10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

This Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB 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 12 requirement.

What FPS performance can the Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition get on latest AAA 2023 games? In particular our game review looks at the FPS achieved running on Ultra graphics settings on the 1080p screen resolution as well as 1440p and 4K. This card runs recommended graphics requirements of 363 games from the top 1000 most demanding games being played today.

With 1080p being the most common gaming resolution at the moment we explored how well the Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition can run Grand Theft Auto VI at 1080p and predict it will return weak frame rates at the following graphics settings - Low: 37 FPS, Medium: 29 FPS, High: 20 FPS and Ultra: 14 FPS. For performance contrast we can see that Battlefield 2042 returns a weak 5 FPS at Ultra 1080p.

We move on to 1440p, and predict that Grand Theft Auto VI will deliver weak FPS results. Here are the graphic presets - Low: 28 FPS, Medium: 22 FPS, High: 15 FPS and Ultra: 11 FPS. Next we have Battlefield 2042 running on Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition which gets L: 10FPS, M: 8FPS, H: 5FPS, U: 4FPS. And for performance contrast the popular Forza Horizon 5 gets L: 77FPS, M: 60FPS, H: 41FPS, U: 29FPS at 1440p. Looking at a few of these 1440p results for the Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition we get the impression that it is going to struggle to keep a solid FPS, but a modern game could have a few options tweaked to get it playable at this res but on low graphics settings.

How many years will the Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition in your PC? 12-18 months of top end gaming is still left in this graphics card

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon R9 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB 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 390 Sapphire Nitro 8GB Edition.