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AMD's Radeon HD 6990: The New Single Card Kingby Ryan Smith on 3/8/2011 12:01 AM EST
- Posted in
- Radeon HD 6990
- GPUs
130 Comments
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smookyolo - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkMy 470 still beats this at compute tasks. Hehehe.
And damn, this card is noisy. Reply
RussianSensation - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkNot even close, unless you are talking about outdated distributed computing projects like Folding@Home code. Try any of the modern DC projects like Collatz Conjecture, MilkyWay@home, etc. and a single HD4850 will smoke a GTX580. This is because Fermi cards are limited to 1/8th of their double-precision performance.
In other words, an HD6990 which has 5,100 Gflops of single-precision performance will have 1,275 Glops double precision performance (since AMD allows for 1/4th of its SP). In comparison, the GTX470 has 1,089 Gflops of SP performance which only translates into 136 Gflops in DP. Therefore, a single HD6990 is 9.4x faster in modern computational GPGPU tasks. Reply
palladium - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThose are just theoretical performance numbers. Not all programs *even newer ones* can effectively extract ILP from AMD's VLIW4 architecture. Those that can will no doubt with faster; others that can't would be slower. As far as I'm aware lots of programs still prefer nV's scalar arch but that might change with time. Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkWell.. if you can oly use 1 of 4 VLIW units in DP then you don't need any ILP. Just keep the threads in flight and it's almost like nVidias scalar architecture, just with everything else being different ;)
MrS Reply
IanCutress - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIt all depends on the driver and compiler implementation, and the guy/gal coding it. If you code the same but the compilers are generations apart, then the compiler with the higher generation wins out. If you've had more experience with CUDA based OpenCL, then your NVIDIA OpenCL implementation will outperform your ATI Stream implementation. Pick your card for it's purpose. My homebrew stuff works great on NVIDIA, but I only code for NVIDIA - same thing for big league compute directions. Reply
stx53550 - Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - linkoff yourself idiot Reply
m.amitava - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link".....Cayman's better power management, leading to a TDP of 37W"
- is it honestly THAT good? :P Reply
m.amitava - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkoops...re-read...that was idle TDP !! Reply
MamiyaOtaru - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkmy old 7900gt used 48 at load
Don't like the direction this is going. In GPUs it's hard to see any performance advances that don't come with equivalent increases in power usage, unlike what Core 2 was compared to Pentium4. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAre you kidding? I have a 7900GTX I dont even use, because it fried my only spare large power supply. A 5670 is twice as fast and consumes next to nothing. Reply
nafhan - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI generally buy cards in the $100-$200 range. Power usage has gone up a bit while performance has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. Reply
LtGoonRush - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI'm disappointed at the choices AMD made with the cooler. The noise levels are truly intolerable, it seems like it would have made more sense to go with a triple-slot card that would be more capable of handling the heat without painful levels of noise. It'll be interesting to see how the aftermarket cooler vendors like Arctic Cooling and Thermalright handle this. Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThere's actually a good reason for that. I don't believe I mentioned this in the article, but AMD is STRONGLY suggesting not to put a card next to the 6990. It moves so much air that another card blocking its airflow would run the significant risk of killing it.
What does this have to do with triple-slot coolers? By leaving a space open, it's already taking up 3 spaces. If the cooler itself takes up 3 spaces, those 3 spaces + 1 open space is now 4 spaces. You'd be hard pressed to find a suitable ATX board and case that could house a pair of these cards in Crossfire if you needed 8 open spaces. Triple slot coolers are effectively the kryptonite for SLI/CF, which is why NVIDIA isn't in favor of them either (but that's a story for another time). Reply
arkcom - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link2.5 slot cooler. That would guarantee at least half a slot is left for airspace. Reply
Quidam67 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkif it means a quieter card then that might have been a compromise worth making. Also, 2.5 would stop people from making the il-advised choice of using the slot next to the card, thus possibly killing it! Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkWith the height of a triple slot card maybe they could mount the fan on an angle to prevent blocking it off. Reply
kilkennycat - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkTriple-slot coolers... no need!!
However, if one is even contemplating Crossfire or SLI then a triple-slot space between the PCIe X16 SOCKETS for a pair of high-power 2-slot-cooler graphics cards with "open-fan" cooling (like the 6990) is recommended to avoid one card being fried by lack of air. This socket-spacing allows a one-slot clear air-space for the "rear" card's intake fan to "breathe". (Obviously, one must not plug any other card into any motherboard socket present in this slot)
In the case of a pair of 6990 (or a pair of nVidia's upcoming dual-GPU card), a minimum one-slot air-space between cards becomes MANDATORY, unless custom water or cryo cooling is installed.
Very few current Crossfire/SLI-compatible motherboards have triple-slot (or more) spaces between the two PCIe X16 connectors while simultaneously also having genuine X16 data-paths to both connectors. That socket spacing is becoming more common with high-end Sandy-Bridge motherboards, but functionality may still may be constrained by X8 PCIe data-paths at the primary pair of X16 connectors.
To even attempt to satisfy the data demands of a pair of 6990 Cross-Fire with a SINGLE physical CPU, you really do need a X58 motherboard and a Gulftown Corei7 990x processor, or maybe a Corei7 970 heavily overclocked. For X58 motherboards with triple-spaced PCIe sockets properly suitable for Crossfire or SLI , you need to look at the Asrock X58 "Extreme" series of motherboards. These do indeed allow full X16 data-paths to the two primary PCIe X16 "triple-spaced" sockets.
Many ATX motherboards have a third "so-called" PCIe X16 socket in the "slot7" position. However, this slot is always incapable of a genuine X16 pairing with either of the other two "X16" sockets, Anyway this "slot 7" location will not allow any more than a two-slot wide card when the motherboard is installed in a PC "tower" -- an open-fan graphics card will have no proper ventilation here, as it comes right up against either the power-supply (if bottom-loaded) or the bottom-plate of the case. Reply
Spazweasel - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkExactly. For people who are going to do quad-Crossfire with these, you pretty much have to add the cost of a liquid cooling system to the price of the cards, and it's going to have to be a pretty studly liquid cooler too. Of course, the kind of person who "needs" (funny, using that word!) two of these is also probably the kind of person who would do the work to implement a liquid cooling system, so that may be less of an issue than it otherwise might be.
So, here's the question (more rhetorical than anything else). For a given ultra-high-end gaming goal, say, Crysis @ max settings, 60fps @ 3x 2500x1600 monitors (something that would require quad Crossfire 69xx or 3-way SLI 580), with a targeted max temperature and noise level... which is the cheaper solution by the time you take into account cooling, case, high-end motherboard, the cards themselves? That's the cost-comparison that needs to be made, not just the cost of the cards themselves. Reply
tzhu07 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkBefore anyone thinks of buying this card stock, you should really go out and get a sense of what that kind of noise level is like. Unless you have a pair of high quality expensive noise-cancelling earbuds and you're playing games at a loud volume, you're going to constantly hear the fan.
$700 isn't the real price. Add on some aftermarket cooling and that's how much you're going to spend.
Don't wake the neighbors... Reply
Spivonious - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link70dB is the maximum volume before risk of hearing loss, according to the EPA. http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/noise/01.htm
Seriously, AMD, it's time to look at getting more performance per Watt. Reply
ET - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIf you're going to keep your case open all day with your ear to the graphics card, then you might get that 70dB+, which won't be too nice on the ear. On the other hand you won't get much gaming done. :)
I don't know the exact distance Anandtech measured this noise at, but Kitguru measured at about 1 metre and got 48dB when running Furmark, 40dB for normal load. Reply
bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link70dB is very low and only would apply if you are essentially living next to your computer - that's a 24-hour exposure level.
NIOSH recommends 85dB as the upper limit for 8 hours of exposure, with a 3dB exchange rate - that is, every time you halve the amount of time you're exposed to the sound you can increase the volume by 3dB.
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-110/appF.html Reply
looniam - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - link*ahem*
"The document identifies a 24-hour exposure level of 70 decibels as the level of environmental noise which will *prevent* any measurable hearing loss over a lifetime"
does NOT say what the maximum is.
from my experience as an audio tech:
95dB is the start of temporary hearing loss, 110dB is the start of permanent and 140dB is the threshold of pain.
and for drunk people, they can't hear anything below 150dB :) Reply
Ninjahedge - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - linkWhat? Reply
futuristicmonkey - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAny chances for some memory OC benches? Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkBoth AMD and nVidia are out of mind, they are ignorant of the consequence by putting two gigantic chips with 5+billion transistors on the same board. I can't find the point of buying such outrageous card instead of building a CFX/SLI system. At least the latter isn't that loud, isn't that hot and consumes hardly more power than those monstrosities.
