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Radeon HD 7990 Review: AMD’s Dual-GPU Flagship in 2013

AMD’s 2013 Radeon HD 7990 paired two GPUs on one board for flagship gaming ambitions, with trade-offs in memory, scaling, power and present-day support.
Length4 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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The Radeon HD 7990 was AMD’s $999 dual-GPU flagship, launched on April 24, 2013, as a bid for the top tier of PC gaming. It put two GPUs and 6 GB of GDDR5 on one board, but that design brought trade-offs in memory use, power, size and game-by-game scaling. Its launch-era ambition makes it a notable piece of gaming hardware history; AMD now classifies it as legacy hardware, so it is not a straightforward modern gaming recommendation.

What the Radeon HD 7990 was

AMD announced the official Radeon HD 7990 on April 24, 2013, with a US launch MSRP of $999. The company positioned it as a top-end gaming card and called it the world’s fastest; that was AMD’s launch claim, not an independent finding. The announcement also compared the card with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 690. AMD’s launch release is the source for the date, price and its performance claims.

The concept was straightforward: place two GPUs on one graphics card rather than asking a buyer to install two separate cards. That promised flagship-class performance in a single-board setup, but it did not make the two processors behave like one GPU in every game. Performance depended on software support and how well a title used both processors.

Key specifications and design details

Feature Radeon HD 7990
GPUs Two on one board
Memory 6 GB GDDR5 total, allocated as 3 GB per GPU
Core clock 1 GHz, as reported by TechSpot’s 2013 review
Card length 30 cm (about 12 inches), as reported by TechSpot’s 2013 review
US launch MSRP $999, announced by AMD on April 24, 2013

The memory figure needs care: the two 3 GB pools are not a single unified 6 GB frame buffer available to one rendering workload. TechSpot’s contemporary review describes the two-GPU design and these product details in its Radeon HD 7990 review.

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What AMD’s launch performance claims show—and what they do not

AMD reported a Fire Strike Extreme score of 6,407 for the HD 7990 against 5,316 for the GTX 690. The results were from AMD’s testing as of February 28, 2013, on a Core i7-3960X system with an MSI X79A-GD65 motherboard, 16 GB of DDR3-1600 memory and Windows 8 x64. AMD used Catalyst 13.2 Beta 6 for its card and ForceWare 310.90 WHQL for the GTX 690. The figures are vendor-reported benchmark results under that specific setup, not a universal measure of game performance.

AMD also said the HD 7990 had higher average performance in its selected Crysis 3 tests at 1080p and 1600p. Those claims help explain how AMD presented the card at launch, but they do not establish that every game benefited equally from its second GPU. Multi-GPU scaling is title-dependent, and the cited launch results do not show performance in current games.

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Power, temperature and practical trade-offs

In TechSpot’s 2013 test, total system consumption reached 491 W. The review said that was 22% above its GTX 690 result and 36% above a single Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition result. These are measurements of the reviewer’s complete test system, not the card’s power draw in isolation or a universal figure for other PCs.

TechSpot recorded a maximum temperature of 72°C in that test. That result applies to its sample, test conditions and workload; it should not be treated as a guaranteed temperature in another case or environment. The card’s 30 cm length is another practical consideration for a retro build: a buyer would need to check clearance in the specific case and verify the exact board’s power and display connections.

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Displays and launch extras

AMD advertised support for up to six simultaneous displays through Eyefinity, but its release qualified that capability: supported display quantity, type and resolution depended on the card model and board design. AMD recommended DisplayPort-ready monitors for setups with more than two displays and noted that additional hardware could be required. “Up to six” is therefore not a guarantee that every HD 7990 board will drive any six displays; inspect the outputs on the particular card and confirm the required adapters and display setup.

The launch announcement also included an eight-title “Never Settle: Reloaded” game bundle. Codes were offered through participating retailers from April 16 to October 1, 2013, or until codes ran out, whichever came first. It was a limited historical promotion, not an offer attached to a card today.

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Is the Radeon HD 7990 still worth buying?

It can make sense as a collectible or as a component in a deliberately period-correct retro PC, but the available evidence does not establish a current used-market price, listing availability, condition or compatibility with a particular modern platform. A purchase decision needs to start with the exact board and intended system, not the original flagship label.

  • Check the individual card: confirm condition, board variant, physical dimensions, outputs and required power connections from the listing and card documentation.
  • Check the build: verify case clearance, power-supply suitability, motherboard and operating-system compatibility for the exact hardware combination.
  • Check the intended games: do not assume a modern title will support or scale across both GPUs. The cited evidence is from 2013 and does not establish current-game performance.
  • Price it as legacy hardware: the $999 figure was its 2013 US launch MSRP, not a guide to what a used card is worth now.

Driver support today

AMD’s HD 7990 support page labels the card legacy hardware. As checked on October 4, 2026, AMD lists Adrenalin 22.6.1 (64-bit Windows) as the latest driver for the card, dated June 23, 2022. AMD’s legacy-support information says no further driver releases are planned for the HD 7700–7900 series. See the HD 7990 driver page and AMD legacy support FAQ for the current listings.

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AMD’s installation guidance recommends using the final available driver for legacy products and advises caution when combining legacy and non-legacy hardware; it notes that issues such as performance drops, game crashes or system errors may occur. The HD 7990’s past status as a high-end gaming card does not establish broad compatibility with today’s games, operating systems or PCs.

Quick Recap

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$58.48

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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