AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB Video Card Review

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 (BF3) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released in North America on October 25, 2011 and in Europe on October 28, 2011. It does not support versions of Windows prior to Windows Vista as the game only supports DirectX 10 and 11. It is a direct sequel to 2005’s Battlefield 2, and the eleventh installment in the Battlefield franchise. The game sold 5 million copies in its first week of release and the PC download is exclusive to EA’s Origin platform, through which PC users also authenticate when connecting to the game.

Battlefield 3 debuts the new Frostbite 2 engine. This updated Frostbite engine can realistically portray the destruction of buildings and scenery to a greater extent than previous versions. Unlike previous iterations, the new version can also support dense urban areas. Battlefield 3 uses a new type of character animation technology called ANT. ANT technology is used in EA Sports games, such as FIFA, but for Battlefield 3 is adapted to create a more realistic soldier, with the ability to transition into cover and turn the head before the body.

Benchmark Results: The AMD Radeon R9 290 was just slightly slower than than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600, but was faster on out multi-monitor 5760×180 gaming setup. Only ~2 FPS separate the Radeon R9 290 and the GeForce GTX 780 at 25×16 and 19×10, so these two cards are very close performing. The AMD Radeon R9 290 costs $100 less though, so AMD really does have a solid offering for those wanting solid Ultra HD gaming performance! The fact that spending $399 on one video card has our triple 1920×1080 monitor setup at above 40FPS on average is pretty amazing. The old NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 can only manage 30 FPS and the GeForce GTX 580 couldn’t even support a triple panel (NVIDIA Surround) gaming setup! Both of those cards cost well over $399 when they came out, so if you have a video card that is 2-3 years old, this might be a nice step up.