TSMC is to blame. They dropped 32nm so it is impossible to get 6990/590 within 300W power envelope. But neither AMD nor nVidia turn back, but keep making these non-sense flagship cards. Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkNo, it's not. Reply
Amuro - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI will be water cooling them! :) Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkWhat a shame it will be when next-generation 28nm Single GPU flagships wipe out these monsters with ease while consumes half the power, running silent. Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThat hasn't traditionally happened. Look at the comparison between the 6990 and the 4870x2 - 2 generations, IIRC one process shrink. The 6990 does generally put up much better numbers, but consumes a lot more power to do so. Looking at a comparison between the 4870x2 and 5870 (double GPU on a larger process size to next-gen single-GPU) they are very close, with the 4870x2 overall holding a slight lead. And of course none of these high-end reference cards have ever been silent Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkJust be prepared to upgrade your GPU every year. If you think they are going to stop leap frogging performance you are not being realistic. Reply
san1s - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link"AMD even went so far as to suggest that reviewers not directly disassemble their 6990"
The next picture: The card disassembled
haha Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkTo AMD's credit, they were good sports offered to take any pictures we needed. So all of those disassembled shots came from them. They were really adamant about it being a bad idea to take these things apart if you intended to use them in the future. Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI was looking for a comment on whether you did all your testing before disassembling or whether you got some of their super paste to reassemble. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkMy problem with the shot is the poor application of thermal paste from the picture. In a card of this magnitude having a perfect coating of thermal compound is critical. And knowing marketing if that is the shot they SHOW, how good do you really think the application is on one purchased in retail channels? Reply
iwod - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI haven't been following CrossFire / SLI or these Single Card Dual GPU closely. ( Which to me are the same as two card anyway )
Do they still need drivers to have a specific profile of the game to take advantage? I.e an Unknown Game to the Drivers will gain 0 benefits from the 2nd GPU?
If that is so, then they are not even worth a look. Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkMost of the big games support SLI and CrossfireX today. For example, I play Battlefield BC2 myself and using 2 video cards blows the doors of a single card and is well worth the investment, especially if you have a 2560x1600 resolution monitor like I do. For 2 ATI cards in Crossfire you install a separate crossfire profiles pack in addition to the catalyst drivers. The profiles pack supports all the game crossfire optimization. The AI mode in the catalyst drivers exploits the game profile pack setting for crossfire so you want that enabled.
A dual GPU HD 6990 is essentially crossfire on a single card, but for some reason it doesn't perform as well as dual single GPU cards in crossfire. Go figure.
If you play old games that don't support SLI or Crossfire then YES there is 0 gain. If you have not tried any of the new games what are you waiting for? It doesn't suck you know?! Reply
cactusdog - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI agree, unless you have eyefinity and one slot, paying a premium for heat and noise doesnt make sense. For most people with 1 screen a 6970 or 580 is more than enough. Reply
Samus - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linki'd be shocked if they sold even one of these without it being returned at some point. the noise levels are astonishing. at full blast the thing doesn't even meet federal vehicle emissions noise regulations without being classified as a motorcycle! Reply
MadAd - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link8%? where do we buy tubes of this phase change material? do they sell it like arctic silver? Reply
MarkLuvsCS - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThanks for an awesome article!
Minor typo in section "ONCE AGAIN THE CARD THEY BEG YOU TO OVERCLOCK" second to last paragraph second sentence says "...the 6690OC's core clock is only 6% faster and the memory clock is the same, versus..." Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkYes this is the article I as waiting for. Time to get rid of my 2 HD 5870 cards and purchase 2 HD 6970 ones. I wouldn't get an HD 6990. That is pretty clear.
Thanks AnAndTech! Reply
mino - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAT has CHOSEN to not overclock the card based on its THEORETHICAL (Furmark) load temperatures ...
Go bash AT for writing "OC" on the slides while they enabled ONLY the performance BIOS. Not doing ANY overclocking whatsoever by fear of Furmark ...
In effect what they have done was in effect a factory OC, not a traditional OC of the what-it-can-handle kind.
Great, so Furmark has achieved one more evil goal: it prevents (AT?) journalists to do overclocking reviews ... Reply
mino - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkHere come some real OC numbers: www.legitreviews.com/article/1566/14
BTW, they did not even bother with the #1 BIOS option to achieve it ... so, lets talk about biased reviewing, shall we? Reply
RaistlinZ - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkLooks like the 2x6950 is a much better option, given you'll have much less noise to deal with and that they can be flashed to 6970 shaders.
If this card had been $599 I probably would have picked one up. But at $699 I think I'll just wait for 28nm generation of cards.
Thanks for trying, AMD. Reply
MarcHFR - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkHi,
Drivers used are :
NVIDIA ForceWare 262.99
NVIDIA ForceWare 266.56 Beta
NVIDIA ForceWare 266.58
AMD Catalyst 10.10e
AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix
AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview
Is it possible to know wich driver is used for each card ?
Thanks Reply
jcandle - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkRyan, any chance you'll be doing a thermal compound review soon? 8% against their stock compound. How much better is it than current performance aftermarket compounds? Reply
IanCutress - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkQuite difficult to get accurate thermal compound numbers. There's no way you can guarantee that the compound will be spread evenly and accurately every time. Any big 8ºC differences will show sure, but you're always playing with statistics to +/- 3ºC. Then there's the inevitable argument about the right way to apply the paste... Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkMore importantly is the normal compound most manufacturers use is junk compared to a good thermal compound such as arctic silver (don't keep up on the latest brands as I still have Arctic Silver 3 that works great for me). So that 8% might very well be true since the normal stuff is of poor quality. Reply
ypsylon - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkBut few issues need to be addressed. Noise for starters, nearly 80dBA. Thats like working in a foundry. Also cooling is highly inefficient for card of this size. Need some 3rd party solution or water cooling altogether.
Biggest problem for 6990 could be (or rather will be) nVidia. If they price GTX590 at the same level or even below $700 price tag then AMD will be screwed totally. For now waiting for GTX590 and 6990 with some after market coolers as stock solutions are completely unacceptable.
One thing straight - I do not sleep on ca$h and if I buy 6990/590 it will be ma$$ive expense for me, but... What swings things for me with cards like this, is that I do not need uber VGA for 30 monitors. All I want is card with large frame buffer, which will live in my PC for ~10 years without need to upgrade, and it will occupy only 1 PCI-ex x16 slot. SLI/CF is totally misguided if you do have some more hardware installed inside. Sometimes (with all that SLI/CF popularity) I wonder, why 7 slot ATX is still alive and 10-12 slot motherboards are not a standard? Reply
james.jwb - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI doubt it. That would be 80 dBA at ear level compared to whatever Ryan used. At ear level it's going to be a lot lower than 80.
Still, that doesn't take away the fact that this card is insane... Reply
Belard - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe card needs 3 slots to keep cool and such. They should have made a 2.5-slotted card, but with a bit of a twist.
Channel the AIR from the front GPU chamber into a U-duct, then split into a Y that goes around the fan (which can still be made bigger. The ducts then exhaust out the back in a "3rd slot". Or a duct runs along the top of the card (out of spec a bit) to allow the fan more air space. It would add about $5 for more plastic.
Rather than blowing HOT air INTO the case (which would then recycle BACK into the card!
OR - blowing HOT air out the front and onto your foot or arm.
Noise is a deal killer for many people nowadays. Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThat ductwork would substantially reduce the airflow, making a sharp turn like that would be a large bottleneck. Reply
burner1980 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI´m always wondering why reviews always neglect this topic. Can this card run 3 monitors @ 1920x1080p 120 HZ. 120 HZ monitors/beamer offer not only 3D but foremost smooth transitions and less screen tearing. Since this technique is available and getting more and more friends, I really would like to see it tested.
Can anybody enlighten me ? (I know that Dual link is necessary for every display and that AMD had problems with 120 HZ+eyefinity) Did they improve? Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link...with two slightly downclocked 6950s. Alternatively, a 6890, albeit with the old VLIW5 shader setup. As we've seen, the 5970 can win a test or two thanks to this even with a substantial clock speed disparity.
The 6990 is stunning but I couldn't ever imagine the effort required to set up a machine capable of adequately running one... and don't get me started on two. Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI'd love to see Jessica Alba's beaver, but that aint going to happen either. Reply
qwertymac93 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAUSUM SWITCH
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/8717/ausum.png Reply
KaelynTheDove - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkCould someone please confirm if this card supports 30-bit colour?
