10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

While some games have more powerful requirements than this GPU, the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire 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.

This card meets game requirements up to DirectX 11.

Here is a quick game performance synopsis for the AAA games played in 2023. In particular we focus on how well the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire runs at Ultra graphics settings and what frames per second it is getting at 1080p, 1440p and 4K monitor resolutions. 716 games can be played by this graphics card of the 1000 most demanding games being played by PC gamers today.

Looking at some of the modern popular games people are playing today the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire is running Forza Horizon 5 and delivering reasonable performances on 1080p Ultra, getting 48 frames per second. Comparing this to Star Citizen which is predicted to get reasonable results, where it averages 55 FPS. Another popular game we looked at is Back 4 Blood, which is running at 48 frames per second.

Increasing resolution to 1440p is something a number of PC gamers are doing today. We tested the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire at 1440p with Forza Horizon 5, which got a playable set of FPS results. These were, Low: 96 FPS, Medium: 75 FPS, High: 51 FPS and Ultra: 36 FPS. We then checked out Star Citizen which we predict would have a set of graphics results as followed, L: 110FPS, M: 86FPS, H: 58FPS, U: 42FPS. And another popular game was Back 4 Blood that returned L: 96FPS, M: 75FPS, H: 51FPS, U: 36FPS at 1440p. In summary we feel the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire running at 1440p is not a bad choice for a larger screen size like this. Some games will struggle though, but with some careful graphic option adjustments in-game you can normally find a suitable visual experience with this GPU at 1440p.

How many years will the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire in your PC? No graphics card upgrade required for around 2 years

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire? There are no graphics cards on the current market that would provide a big enough increase in performance to warrant upgrading the Radeon R9 290 Crossfire.