10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

The Radeon HD 6990 is a very low performing piece of gaming hardware and can probably only run indie system requirements.

Radeon HD 6990 is capable of DirectX 11 gaming requirements.

We take a look at game performance achieved on this graphics card when running 2023 popular games. This short Radeon HD 6990 game hardware review looks at the graphics card frame rate performance on Ultra graphics settings at 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions. In terms of performance against the most demanding games today this graphics card can play 223 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements.

Running at 1080p this card gets a weak frame rate from Back 4 Blood with 19 FPS on Ultra. Then we take a look at Days Gone which returns a playable 29 FPS. Another title that we looked at is the popular Star Citizen which we predict will get a playable 29 FPS.

One of the growing popular screen resolutions for PC gaming is the wider 1440p. So we wanted to see how well the Radeon HD 6990 performed at 1440p by taking a look at some of the current popular games. First we looked at Back 4 Blood and saw it deliver weak frames per second across the following graphics settings - Low: 37 FPS, Medium: 29 FPS, High: 20 FPS and Ultra: 14 FPS. We then checked the performance on Days Gone to see if that runs well. It was weak with a 22 FPS at Ultra 1440p. Looking at a few of these 1440p results for the Radeon HD 6990 we get the impression that it is not a first choice gaming resolution. While this graphics card would likely be more suited to 1080p gaming, you may be able to make some graphical tweaks in the game options to improve your stability at 1440p.

How many years will the Radeon HD 6990 graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon HD 6990 in your PC? Our current calculations suggest a graphics card upgrade will be required in around 12-18 months

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon HD 6990? A suitable upgrade choice for the Radeon HD 6990 is the RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB, which is 55% more powerful and can run 716 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements. Alternatively a suitable upgrade choice for the Radeon HD 6990 is the RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5300, which is 24% more powerful and can run 300 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements.