ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT vs HD 8990 OEM

Primary details

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

Place in the rankingnot rated927
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluationno data0.04
Power efficiencyno data0.55
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)TeraScale (2005−2013)
GPU code nameMaltaR600
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date24 April 2013 (11 years ago)14 May 2007 (17 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$999 $399

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 cores2048320
Core clock speed950 MHz743 MHz
Boost clock speed1000 MHzno data
Number of transistors4,313 million720 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)375 Watt215 Watt
Texture fill rate128.011.89
Floating-point processing power4.096 TFLOPS0.4755 TFLOPS
ROPs3216
TMUs12816

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).

InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16PCIe 1.0 x16
Length307 mm241 mm
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 8-pin1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin

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 typeGDDR5GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount3 GB512 MB
Memory bus width384 Bit512 Bit
Memory clock speed1500 MHz828 MHz
Memory bandwidth288.0 GB/s106.0 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 Connectors1x DVI, 4x mini-DisplayPort2x DVI, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (11_1)10.0 (10_0)
Shader Model5.14.0
OpenGL4.63.3
OpenCL1.2N/A
Vulkan1.2.131N/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 24 April 2013 14 May 2007
Maximum RAM amount 3 GB 512 MB
Chip lithography 28 nm 80 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 375 Watt 215 Watt

HD 8990 OEM has an age advantage of 5 years, a 500% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 185.7% more advanced lithography process.

ATI HD 2900 XT, on the other hand, has 74.4% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 8990 OEM and Radeon HD 2900 XT. 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 8990 OEM
Radeon HD 8990 OEM
ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
Radeon HD 2900 XT

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Community ratings

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3.6 7 votes

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3.8 64 votes

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Questions & comments

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