The 3DMark 11 score includes CPU tests, so I went ahead and isolated the results for the GPU tests. That's an 89% lead over the GTX 580 on the Performance setting, and a 75% lead at the Extreme setting. In a word: Wow.

The tale is rather similar with our second synthetic test, Unigine's Heaven benchmark. Heaven is a rather forward looking benchmark, gorgeous and graphically intensive in equal measure. If you'd like to try it out for yourself, there's a free version available at . Performance is a bit closer here -- the GTX 580 comes within spitting distance of the 6990, just under 12 frames per second slower at the maximum resolution, 4x AA. The divide grows whenever anti-aliasing is shut off, but you probably aren't going to buy a $700 graphics card to scrimp on visual extras.

Synthetic benchmarks are an accepted industry standard for checking out theoretical performance, but let's take a look at how the Radeon HD 6990 fares when tackling real games.

First up are our Dirt 2 and Far Cry 2 benchmarks. Both games are graphically intensive, sporting intricately lit dynamic environments and a fair bit of action. Both resolutions for both tests are run at highest quality settings, with 4x anti-aliasing. At the 1920-by-1200 setting, the results are fairly close. In Dirt 2, the Radeon HD 6990 offers a mere four extra frames over the GTX 580. That climbs up to 27 frames in Far Cry 2, but with the total being just shy of 120 frames per second, you aren't likely to notice the difference.