Previously, only AMD's professional cards supported 30-bit colour, with the exception of the 5970. I will buy either the 6990 or Nvidia's Quadro based on this single feature.
(Because somebody will inevitably say that I don't need or want 30-bit colour, I have a completely hardware-calibrated workflow with a 30" display with 110% AdobeRGB, 30-bit IPS panel and the required DisplayPort cables. Using 24-bit colour with my 5870 CF I suffer from _very_ nasty posterisation when working with high-gamut photographs. Yes, my cameras have a colour space far above sRGB. Yes, my printers have it too.) Reply
Gainward - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkJust a heads up for anyone buying the card and wanting to remove the stock cooler.... There is a small screw on the back that is covered by two stickers with (its under the two stickers that look like a barcode). Well removing that you will then notice a void logo underneath it... I just wanted to point it out to you all...
Didnt bother us too much here seen as ours is sample but I know to some droppin £550ish UK is quite a bit of cash and if all you are doing is having an inquisitive look it seems a shame to void your warranty :-S Reply
mmsmsy - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI'd like to know how do you benchmark those cards in Civ V. I suppose it's the in-game benchmark, isn't it? Well, I read some tests on one site using their own test recorded after some time spent in the game using FRAPS and I'm wondering if using the in-game test is that really different scenario. According to the source, in the real world situation nVidia cards' performance show no improvement whatsoever over AMD's offerings. If you could investigate that matter it would be great. Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkYes, using the LateGameView benchmark. Like any other benchmark it's not a perfect representation of all scenarios, but generally speaking it's a reasonable recreation of a game many turns in with a large number of units. Reply
jabber - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAll cards at this level are niche. Very few of us have that much to splash on one component.
I find it amusing that most of the folks here going "oh wow thats too noisy/power hungry/slow etc. so I wont be buying!", will just then load up Crysis on their 5770/GTX460 equipped PCs.
Note to 95% of you reading this article...this card isnt/wasnt designed for you. Reply
araczynski - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linknice, but it sounds like the 6950CF owns the bang/$ award, this thing is too little for too much $/headache. Reply
araczynski - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkthen again my 4850CF/E8500 system just played dragon age 2 demo at 1920x1200 with absolutely no problems, so have no reason to upgrade just yet, still. Reply
Gainward - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI also just wanted to touch on that comment. Whilst these cards seem excessive to some you have to remember that @ this moment in time they are as I dub it the veyron moment like others in the past the concorde moment. They might not be for most people practical but to its like me saying to my team, look lets see what we can do. Not only that but having the crown of fastest single card (agreed single card but multi gpu) goes a long way to brand loyalty and advertising.
An example I like to use is the GTX 560. Its a fantastic card and in many ways better… hang with me a second. In terms of actual raw power you get for sub £200 is incredible also factor in its quiet and wont eat through your electricity like a moth through primark. But…. to not produce these high end cards would be criminal. We need people to keep pushing as hard and fast (that sounds so wrong) at the the boundaries(agreed quite crudely in the 6990 case but hey I dont sit in either camp just wait a few days for the 590 for brute but crude).
with the reduction in nm to 28 the power consumption and heat will be brought down further (dont need pointing out here that a lot of factors at play here it was just a generalisation) but sure we could see just as big and hot cards within practical reason.
I would not say out of hand I would say its progress and with progress we can lear Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkRoger that. Reply
JimmiG - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link"Water cooled 6990s will be worth their weight in gold."
They'll probably cost about that too... Reply
smigs22 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe r6990 stands out as a massive single card leader. The 6950CF offers far better price/perfomance with potential for 6970CF performance through BIOS flashing.
Maybe you should break up some of the charts to show only single cards configurations (for those with motherboards lacking full/partial SLI/CF support).
It will be interesting to see how enabled & what clocks the gf590 will arrive at, in order to keep its power-draw & temps down to reasonable levels??
I wonder if someone would place a carbon tax on these bad boys....lol Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe would have done this, but there is a cryo cooled case interior on the market yet. Reply
IceDread - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIf the card would have come with water cooling option or something like that, then it would have been a great product. Reply
EmmetBrown - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkNice, but what about the Radeon HD 6450, 6570 and 6670?
Why they are available for OEM only? They looks interesting, especially the 6670, which with its 480 SP should be faster than the 5670 which has 400 SP and lower frequency. Do you plan to review them? Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAs you note, they're OEM only. AMD will release them to the retail market eventually, but clearly they're not in a hurry. It's unlikely we'll review them until then, as OEM cards are difficult to come by. Reply
misfit410 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI have to ask, if you bring up the price and say that you might as well do two 6950's in SLI when this thing doubles the performance of the GTX580, I mean would it also not be the better solution than a GTX580 which is $500 while two 6950's can apparently double it for $550 being they can be found for $225 after rebates these days. Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkYou sound a little confused. You can't run ATI cards in SLI, they run in what is called crossfire (or crossfirex which is the same thing). Two 6950's don't equal GTX580 in SLI. You need two HD 6970 cards in crossfire to nearly equal two GTX580 in SLI.
In my opinion, why limit your performance with 2 HD 6950 cards, why not just bye the 2 HD 6970 cards and never have to second guess if you should have or not? But... That's just me. I have a job. Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkTotally unnecessary closing comment there, considering most people here do actually have jobs. Not everyone who has a job can afford such gear as there's more important things to spend money on. Reply
Thanny - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkYou sound confused, too. He miswrote SLI, but you misunderstood his point entirely. He's saying that two 6950's are significantly faster than a single 580 for almost the same price. Reply
Loiosh - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkHey guys, you forgot one other usage case that would necessitate this card: ATI+physx setup: http://www.shackpics.com/viewer.x?file=DumbVideoca...
I'm currently running one and it requires a dual-GPU card. :/
In my case I'm waiting for a watercooled version. BTW, you didn't say the release date for this? Reply
nanajuuyon - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkFunny after reading this review I went into town (Tokyo) to buy a new hard disk and saw this card for sale. So in Japan at least it is already on the market..... price was ridiculous though, 79,000YEN or $945 US..... I'm sure it will be available everywhere soon.
Waterblocks on the other hand could be a couple month or so away I guess... Reply
Vinas - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIf you buy this you better have it on water. 'nuff said about all this tri slot cooler talk. Reply
JPForums - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkFirst off, nice article Ryan.
Good data, relevant commentaries on said data, and conclusions.
You mention in the article that you believe some of the shortcomings of the 6990 to be a lack of PCIe bandwidth. This got me thinking that perhaps it is a good time to revisit the effect of PCIe bandwidth on modern cards. Given the P67 only natively supports 16 lanes, I'm curious to see what effect it has on CF/SLI. It could make big difference in the recommended hardware for various levels of gaming systems.
Typically, someone looking for a CF/SLI setup will get a board that supports more lanes. However, I have seen a situation where a friend built a budget i5 system and about 4 months later was in a position to acquire an HD5970 on the cheap (relatively speaking). Clearly, two HD5850s/HD5870s would have been an option.
If newer cards are effectively PCIe bandwidth limited, then a 6990 may perform more closely to an HD6970 CF setup in such a system than it does in these graphs. This would be even more of a consideration at the high end if the rare boards with support for 4x8 lane (spaced) PCIe give you no real benefit over a more common 2x16 lane board (comparing 4 HD6970s to 2 HD6990s). Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI have 2 XFX HD 5870 cards for sale. I have a double lifetime warranty on these so you get the use of the second lifetime warranty on these. Interested? They are very great performers I can vouch for that. I am use to upgrading my GPU on an annual basis so I am upgrading to 2 HD 6970. $230 each. Reply
Thanny - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIgnoring the inappropriateness of advertising here, I submit:
Why would someone pay you $230 for a used product that can be obtained new at $190? Reply
fausto412 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI kinda wanted to see a chart with the most common gaming resolution...and can we benchmark with a Q9550 just for comparison? i would love to know if i'm holding back a video card by not going i5 or i7 and by how much. Reply
jabber - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIf you can afford a 6990 why would you be bothering using it with a Q9550 at 1680x1050. Hence why it isnt part of this review.
This review is to show how it works for the intended market/customer.
