Radeon R9 255 OEM vs R9 290

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking262not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation8.02no data
Power efficiency5.24no data
ArchitectureGCN 2.0 (2013−2017)GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameHawaiiCape Verde
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date5 November 2013 (11 years ago)21 December 2013 (11 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$399 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 cores2560512
Core clock speed947 MHz900 MHz
Boost clock speedno data930 MHz
Number of transistors6,200 million1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)275 Watt65 Watt
Texture fill rate151.529.76
Floating-point processing power4.849 TFLOPS0.9523 TFLOPS
ROPs6416
TMUs16032

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 3.0 x16
Length275 mmno data
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin1x 6-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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount4 GB2 GB
Memory bus width512 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1250 MHz1150 MHz
Memory bandwidth320.0 GB/s73.6 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPortNo outputs
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (12_0)12 (11_1)
Shader Model6.35.1
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL2.01.2
Vulkan1.2.1311.2.131

Pros & cons summary


Recency 5 November 2013 21 December 2013
Maximum RAM amount 4 GB 2 GB
Power consumption (TDP) 275 Watt 65 Watt

R9 290 has a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.

R9 255 OEM, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 month, and 323.1% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon R9 290 and Radeon R9 255 OEM. 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 R9 290
Radeon R9 290
AMD Radeon R9 255 OEM
Radeon R9 255 OEM

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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4.2 558 votes

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5 1066 votes

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Questions & comments

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