10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

This Radeon R9 290X graphics card is considered budget with poor modern game performance when playing anything more demanding than indie game requirements.

DirectX 11 gaming system requirements will be met by this gpu.

This PC hardware performance game review for the Radeon R9 290X graphics card, when running 2023 more popular games, lets us see what type of FPS this card gets when playing at 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions and ultra settings. Of the 1000 most demanding recommended specs found in game requirements today, this gpu is more powerful than the graphics requirement of 363 games in todays list.

Running at 1080p this card gets a weak frame rate from Battlefield 2042 with 5 FPS on Ultra. Then we take a look at Resident Evil 8 which returns a weak 14 FPS. Another title that we looked at is the popular Far Cry 6 which we saw getting a weak 17 FPS.

We move on to 1440p, and tested Battlefield 2042 which delivered weak FPS results. Here are the graphic presets - Low: 10 FPS, Medium: 8 FPS, High: 5 FPS and Ultra: 4 FPS. Next we have Resident Evil 8 running on Radeon R9 290X which gets L: 28FPS, M: 22FPS, H: 15FPS, U: 11FPS. And for performance contrast the popular Far Cry 6 gets L: 33FPS, M: 26FPS, H: 18FPS, U: 13FPS at 1440p. 1440p gaming on the Radeon R9 290X is not a viable PC gaming choice.

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? 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 R9 290X? There are no graphics cards on the current market that would provide a big enough increase in performance to warrant upgrading the Radeon R9 290X.