As I said before, this card isnt for folks like you (or me for that matter). Sorry. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe most common gaming resolution for this card is the one Ryan tested. It is pointless to test at a lower resolution other than possibly true 24" (1920X1200). And even at that res this card is really not needed. Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkBOYA to both of those resolutions. You should be playing your games at 2560x1600. Now that's what I'm talkin about! You'd be saying hell ya. Reply
Jorgisven - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIt seems we're getting into the Pentium IV trap, a bit. Big, hot, power-hungry, noisy chips...personally, I'm going to pass on this generation of GPUs. I'm waiting for a revolution in either manufacturing or coding. It's all well and good to have a fast computer for getting what you need done in minimal, but at the risk of the box taking flight because the fans are now of jet engine proportion in speed and power, I'd rather not be able to hear my fans over my headphones...or risk my cat getting sucked into the intake. Reply
jabber - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkWell we've kinda got what we asked for. We've all gamely been buying more and more powerful graphics cards with regards to brute force rendering power.
We've shown we love buying 750w+ power supplies with multiple GPU connectors, buying SLI and Xfire setups galore.
So the GPU corps think we love nothing more than just piling on more and more power and wattage to solve the situation.
It works both ways.
What we should have been doing was challenging AMD and Nvidia to develop smarter rendering techniques. Had either of them developed PowerVR to the state we are in today we would be in a far better place. Chances are the most power hungry card we'd have today would be 5770 level.
We need something more efficient like PowerVR to take us to the next level.
Less brute force and more finesse. Reply
therealnickdanger - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAre you waiting to update your test system until the SATA port issue is corrected? Seems to me that anyone wanting to buy this card would also be using an overclocked 2600K... According to the Bench numbers, the 2600K offers roughly 30% more frames than the 920, depending on the game. That indicates to me that your test system is insufficient to properly test this card.
Granted, since the vast majority of displays are fixed at 60Hz, fps counts beyond that don't really matter, but I have to wonder what impact this would have on folks with 120Hz-native LCDs. That extra 30% could make the difference.
... just sayin'. :) Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAt this point we're waiting on SNB-E. SNB is very nice, but for a GPU testbed the lack of PCIe bandwidth is an issue. Reply
iamezza - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThis could make for an extremely valuable article for gamers on a budget. When does lack of PCIe bandwidth become an issue for running SLI/crossfire?
Testing 580SLI at 2 x 8 and 2 x 16 modes would be a good place to start.... Reply
therealnickdanger - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkIt will be curious to see what impact the bandwidth will have... then again, even with the restriction, the current Sandy Bridge systems still dominate the previous chips.
In reality, 16/16 or 8/8 really doesn't have much impact. The difference even at 2560x1600 with all the fixins in even the most demanding games is <1%. Unless AT's new test system will feature six displays and 4K+ resolutions, I'm not sure SNB-E is worth waiting so long for (yes, that could be perceived as a challenge!)
In any case, I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for the article! Reply
shaggart5446 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linki hope u said the same thing when ur friend nvidia release their 590 card i also do hope u say the exact words that the 590 dont make any sence since a pair of 560 or 570 can give u the same performance as the 590 i cant wait to see ur article on the 590 ill be waiting for anand tfor this because we all know that the 590 are going to be down clock Reply
ClownPuncher - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkWith cards designed specifically with multi monitor gaming in mind, you may want to include those resolutions. Buying this card for 1920x1200 would make zero sense. Reply
7Enigma - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkI think it was good to have both. The number of people buying this card will likely have 30" displays, but I'm sure some (competetive FPS for example) will want extremely fluid display even in busy scenes, as well as the person that doesn't yet have the cash to upgrade to a big screen but plans to in the near future.
I would also argue that there are likely vastly more people playing on large single-screen displays than eyefinity folks so this does make more sense. And honestly when some of the games are averaging in the sub 80-100 fps range, those minimum framerates approach questionable playability depending on type of game.
So basically as crazy as it is to say this, the graphical power isn't quite there yet to use Eyefinity at high detail settings in more recent and demanding games. Reply
Nentor - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link"With but a trio of exceptions, the 6990 doesn't make sense compared to a pair of cards in Crossfire."
This product is not meant to make any sense from a financial, performance or even practical standpoint.
It IS the fastest videocard and that is that.
I was watching a video last night on youtube of a chainsaw powered by a Buick's V8 engine (hG5sTLY0-V8). It goes through a tree trunk in a blink of an eye, but it had to be lifted by TWO men.
Sure is cool though. Reply
Squuiid - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - linkIt makes complete sense if you want SLI in a small form factor, mATX and such. (as do I).
PCIe slots are at a premium, and so is space on a mATX board/case.
However, I think I'm going to wait and see what the 590 looks like... Reply
Fhistleb - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI didn't even think that was possible. Though with what this is pushing out its a little expected I suppose. Reply
stangflyer - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI would like to see the 6990 and 5970 comparison in crysis and metro at eyefinity and single monitor res but with the 5970 at default clocks and close to 5870 clocks. When I am playing these games I have my 5970 at 850 core and 1150 memory and it runs all day without any throttling.
The 5970 is handicapped at the default speeds as everyone can run at or real close to 5870 speeds. The core is easy at 850 but you may need to back down memory to 1150 or 1175.
Would love to see the true difference in the 5970 and 6990 this way.
The framebuffer will be the big difference at eyefinity res. with any aa applied. Reply
stangflyer - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkOne thing I do like about the dual gpu amd cards is that I play a few games that use physx.. (I have a 5970) I have a 250gts in the second pcie slot. both my slots are 2x16. This way I have a powerfull gpu and physx! I play my games at 5040x1050 and a single card just don't cut it. I did use nvidia surround for 2 months but like my eyefinity setup better. To go crossfire and then have physx you need a motherboard that doesn't knock your pcie slot down to 8x with 3 cards which are few and expensive and also a case that has space for that 3rd card like a coolermaster haf 932X. I have a haf 932 (not X) and I could not go 3 cards unless the 3rd card is single slot.
On a side note as to why I am sticking with my 5970 till the 28nm show up is that I like the way the cooler is set up. With the fan on the end I have my 250gts below it with about a 3/8 inch below it. BUT the 250gts is only about 7.5-8 inches long and does not cover the fan at all because the fan is at the end. I have a 120mm fan at the bottom of my haf 932 case that blows straight up into the 5970 fan.
If I used a 6990 the 250gts would cover the 6990 fan.
My choices would be then to sell the 250gts and get a single slot card. (450gts probably)
I think I am just going to stay with what I have for now.
Maybe! LOL! Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link2 HD 6970 Cards for $640? I don't think so! These cards are over $300 everywhere. I purchased 2 for $710 shipped and I thought that was a deal. Maybe reviews like yours here inflated the price and I purchased after the price adjustment. I have the same luck with gasoline on days I fill my tank. Reply
ViRGE - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkLooking at the Egg, there's 2 different 6970s at $320, which is probably where AT got $640 from.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkAll right, you got me there. I only buy XFX double lifetime warranty cards when I start spending this much on replacing my dual GPU solution.
I seem to manage to actually re-sell my used video cards when I can offer then to a buyer with a lifetime warranty. XFX double lifetime warranty is not a sales gimic, it works. Heck, I would buy a used card if it had a lifetime warranty, it's kind of a no brainer given you actually want to buy that card int he first place. Reply
Arbie - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThanks for keeping the Crysis Warhead minimum FPS charts!! To me, Crysis/Warhead remains the defining game (and not only technically). I don't even look at the numbers on the other titles.
Also of prime importance to me are the idle power and, to a slightly lesser extent, idle noise.
Of course, like most people reading your review, I wouldn't be buying a 6990 even if it were silent. In fact, given that PC graphics requirements are apparently ramping down to console levels, I wonder how AMD/Nvidia are going to sell any significant number of cards above midrange. My HD 5770 will run everything at 1920x1200, though not always with all sliders maxed. However, I don't see much if any difference (in DX9) when I do enable 4xAA vs 2xAA etc. Certainly not enough to double the price of this $140 card.
A nit on the Crysis Warhead minimum fps chart for 1920x1200 Frost Bench - Gamer Quality - Enthusiast Shaders + 4xAA: Your Dec 10 chart shows 6970CF at 66.2 fps but this Mar 11 chart shows 66.6. Can you believe anyone would actually notice this, much less comment on it? We are too absorbed in this tech stuff (ain't it grand...). Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThey did say the new drivers made a slight difference, that seems likely to be one of the configurations they retested Reply
morphologia - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThat isn't portrait orientation in the picture...it's landscape. Reply
taltamir - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe card was measured at 77.3db in the article.
1. At what distance was it measured?
2. What is its db measurement 1 meter away? Reply
taltamir - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI just looked it up, gold is worth 1430$/ounce right now.
