AMD Radeon R9 290 review

The AMD Radeon R9 290 is a cut-down version of the R9 290X, having fewer stream processors (2,560 stream processors compared to the R9 290X’s 2,816) and a slightly lower clock speed of 947MHz, which really isn’t so far off the R9 290X’s 1GHz. Like the R9 290X graphics card, the R9 290 has 4GB of memory running at 1,250MHz.

In terms of performance, the R9 290 lags only just behind the R9 290X. We ran our Dirt Showdown benchmark at a resolution of 1,920×1,080 and Ultra graphics quality with 4x anti-aliasing and were pleased to see an average frame rate of 103.8fps. This compares well with the Radeon R9 290X, which produced an average frame rate of 107fps. We increased the resolution to 2,560×1,440 but kept all other settings the same, and saw an impressively smooth 86.6fps. The R9 290X produced an even smoother average frame rate of 95fps under these conditions.

It was a similar story with our Crysis 2 benchmark. At a resolution of 1,920×1,080 with Ultra graphics quality, the R9 290 produced an frame average frame rate of 59.5fps, which is on par with the R9 290X. However, the R9 290 produced an average frame rate of 30.2fps when we increased the resolution to 2,560×1,440, while the R9 290X produced a much smoother 42.2fps.

We also subjected the R9 290 to our more punishing Crysis 3 benchmark at a resolution of 2,560×1,440 with all graphics options set to maximum. Sadly, the R9 290 produced a jerky 20.7fps, but the R9 290X wasn’t far behind with an average frame rate of 22.6fps. Our Crysis 2 and Dirt Showdown benchmarks suggest that the R9 290X is better at playing games at resolutions higher than Full HD, but the two cards performed similarly in our Crysis 3 benchmark when we reduced the resolution to 1,920×1,080. The R9 290 produced an average frame rate of 31.3fps in this test whereas the R9 290X produced an average frame rate of 32fps.

The R9 290X is the more powerful of the two cards, but the R9 290 is more of a bargain. If you want a high performance card but don’t want to spend over £400 on a Radeon R9 290X then you should invest in a Radeon R9 290.