Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X OC and R9 290 Vapor-X OC review

Total War ROME 2 is the eighth stand alone game in the Total War series, it is the successor to the successful Rome: Total War title. The Warscape Engine powers the visuals of the game and the new unit cameras will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time.

Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This will be realised using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles.

We test at Ultra HD 4K resolutions with the ULTRA preset.

The AMD R9 295X X2 really does completely dominate this game at Ultra HD 4K – a really intense test of any graphics solution. The Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC scores well, almost perfectly matched with the more expensive Sapphire R9 290X TriX OC. The R9 280X runs out of bandwidth at Ultra HD 4K, struggling to maintain playable frame rates at these high image quality settings.

Become a Patron!