I highly doubt a watercooled 6990 will weigh half an ounce. Reply
ekrash - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe performance bottleneck is also seen in nvidia's dual gpu offerings. Dual GPU cards operating in X16 PCIe slots must have their data lanes divided between the gpu's, so they are effectively operating at X8 data rates, not at X16 data rates. Whereas single gpu cards will utilize all X16 express lanes, and even then the PCIexpress standard may soon be obsoleted. I hope we can look forward to Intel's fiber optic technology effectively replacing all data bus signalling with 10GB fiber optic bus and peripheral device signalling which can simultaneously and independently utilize all of the different data protocols used for inter-device and system bus communications. Imagine soon AMD and Nvidia will be producing video cards with fiber-optic data buses which may change requirements for power supplied to present day PCI express slots and may change the standards in power supply manufacturing to require that additional power connector to a video card since the 75 watt PCIe slot will be obsolete.
But ATI and Nvidia may also have to work with motherboard manufacturers to see if Intel's "Thunderbolt" fiber optic data buses can increase or freely throttle the video data bandwidth through its 10GB interface and would be tantamount to increasing data lanes from X16 to X32. It would be almost unlimited video bandwidth which far exceeds any bandwidth limitations vs availability that is needed today. Dual GPU's cannot promise the performance with the limitation of the PCIe X16 slot being divided to dual X8 channels, but it would be nice to see how they perform with unlimited bandwidth potential over a single 10GB fiber-optic. And that would change the battlefield between ATI-AMD and Nvidia.
My 4870 X2's (Can run Quadfire) still rocks on enthusiast settings in Crysis and Warhead without any hiccups and I've not seen a slowdown of any sort on any level in Crysis.
The price to performance ratio is declining and may affect my decision to purchase another dual GPU card, opting instead for single GPU card CF solutions that can utilize all X16 lanes by the GPU.
BTW I did notice the lack of DATA on Crysis @1920x1200 with full enthusiast settings, so that data is missing from this review. Its Gamer plus enthusiast shaders.....not full enthusiast. As above the 4870 X2 runs full enthusiast settings, not one setting is scaled back, and not one hiccup....just smooth play throughout on a single 28" display. Reply
cmdrdredd - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkWhy are we still using Crysis Warhead at "Gamer Quality"????? With cards like these why not turn everything maxed in game and then fidget with AA and the like? I don't get it. Reply
Spazweasel - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkI've always viewed single-card dual-GPU cards as more of a packaging stunt than a product.
They invariably are clocked a little lower than the single-GPU cards they re based upon, and short of a liquid cooling system are extremely noisy (unavoidable when you have twice as much heat that has to be dissipated by the same sized cooler as the single-GPU card). They also tend to not be a bargain price-wise; compare a dual-GPU card versus two of the single-GPU cards with the same GPU.
Personally, I would much rather have discrete GPUs and be able to cool them without the noise. I'll spend a little more for a full-sized case and a motherboard with the necessary layout (two slots between PCI-16x slots) rather than deal with the compromises of the extra-dense packaging. If someone else needs quad SLI or quad Crossfire, well, fine... to each their own. But if dual GPUs is the goal, I truly don't see any advantage of a dual-GPU card over dual single-GPU cards, and plenty of disadvantages.
Like I said... more of a stunt than a product. Cool that it exists, but less useful than advertised except for extremely narrow niches. Reply
mino - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkEven -2- years since the release of the original Crysis, "but can it run Crysis?" is still an important question, and for -3.5- years the answer was "no."
Umm, you sure bout both those time values?
Nice review, BTW. Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - link"With a 375W TDP the 6990 should consume less power than 2x200W 6950CF, but in practice the 6950CF setup consumes 21W less. Part of this comes down to the greater CPU load the 6990 can create by allowing for higher framerates, but this doesn't completely explain the disparity."
If it hasn't been mentioned before: guys, this is simple. The TDP for the HD6950 is just for the PowerTune limit. The "power draw under gaming" is specified at ~150 W, which is just what you'll find during gaming gaming tests.
Furthermore Cayman is run at lower voltage (1.10 V) and clocks and with less units on HD6950, so it's only natural for 2 of these to consume less power than a HD6990. Summing it up one would expect 1.10^2/1.12^2 * 800/830 * 22/24 = 85,2% the power consumption of a Cayman on HD6990.
MrS Reply
mino - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkYou shall not hit them so hard next time. :)
Numbers tend to hurt one's ego badly if properly thrown. Reply
geok1ng - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThe article points that the 6990 runs much closer to 6950CF than 6970CF.
I assume that the author is talking about 2GB 6950, that can be shader unlocked, in a process much safer than flashing the card with a 6970 BIOS.
It would be interesting to see CF numbers for unlocked 6950s.
As it stands the 6990 is not a great product: it requires an expensive PSU, a big case full of fans, at price ponit higher than similar CF setups.
Considering that there are ZERO enthuasiast mobos thah wont accept CF, the 6990 becomes a very hard sell.
Even more troubling is the lack of a DL-DVI adapter in the bundle, scaring way 30" owners, precisely the group of buyers most interested in this video card.
Why should a 30" step away from a 580m or SLI 580s, if the 6990 the same expensive PSU, the same BIG case full of fans and a DL-DVI adapter costs more than teh price gap to a SLI mobo? Reply
Thanny - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 - linkThis card looks very much like the XFX 4GB 5970 card. The GPU position and cooling setup is identical.
I'd be very interested to see a performance comparison with that card, which operates at 5870 clock speeds and has the same amount of graphics memory (which is not "frame buffer", for those who keep misusing that term). Reply
JumpingJack - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - link
I (which is not "frame buffer", for those who keep misusing that term).
:) Yep, I wished they would actually make it right.
The frame buffer is the amount of memory to store the pixel and color depth info for a renderable frame of data, whereas graphics memory (or VRAM) is the total memory available for the card which consequently holds the frame buffer, command buffer, textures, etc etc. The frame buffer is just a small portion of the VRAM set aside and is the output target for the GPU. The frame buffer size is the same for every modern video card on the planet at fixed (same) resolution. I.e. a 1900x1200 res with 32 bit color depth has a frame buffer of ~9.2 MB (1900x1200x32 / 8), if double or tripled buffered, multiply by 2 or 3.
Most every techno site misapplies the term "frame buffer", Anandtech, PCPer (big abuser), Techreport ... most everyone. Reply
Hrel - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkAnyone wanting to play at resolutions above 1080p should just buy two GTX560's for 500 bucks. Why waste the extra 200? There's no such thing as future proofing at these levels. Reply
wellortech - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkIf the 560s are as noisy as the 570, I think I would rather try a pair of 6950s. Reply
HangFire - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkAnd you can't even bring yourself to mention Linux (non) support?
You do realize there are high end Linux workstation users, with CAD, custom software, and OpenCL development projects that need this information? Reply
HangFire - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - linkAs usual no reply after the first few pages... or on the topic of Linux.
If they only had any clue how many Linux workstations get ordered with "are you sure this has the top processor, top video card and most RAM available?" on a post-it note stuck on the Req. Reply
Azfar - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkCrysis Killer that is.....Finally !! Reply
Euchrestalin - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkWhy is this card named after Wedge Antilles? Why not Vader, Skywalker or my personal favorite Mitth'raw'nuruodo? Reply
gorgid - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkI'm big RADEON fan. I had many ATI cards ( 3870 x 2 , 4870x 2, 5970 etc). Most of them water cooled. So i don't care about noise. My temperatures always at 40C ( for the chips) overclocked. I was planning to sell 5970 and get 6990, but after first reviews i decided to wait to see what NVIDIA will bring in form of GTX 590.
The AMD made great first step with DirectX 11, cards came 6 month earlier then Nvidia.
First time ( may be not) ATI cards were on the top charts for long time.
But this time almost 1 1/2 years past since 5970 came to the market. 6990 shows about 20% gain of performance comparing to 5970. Why somebody would pay $700 for that kind of performance?
In my opinion NVidia will beat 6990 pretty easy, will take a crown and will keep it for a while.
Thank you all. Reply
slickr - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - linkI've read the review on most of the other English sites and there seems to be a big fluke in anand's battlefield benchmark.
Seems like yet another shady bench. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - linkWe of course strive to make the best benchmark possible. So if you believe there is a problem, I'd like to hear what you think is amiss with our benchmarks. We can't fix things unless you guys chime in and let us know what you think is wrong. Reply
HangFire - Monday, March 14, 2011 - linkSo, you do read past page 5 of the comments... but you still can't bring yourself to even mention Linux.
