10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

This Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition graphics card is considered budget with poor modern game performance when playing anything more demanding than indie game requirements.

Capable of running games with up to a DirectX 11 requirement.

This PC hardware performance game review for the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition graphics card, when running 2021 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 312 games in todays list.

The 1080p FPS on Ultra for the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition shows us that Grand Theft Auto VI is predicted to get a weak result of 12 FPS, and then we are seeing Resident Evil 8 returning a weak 12 FPS while another game on our list is the Star Citizen which is predicted to get 48 frames per second at Ultra 1080p.

One of the growing popular screen resolutions for PC gaming is the wider 1440p. So we wanted to see how well the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition performed at 1440p by taking a look at some of the current popular games. First we looked at Resident Evil 8 and saw it deliver weak frames per second across the following graphics settings - Low: 23 FPS, Medium: 18 FPS, High: 12 FPS and Ultra: 9 FPS. We then checked the performance on Star Citizen to predict if that will run well. It is predicted to be playable with a 37 FPS at Ultra 1440p. 1440p gaming on the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition is likely in need of some graphical option tweaks when trying to play modern games.

How many years will the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition in your PC? This Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition card has 12 to 18 months of latest AAA game play left in it before upgrading should be considered

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition? A suitable upgrade choice for the Radeon R9 290 Asus DirectCU II OC Edition is the 30 Series GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, which is 80% more powerful and can run 975 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements. An alternative great upgrade graphics card would be a R-500 Series Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB, which has 71% better performance and can run 965 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today.