Radeon R9 M295X Mac Edition vs R9 270

Place in the ranking	422	383
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	5.05	no data
Power efficiency	5.11	3.67
Architecture	GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)	GCN 3.0 (2014−2019)
GPU code name	Curacao	Amethyst
Market segment	Desktop	Laptop
Design	reference	no data
Release date	13 November 2013 (11 years ago)	23 November 2014 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$179	no data

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 cores	1280	2048
Core clock speed	no data	850 MHz
Boost clock speed	925 MHz	no data
Number of transistors	2,800 million	5,000 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	150 Watt	250 Watt
Texture fill rate	74.00	108.8
Floating-point processing power	2.368 TFLOPS	3.482 TFLOPS
ROPs	32	32
TMUs	80	128

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	PCIe 3.0	no data
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	MXM-B (3.0)
Length	210 mm	no data
Width	2-slot	no data
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin	no 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 type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	4 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	no data	1362 MHz
Memory bandwidth	179.2 GB/s	174.3 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	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort	No outputs
Eyefinity	+	-
HDMI	+	-
DisplayPort support	+	-

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

CrossFire	+	-
FreeSync	+	-
HD3D	+	-
LiquidVR	+	-
TressFX	+	-
TrueAudio	+	-
UVD	+	-
DDMA audio	+	no data

API compatibility

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

DirectX	DirectX® 12	12 (12_0)
Shader Model	5.1	6.3
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	1.2	2.0
Vulkan	+	1.2.131

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	11.17	13.39
Recency	13 November 2013	23 November 2014
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	4 GB
Power consumption (TDP)	150 Watt	250 Watt

R9 270 has 66.7% lower power consumption.

R9 M295X Mac Edition, on the other hand, has a 19.9% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 1 year, and a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.

The Radeon R9 M295X Mac Edition is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon R9 270 in performance tests.

Be aware that Radeon R9 270 is a desktop card while Radeon R9 M295X 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.