We are working our contacts with AMD but can't get much out of them. I guess no news is bad news. Reply
andy5174 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - linkIs this performance based on AMD's image quality cheat?
http://www.guru3d.com/article/exploring-ati-image-... Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 11, 2011 - linkThat article is out of date as of Catalyst 11.1a. Reply
noxyucT(RUS) - Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - linkкуда стока мощностей это же пздец,295 жифорс в несколько раз рвет.Интересно какой процессор участвовал в тесте, и7 ито не потянет такова монстра.Жесть кароче. Reply


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text:
Gettext - An internationalization package.
From ErlangCentral Wiki
The gettext application makes it possible to internationalize your application. For example, if you have a Web application where you want to present information in different languages, you can accomplish that with the gettext application.
The name gettext comes from the GNU package with the same name. Note however that the only thing they have in common is the format of the PO-files, i.e the files containing the text that can be translated. A PO file contains the Original String and the Translated String.
Example of a PO entry generated by gettext:
#: esmb_gettext.erl:13 msgid "" "Hello World" msgstr "" "Hej Värld"
The string(s) following the msgid tag is the Key, i.e the Original String. The string(s) following the msgstr tag is the Value, i.e the Translated String that will be presented in place of the Original String.
Using gettext you can create an initial PO-file containing all the strings of your application that should be possible to translate. By translating the strings into some other language and loading the new PO-file into the gettext DB you can adapt your application for different languages.
Note that the very first entry of the PO file is a bit special since it contains meta-information. Especially important is the charset information. It is important that you set this right when doing a translation. If you store the strings in utf-8 format then put that info in the PO-file.
Example of the charset info in the PO-file:
...removed some lines here... "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
Installing gettext
The easiest is to install it using erlmerge. Just run the command: erlmerge -i gettext (as root if your Erlang installation is done as root).
If you are not using erlmerge (why not?). The you will find gettext in the jungerl repository of sourceforge.
Importing from jungerl
An alternative to use erlmerge is to import gettext into your own source code repository. Here follows a suggestion for how to do this.
First, if you have write access to jungerls CVS repository, then set a tag in jungerl to make it easier for you to diff any future changes:
cd .../lib/gettext cvs tag gettext-2006-July-21
Next, create another directory where you export gettext from your tag:
mkdir aaa cd aaa cvs -z3 -d ${CVSROOT} export -r gettext-2006-July-21 jungerl cd jungerl/lib/gettext
Now, import the code into your own source code repository:
cvs -d ${MYCVSROOT} import ${MYPROJ}/lib/gettext jungerl gettext-2006-July-21
You're done !
If you don't have write access to jungerl then you have to import without setting a tag. Just checkout jungerl anonymously, remove the CVS dirs, and import.
cvs -z3 -d :pserver:email@example.com:/cvsroot/jungerl \ co -d ${HOME}/jungerl jungerl cd ${HOME}/jungerl/lib/gettext rm -rf CVS */CVS cvs -d ${MYCVSROOT} import ${MYPROJ}/lib/gettext jungerl ${TODAYS-DATE}
If you add the ${TODAYS-DATE} in the import comment you should be able to diff against future jungerl changes using the date information.
Using gettext
In your Erlang or Yaws file, whenever you have a string that should be possible to present in a different language, you wrap it with one of the gettext macros ?TXT/1 or ?TXT2/1.
Example of how to use the TXT2 macro:
-include(".../gettext/include/gettext.hrl"). hello(LangCode) -> ?TXT2("Hello World", LangCode).
The ?TXT2 macro will be substituted with a call to: gettext:key2str("Hello World", LangCode). This function will try to lookup the string "Hello World" in the LangCode-DB (database). If no such DB can be found the string will just be returned as is. This way no string will ever disappear since it (at least) always will fallback to the original string.
To make it extra convenient, you can use the ?TXT macro which just takes one argument and expands to: gettext:key2str("Hello World", get(gettext_language)). As you can see it assume that you already have put the language code into the process dictionary using the key: gettext_language. This is useful for example in a Yaws application where you perhaps get the prefered language code from the headers of the HTTP request. Just put the language code into the process dictionary and you are done!
Example of how to use some other TXT macros:
-include(".../gettext/include/gettext.hrl"). hello(LangCode) -> put(gettext_language, LangCode), ?TXT("Hello World"), ?FTXT("Hello ~s", ["World"]).
Note the last line above! The ?FTXT macro makes it possible to do argument substitution just as with io:format/2 and friends.
The gettext database
There are two ways you can control where the gettext database is located. The first way is to set the environment variable: GETTEXT_DIR to point to the directory where you want gettext to store its data. The second way is to provide a callback function named: gettext_dir/0. You specify the module, either by setting the environment variable GETTEXT_CBMOD, or by giving it as an argument in your supervisor code that setup the gettext_server (see example in gettext_sup.erl).
If nothing of the above are used; as a last resort, gettext will try to use its own priv directory as the the location for its database and the PO-files.
Example, the callback module.
M:gettext_dir/0 ==> "/tmp/gettext_DB"
The directory structure will look like shown below:
The GETTEXT_DIR directory structure.
$(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/gettext_db.dets $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/default/$(GETTEXT_DEF_LANG)/gettext.po $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/custom/$(LANG)/gettext.po
The dets file contains the actual lookup database. The default directory will only contain one subdirectory with the name of your default language (e.g "en" as in english). The custom directory will contain one subdirectory for each language you have, each subdirectory containing a translated gettext.po file.
If you want add a translated PO-file to your DB you call the function: gettext_server:store_pofile(LanguageCode, BinPOfile) See also the example section below.
How to create the 'initial' PO-file.
This step requires you to setup some Makefile support in your build environment.
The jungerl version of gettext has a simple example prepared for you to look at. The top gettext Makefile contains a target jungerl_example which will run make using the Makefile.gettext makefile.
The Makefile.gettext file:
## ## Add the directories here that should be gettext'ified ## TXT_DIRS = ../esmb # ../eldap ## ## Set this to a directory where we have write access. ## This directory will hold all po-files and the dets DB file. ## GETTEXT_DIR=/tmp/gettext_example ## ## Set the language code of the default language, i.e the ## language you are using in the string arguments to the ## ?TXT macros. ## GETTEXT_DEF_LANG=en ## ## Set this to an arbitrary name (or leave it as is :-) ## It will create a subdirectory to $(GETTEXT_DIR) where ## the intermediary files of this example will end up. ## GETTEXT_TMP_NAME=tmp ## ## We setup some dependencies here so that we only ## perform any processing iff anything has changed. ## DEP_FILES1=$(TXT_DIRS:%=%/priv/docroot/*.{yaws,js}) DEP_FILES2=$(TXT_DIRS:%=%/src/*.{erl,hrl}) DEP_FILES=$(shell grep -s -l TXT $(DEP_FILES1) $(DEP_FILES2)) gettext_example: $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/$(GETTEXT_TMP_NAME)/epot.dets $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/$(GETTEXT_TMP_NAME)/epot.dets: $(DEP_FILES) @(export gettext_tmp_name=$(GETTEXT_TMP_NAME); \ export gettext_dir=$(GETTEXT_DIR); \ export gettext_def_lang=$(GETTEXT_DEF_LANG); \ export ERL_COMPILER_OPTIONS="[gettext]"; \ rm -f $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/$(GETTEXT_TMP_NAME)/epot.dets; \ for xdir in $(TXT_DIRS); do \ ( cd $$xdir; $(MAKE) gettext ) \ done; \ erl -noshell -s gettext_compile epot2po; \ install -D $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/$(GETTEXT_TMP_NAME)/$(GETTEXT_DEF_LANG)/gettext.po $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/default/$(GETTEXT_DEF_LANG)/gettext.po; \ rm -rf $(GETTEXT_DIR)/lang/$(GETTEXT_TMP_NAME)) gettext_clean: @(for xdir in $(TXT_DIRS); do \ ( cd $$xdir; $(MAKE) gettext_clean ) \ done)
Take a look at the Makefile.gettext file. At the top you specify the directories that should be processed, i.e where there are code containing ?TXT macros. As you can see from the example; we have specified that it is the esmb application that should be processed. We also specify where the 'gettext' data dir is located.
Then, for each directory to be processed, we run make with a special target named gettext. If you look into the esmb application you can see that its top Makefile has got such a target. All this target needs to do is to remove any dependency files (e.g beam files) and then run make to compile them again.
