10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

This Radeon R9 290 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.

We take a look at game performance achieved on this graphics card when running 2022 popular games. This short Radeon R9 290 game hardware review looks at the graphics card frame rate performance on Ultra graphics settings at 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions. When considering how well this graphics card can run the 1000 most demanding games available today it can best 303 of the games’ recommended graphics requirements.

With 1080p being the most common gaming resolution at the moment we explored how well the Radeon R9 290 can run FIFA 22 at 1080p and saw it return strong frame rates at the following graphics settings - Low: 213 FPS, Medium: 167 FPS, High: 113 FPS and Ultra: 81 FPS. For performance contrast we can see that Grand Theft Auto VI is predicted to return a weak 8 FPS at Ultra 1080p.

As the PC gaming masses explore larger screen resolutions we decided to run some game checks at 1440p across a few popular games. We discovered the Radeon R9 290 ran FIFA 22 to a good performance level. Results across the graphics settings looked like this, Low: 162 FPS, Medium: 128 FPS, High: 86 FPS and Ultra: 61 FPS. Another game researched was Grand Theft Auto VI with predictions of L: 16FPS, M: 13FPS, H: 9FPS, U: 6FPS. And then we checked graphics card performance on Forza Horizon 5, which returned L: 67FPS, M: 53FPS, H: 36FPS, U: 26FPS at 1440p. 1440p Radeon R9 290 PC gaming is a perfectly suitable selection of hardware for theis larger screen size. If a game at 1440p struggles a bit or experiences a frame drop then you can tweak settings in game to help get it stable. This might mean lowering it to medium or low in some specific options.

How many years will the Radeon R9 290 graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon R9 290 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 290? Upgrading this graphics card would have us consider the RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB which is 26% more powerful. This upgrade choice can also run 725 games from the most demanding games today. An alternative great upgrade graphics card would be a R-500 Series Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB, which has 78% better performance and can run 960 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today.