Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 688 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | 73 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 0.69 | no data |
| Power efficiency | 2.41 | no data |
| Architecture | Fermi 2.0 (2010−2014) | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) |
| GPU code name | GF116 | Pitcairn |
| Market segment | Desktop | Laptop |
| Release date | 15 March 2011 (13 years ago) | 23 November 2014 (9 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $149 | no data |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 192 | 1024 |
| Core clock speed | 900 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | no data | 975 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 1,170 million | 2,800 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 116 Watt | 80 Watt |
| Maximum GPU temperature | 100 °C | no data |
| Texture fill rate | 28.80 | 62.40 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.6912 TFLOPS | 1.997 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 24 | 32 |
| TMUs | 32 | 64 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Bus support | 16x PCI-E 2.0 | no data |
| Interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Length | 210 mm | no data |
| Height | 4.376" (11.1 cm) | no data |
| Width | 2-slot | no data |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin | None |
| SLI options | + | - |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | 2 GB |
| Memory bus width | 192 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 4.1 GB/s | 1365 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 98.4 GB/s | 174.7 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | Two Dual Link DVI-IMini HDMI | No outputs |
| Multi monitor support | + | no data |
| HDMI | + | - |
| Maximum VGA resolution | 2048x1536 | no data |
| Audio input for HDMI | Internal | no data |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_0) | 12 (11_1) |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 5.1 |
| OpenGL | 4.2 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.1 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | 1.2 |
| CUDA | + | - |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 15 March 2011 | 23 November 2014 |
| Chip lithography | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 116 Watt | 80 Watt |
R9 M290X Mac Edition has an age advantage of 3 years, a 42.9% more advanced lithography process, and 45% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 550 Ti and Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition. We've got no test results to judge.
Be aware that GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a desktop card while Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition is a notebook one.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