All source files that are using the ?TXT macro are also including the gettext/include/gettext.hrl file which contains a parse-transform. This parse-transform will store all strings that was wrapped with the ?TXT macro into a temporary database.
Going back to the Makefile.gettext file again you can see that when all processing is finished, we call a last generation step. Where we will extract all data from the temporary DB and generate the 'initial' PO-file.
Example session.
Here follows an example session showing how to use gettext. We start by creating our database directory and generate the initial PO-file.
Create the database:
# cd jungerl/lib/gettext # make jungerl_example (compilation printouts removed here) # cat /tmp/gettext_example/lang/default/en/gettext.po (look at the nice PO-file we have got)
Before we start our Erlang system we setup an environment variable pointing to our gettext database directory:
An Erlang session:
export GETTEXT_DIR=/tmp/gettext_example # erl -pa ../esmb/ebin %% This fill create and populate the dets file 1> gettext_server:start(). {ok,<0.35.0>} %% We are calling our example application 2> esmb_gettext:start(). "Hello World" %% Changing to a unknown (at the moment) language code 3> put(gettext_language, "swe"). undefined %% Falling back to the original string 4> esmb_gettext:start(). "Hello World" %% Now read in a Swedish translation 5> {_, Bin} = file:read_file("swedish.po"). {ok,<<35,32,83,79,77,69,32,68,69,...>>} %% Store the translation 6> gettext_server:store_pofile("swe", Bin). ok %% Now look at that...nice !! 7> esmb_gettext:start(). "Hej Värld" %% Change to another language 8> put(gettext_language, "en"). "swe" %% Perfect !! 9> esmb_gettext:start(). "Hello World" %% Get the character set used for a language. 10> gettext_server:lang2cset("swe"). {ok,"iso-8859-1"}
Final remarks.
You can easily write some code on top of this to make it possible to export the initial PO-file and to import translated PO-files. Just make sure that you store the imported PO-file in according to the gettext directory structure. Also, take a look at the iso639.erl file which can be helpful if you want to present some standardized language codes and their full language names.
Below follows a couple of useful gettext functions. For example, if you have a running system and have an updated language translation on disk, then use the gettext:reload_custom_lang/1 function to load the new translations into the gettext DB.
Some other nice gettext functions:
%% reload a custom language into the gettext DB 1> gettext:reload_custom_lang("nb"). ok
%% show what languages we have loaded in the gettext DB 2> gettext:all_lcs(). ["nb","sv"] %% remove a custom language from the gettext DB 3> gettext:unload_custom_lang("nb"). ok 4> gettext:all_lcs(). ["sv"] %% re-build the gettext DB 5> gettext:recreate_db(). ok
If you run a Web application, it is important that you tell the Web browser what character set you are using. To support this, you can use the function: gettext_server:lang2cset(LanguageCode) This way you can make sure that the browser can display your pages correctly. It is even possible to convert from the character set you have to what the Web browser wants if you make use of the 'iconv' library that exist in jungerl. But that is another story...
Download the code
NB: This is the old and outdated XML source for this HowTo!


text:
An Update on Transformer Prime Battery Life & WiFi Issuesby Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/2/2011 11:14 AM EST
53 Comments
Back to Article
MonkeyPaw - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkSounds like Apple's wireless devices are displaying some anti-competative behavior! ;) Reply
ol1bit - Sunday, December 04, 2011 - linkI Love it! Reply
TGressus - Friday, December 02, 2011 - link"As to why performance was lower with the Apple APs active, I'm not entirely sure. Chasing down RF interference issues can be a severe undertaking. One thing is for sure, the Prime is going to be far more finicky than its predecessor when it comes to reaching peak speeds over WiFi."
That's one theory, I suppose...
I'd never use "just works" networking infrastructure tho, so maybe I'm biased. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkThe second part of that statement has to do with the fact that the TF Prime's WiFi performance is far more sensitive to orientation to the AP when compared to the original Transformer.
Take care,
Anand Reply
UpSpin - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkAnandtech is really one of the most reliable tech sites right now. I'm really appreciating your honesty regarding your readers and especially your effort to do the best possible.
This review is such an example, you did a review in time, just like every other tech site, but you were honest that you had not enough time, like all the other tech sites hadn't too but haven't mentioned it. Unlike you, they just posted a poor review and left it that way. You instead did the best with the limited time you had and even after you wrote the initial review try to do a review worth such a new device, and find how it really performs. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkYour support really is appreciated, we do this stuff out of love and it really helps to have such awesome, honest and thoughtful readers. You guys keep us honest and you keep us motivated :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
eddman - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI can't thank you enough for all the hard work you're doing. Truly, you and anandtech's writers are without rival. Most other websites and blogs just do a quick review and if there is a problem with the device, they simply bash it and the brand instead of looking for the root of the problem.
I really appreciate your detective work, how you look for possible causes and how you contact the companies and try to work with them to solve things or to get an official response. Your honesty and devotion towards your work is very special. Reply
jesh462 - Sunday, December 04, 2011 - linkMe too! I enjoy reading your articles even if it's on gear that I never intend on purchasing for this reason. Reply
MrSpadge - Friday, December 02, 2011 - link+1! Reply
BigLan - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkSo Asus sent you a cherry-picked review unit which still has wifi issues, but also have remarkable battery life? I think I'll wait for reviews on actual retail units before making my mind up about this tablet. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkOf the available test data (which admittedly there isn't much) it would appear that my original unit wasn't behaving typically. I don't believe what I've been sent is cherry picked, but I do believe that ASUS may have an assembly line issue that it needs to pay attention to.
More info as I get it...
Take care,
Anand Reply
mcnabney - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkOr the original unit was just even MORE incompatible with Apple wireless access points. You never indicated if you shut the other RF noise down while troubleshooting the first device. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkWhen troubleshooting the first device I did indeed turn off the WiFi on my Apple APs and played around with a Netgear WNDR3700 I have in the basement - it did not fix the issue on the original unit.
In my extended testing of the original Prime I discovered that it had *very* limited range, which points me in the direction of something being wrong with the antenna in that unit.
The behavior of this unit is very different.
Take care,
Anand Reply
bh192012 - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkDid you at any point during any of your testing (original TF, prime 1 / 2 or iPad) turn off your neighbors wireless APs, cell phones, cordless phones and microwaves? Yes wireless troubleshooting really really is a PITA. Reply
OCedHrt - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkSounds like antenna connection/placement issues. Reply
jramskov - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkThanks for the update. It's great to see how Anandtech again and again goes further in their investigation to find the cause of the problems.
This could be the one problem that makes this otherwise excellent product fail... Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkIt's our job after all :)
Thank you for reading the site :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
jramskov - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkSure, but it is the job of many other sites as well and you seem to consistently go the extra kilometer (yes, I'm from Denmark - I don't use miles :p ) Reply
jramskov - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkAnd btw. do you agree that this issue might be what prevents it from being a "buy this, you'll be happy" device? (there's probably a better english term but whatever...)
Not being a huge Apple fan I must say that generally they are able to create devices that fit that category. I would love to see a lot more devices that fit that category because competition is always good :)
Keep up the good work! Reply
dtham - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI love how you provided an update and root cause analysis of the performance issues. Now that you know about the WiFi issue, are you going to be changing your test specifications (Eg. Building a Faraday cage or as you did, disable APs from the vicinity?)? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI'm very tempted to build a small Faraday cage, if I can manage a break before CES this is what I will be doing.
Take care,
Anand Reply
eddman - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkWouldn't a Faraday cage defeat the purpose? After all there is interference in real life all around us and devices should perform well in such conditions; or maybe you're thinking about conducting tests both inside and out of it. Reply
ATOmega - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkMaybe it's a good way to create a baseline for other measurements? Reply
Lugaidster - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkAs much as I like reading news on new gadgets like the prime. Probably what excited me the most in this short article was this:
"I'll be working on [...] some HDD/SSD caching stuff all weekend"
I hope to be reading about that soon :)
Cheers Reply
quiksilvr - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI'm now even more curious as to what improvements ICS will or will not have on performance and battery life. My guess would be better quad corre optimization because even at 11 hours, this is still pretty low compared to a year old tablet. Reply
3DoubleD - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkWhy is there an expectation for significantly improved battery life when the Prime has
1) Faster Quad-core vs Dual core manufactured on the same processing node (yes there is an LP companion core, but at best I'd expect that it would keep power draw equal between the two eg. better performance for the same power draw)
2) Brighter screen
3) Same lithium ion battery tech
And finally, when did 10+ hours of battery life become mediocre? In the world of laptops and cell phones, 10 h of constant use is incredible! And If you really want more battery life, buy the keyboard dock!
