Radeon R9 M270 vs HD 8790M

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking730not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)GCN (2012−2015)
GPU code nameMarsno data
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date1 April 2013 (11 years ago)1 April 2014 (10 years ago)

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 cores384640
Core clock speed850 MHz725 MHz
Boost clock speed900 MHzno data
Number of transistors950 million1500 Million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)unknownno data
Texture fill rate21.60no data
Floating-point processing power0.6912 TFLOPSno data
ROPs8no data
TMUs24no data

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).

Laptop sizemedium sizedlarge
InterfaceMXM-A (3.0)no data
Supplementary power connectorsNoneno data

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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2 GB4 GB
Memory bus width128 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHz4500 MHz
Memory bandwidth64 GB/sno data
Shared memory--

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 ConnectorsNo outputsno data

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 (11_1)12 (FL 11_1)
Shader Model5.1no data
OpenGL4.6no data
OpenCL1.2no data
Vulkan1.2.131-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 1 April 2013 1 April 2014
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB

R9 M270 has an age advantage of 1 year, and a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R9 M270. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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AMD Radeon HD 8790M
Radeon HD 8790M
AMD Radeon R9 M270
Radeon R9 M270

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.3 330 votes

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2.7 6 votes

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Questions & comments

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