10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

This Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II 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.

Here is a quick game performance synopsis for the AAA games played in 2023. In particular we focus on how well the Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition runs at Ultra graphics settings and what frames per second it is getting at 1080p, 1440p and 4K monitor resolutions. 363 games can be played by this graphics card of the 1000 most demanding games being played by PC gamers today.

With 1080p being the most common gaming resolution at the moment we explored how well the Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition can run Star Citizen at 1080p and predict it will return reasonable frame rates at the following graphics settings - Low: 120 FPS, Medium: 95 FPS, High: 64 FPS and Ultra: 46 FPS. For performance contrast we can see that Back 4 Blood returns a playable 38 FPS at Ultra 1080p.

Increasing resolution to 1440p is something a number of PC gamers are doing today. We tested the Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition at 1440p and researched how Star Citizen might perform on it leading us to predict a playable set of FPS results. These were, Low: 92 FPS, Medium: 72 FPS, High: 49 FPS and Ultra: 35 FPS. We then checked out Back 4 Blood which had a set of graphics results as followed, L: 77FPS, M: 60FPS, H: 41FPS, U: 29FPS. And another popular game was Grand Theft Auto VI with predictions of L: 28FPS, M: 22FPS, H: 15FPS, U: 11FPS at 1440p. Looking at a few of these 1440p results for the Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition we get the impression that it is certainly a viable option for these higher gaming resolutions. Remember that if you suffer some 1440p FPS drops the you can usually tweak modern game graphics settings until you get a near High graphics setting experience with this Graphics card.

How many years will the Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition in your PC? This Radeon R9 290X Asus DirectCU II 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 290X Asus DirectCU II Edition? 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 Asus DirectCU II Edition.