And sorry for venting on your post, but I've seen this comment all over the place and it's mind boggling. If you are comparing it to the iPads, then go with iOS if you want iOS. Like Anand has been saying, few people cross shop between iOS and Android. If you can deal with iTunes and Apple, then enjoy your 10% more battery life. If you can't, enjoy the "pathetic" 11 hours of HD video playback that you get with the Prime (without the dock). Reply
Shazboticon - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI would love to see at least one reviewer perform a battery life test under the same conditions as Asus to see if the Asus claimed times can be duplicated. Specifically, the Asus site has the following footnote:
"Battery life tested under power saving mode, playing 720p video
playback, Brightness:60nits, default volume with headphones."
I have yet to see any reviews do a battery test under these conditions. I understand reviewers are probably trying to do a more realistic battery test but I'd still like to see if the Asus claims can be met. Based on the 11 hour time reported in this review I'd guess yes. Reply
Chillin1248 - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkAnand, there is no need for you to wait to open the tablet, here are the pictures of the internals:
http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/2011/11/02/asus-tr... Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI'm aware of the FCC photos unfortunately I can't really tell where the antenna is routed based on those photos :-/ Reply
Chillin1248 - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkI would say that the WiFi antenna is in the upper left corner in those images. Sensible location as well. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 03, 2011 - linkThe more pertinent question: was the antenna even connected properly in the original unit? I'm betting "no". Reply
ATOmega - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkSo the real question now becomes: Are any of the issues spotted so far ones that can be fixed given that the Transformer Prime is more or less a done deal?
Reception issues due to the metal casing don't seem like something they can fix without recalling each and every one to apply a fix, no?
Do you think that given these findings, the Transformer Prime has an irreconcilably fatal flaw? Reply
BugblatterIII - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkAntennagate II : You're Pointing It Wrong Reply
MarkLuvsCS - Sunday, December 04, 2011 - link"Can you hear me n..........." Reply
bh192012 - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkWell the other question might be, do we know that iPad isn't as sensitive to antenna alignment? If the iPad happend to be aligned well (randomly well with Anand's house/configuration, no neighbors with funky setup at the time) during the test, then there wouldn't have been any question and alignment wouldn't have been tested.
Basically the only way to be sure is to do the testing at the same time, otherwise there's a decent chance something in the environment has changed. Reply
ATOmega - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkGood enough point, I've had strange reception with my iPad2 despite being a wooden floor directly above the AP. Reply
jamdev12 - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkHi Anand,
A question for you. If your notion is correct, did you have issues with the Asus Zenbooks since they are made of the same material and the wifi antennas would be in the monitor casing?
Jamdev12 Reply
solipsism - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkThat's more like it for Asus. Reply
Omid.M - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkAnand,
If you could show the screen in IPS+ mode OUTDOORS, that would be sweet. Just planting a seed here :)
Looks like Android tabs are getting competitive. I just wish they'd take better care to make more UI stuff GPU accelerated.
@moids Reply
wouterkcs - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkDo we have a WIFI gate issue similar to the Iphone gate?
Will this be fixed with be retail units scheduled for shipments in two weeks?
Will we have more problems when we upgrade to ICS?
Should we wait till these issues are fixed?
Regards, Reply
OCedHrt - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkFrom the new chart, there really isn't anything new that's meaningful. 11.07 hours on balanced, but that can't be compared to the 9 hours on normal except that balanced should be higher. It's very possible that the 1st sample would've gotten 11.07 hours on balanced as well? Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, December 06, 2011 - linkExactly, and the whole reason I came to post a comment. Why the heck would Anand retest using a different power profile?!? In a week after doing many tests with different profiles I'd understand, but I find it very disingenuous to make it appear that the new unit is the main reason you got an additional 2 hours out of the charge. (even though you do mention nothing is running in the background during the video playback test, without doing the normal test how can we really be sure all is equal?) Reply
tildeleb - Saturday, December 03, 2011 - linkIf you have "Use Wide Channels" or "Use interference robustness" turned on, turn them both off. They are located in Airport/Wireless/Wireless Network Options in Airport Utility. If you are using 2.4 GHz remember there are really only 2.5 non-overlapping regular channels and only 1 with wide channels. Reply
cleverjaja - Saturday, December 03, 2011 - link$1300.00 usd quad core i7, 8gb memory, radeon 6750m 1gb, 8gb ssd/ 700gb hard drive. Less than 1 inch height. Wow!?! Reply
Cerif27 - Sunday, December 04, 2011 - linkLike a lot of people, I'm REALLY looking forward to this device and really don't want to wait for the THIRD generation. However, also like a lot of people, I'll be doing a heck of a lot of web browsing/streaming on the device. These new revelations are a huge let down. I'm really looking forward to your further updates on this problem. I've trusted you guys implicitly for going on a decade, thanks for the detective work. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that the final production line of them doesn't have this problem because this is about as close to a deal breaker as it gets. Sad. Face. Reply
CoryS - Monday, December 05, 2011 - linkHow come I can only see this update on my phones news reader, or a google search? Going to the home page on a PC only shows the original review, for me anyway. Reply
vision33r - Tuesday, December 06, 2011 - linkSince the TF Prime is already shipping in some parts of the world which means that some units will have the Wifi and battery issue.
The TF I currently have does have the battery drain issue and it is very irritating. It is nowhere close to the advertised or tested numbers.
The bottomline is these tablets are much cheaper than iPads so Asus is allowing more bad ones through.
With Apple, if I receive a bad unit I can get one replaced on the spot but with these Asus units I have to go through Asus support and it is a lengthy return process.
I think the TF Prime is a rushed device just to be 1 up on the competition just before the major quadcore designs are due out. In 3 months we'll be talking about the iPad 3 and Galaxy Tab 3 both will feature greater than 720p display, quadcore, and better performance. Galaxy Tab 3, we maybe talking about 2GHZ quadcore. Reply
Disorganise - Wednesday, December 07, 2011 - linkis there any technical reason why these devices couldn't run Windows? If I read correctly there's ARM-based windows 8 tablets planned - is that the same type of processor?
I was pretty close to getting the original TF, but in the end had to plump for a laptop instead cos I needed a way to play wtv files natively (no time to convert files before heading OS).
The Prime looks good assuming the wifi isn't unfixable, but I think it would even more attractive if could dual boot windows 8 when it comes out. Reply
Alemiser - Thursday, December 08, 2011 - linkYou probably have already have this covered,. Just wanted to ask if wifi analyzer was used to see if there are channel conflict between the APs. Reply
Horace44 - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - linkEmail update received today from NCIX regarding my pre-order:
Unfortunately, we just received word that the ASUS Transformer Prime has been delayed worldwide and will most likely not be available before Christmas. ASUS feels the WiFi range does not currently meet their standards and has delayed all shipments worldwide. At the moment there is no ETA and no information on available quantities on the first batch.
Looks like this Wifi issue was not just isolated to a few test units. Thanks Anandtech for bringing this issue to light. Reply
Cerif27 - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - linkOk. THIS is what I'm talking about. If they can fix the wifi without nerfing the battery life? There will be nothing stopping me from dropping my cash on this one. Thanks for the heads up good reader. Reply
Cerif27 - Monday, December 12, 2011 - linkWell...it looks like the official word is that it's back to shipping on the 19th despite several sources referencing the same email. Looks like I'll be waiting to order mine till I hear word from Anandtech after the production line release. You guys are the only ones reporting wifi issues that I can find...AND you're the only ones I truly trust. So I guess I'll just be repeating "patience is a virtue" again and again until I hear from you guys, but don't worry. I'm not expecting to hear anything till after the holiday. Happy holidays everyone. Reply
retarded - Wednesday, February 08, 2012 - linkHi. I just opened up a TF201 today and compared it side by side with my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 using the Ookla Speedtest. The Prime under performed as expected, despite all hopes. The prime is awesome, but I just can't seem to justify keeping it with wifi issues as wifi is one of it's major features (that I use). I'm wondering a couple things. Is is possible that I got a "bad" unit (of which there seems to be many)? I've considered simply returning the one I have to try out another one in hopes that I get a "good"(ish) unit. Is there any hope for the TF201, or should I wait for the TF700T? I really don't want to wait another 4 (likely more if histroy has taught anything on release dates) months. Any possibility of Asus replacing the backs with a plastic cover?
I'm wondering if anyone knows of any place online that sells plastic rear covers that would likely restore great wifi function.
Thanks for any responses. Reply