20 Feb 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

While some games have more powerful requirements than this GPU, the Radeon R9 290X is only really challenged by the most demanding games released today, but normally it is more than capable of running games with a stable frame rate at 1080p. DirectX 11 gaming system requirements will be met by this gpu.

We take a look at game performance achieved on this graphics card when running 2021 popular games. This short Radeon R9 290X game hardware review looks at the graphics card frame rate performance on Ultra graphics settings at 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions. This graphics hardware can run 102 of the 1000 most demanding PC games played today.

With 1080p being the most common gaming resolution at the moment we explored how well the Radeon R9 290X can run Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p and saw it return playable frame rates at the following graphics settings - Low: 100 FPS, Medium: 79 FPS, High: 53 FPS and Ultra: 38 FPS. For performance contrast we can see that Grand Theft Auto VI is predicted to return a weak 14 FPS at Ultra 1080p.

With PC gamers looking for larger screen sizes like 1440p we tested the Radeon R9 290X by playing Cyberpunk 2077 which yielded a playable performance. Its FPS results for the graphics settings are as follows - L: 77FPS, M: 60FPS, H: 41FPS, U: 29FPS. Another popular game we researched with this card was Grand Theft Auto VI and that was weak. This graphics card is predicted to deliver 11 FPS at Ultra 1440p. Another popular title was Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War which gets playable results with a 37FPS on Ultra 1440p. Looking at a few of these 1440p results for the Radeon R9 290X we get the impression that it is ok at playing most games but might need to have the graphics settings lowered to medium preset in some cases.

How many years will the Radeon R9 290X graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon R9 290X in your PC? There is around 6-12 months of top end gaming left in this card, at which point its graphics card replacement time, assuming the Radeon R9 290X is part of your PC gaming machine.

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon R9 290X? Upgrading this graphics card would have us consider the 16 Series GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB which is 44% more powerful. This upgrade choice can also run 802 games from the most demanding games today. Alternatively upgrading this graphics card would have us consider the R-500 Series Radeon RX 590 8GB which is 24% more powerful. This upgrade choice can also run 750 games from the most demanding games today.