, integrated graphics processors to various market segments and customers, AMD last week explicitly called out its rival in the increasingly favored form of an executive blog post. AMD -- which launched the Radeon 6990 a couple of weeks before Nvidia came out with its GTX 590 after delaying the launch of its highest-end GeForce card on several occasions -- is telling Nvidia to prove that its card is in fact faster.
Dave Erskine, AMD’S senior public relations manager for desktop graphics, wrote in an AMD blog post that AMD’s Radeon 6990 graphics card offers better performance than Nvidia’s GTX 590 offers, in response to an Nvidia press release touting its GeForce GTX 590 as the “World’s Fastest Graphics Card.”
Erskine extended a challenge to Nvidia, saying the company should have to provide specific figures in order to prove the GTX 590’s superiority. “So now I issue a challenge to our competitor: prove it, don’t just say it. Show us the substantiation.”
Erskine pointed out that AMD made a similar claim regarding its Radeon 6990, and said AMD offered specifications to back up its statement. "Yesterday, our competitor also issued a press release, announcing the launch of what they claim to be the 'World's Fastest Graphics Card' -- the Nvidia GTX 590,” Erskine wrote. “We combed through their announcement to understand how it was that such a claim could be made and why there was no substantiation based on industry-standard benchmarks.”
Conversely, he said, AMD had received confirmation that Radeon 6990 is the fastest card on the market from several reviewers that Erskine’s post linked back to, all of whom ran benchmark tests using 3D Mark 11 that support Erskine’s position.
Nvidia has yet to respond to a request for comment, or directly answer AMD’s challenge.
On May 9 AMD launched its dual-core Radeon HD 6990 GPU, code-named Antilles, which is aimed at the enthusiast market. AMD's Radeon 6990 starts at $699 per unit.
Last week, Nvidia launched its GeForce GTX 590 , which features dual Nvidia Fermi cores, 32 tessellation engines, and quieter operation. According to Tom’s Hardware Nvidia's GeForce GTX 590 sold out in less than a week.