Radeon R9 290X2 vs R9 290

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking259not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation8.00no data
Power efficiency5.32no data
ArchitectureGCN 2.0 (2013−2017)GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)
GPU code nameHawaiiHawaii
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date5 November 2013 (11 years ago)24 June 2014 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$399 $1,399

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 cores25602816
Core clock speed947 MHz1000 MHz
Number of transistors6,200 million6,200 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)275 Watt580 Watt
Texture fill rate151.5176.0
Floating-point processing power4.849 TFLOPS5.632 TFLOPS
ROPs6464
TMUs160176

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-slot3-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin4x 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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount4 GB4 GB
Memory bus width512 Bit512 Bit
Memory clock speed1250 MHz1350 MHz
Memory bandwidth320.0 GB/s345.6 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 DisplayPort2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
HDMI++

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (12_0)12 (12_0)
Shader Model6.36.3
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL2.02.0
Vulkan1.2.1311.2.131

Pros & cons summary


Recency 5 November 2013 24 June 2014
Power consumption (TDP) 275 Watt 580 Watt

R9 290 has 110.9% lower power consumption.

R9 290X2, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 7 months.

We couldn't decide between Radeon R9 290 and Radeon R9 290X2. 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.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


AMD Radeon R9 290
Radeon R9 290
AMD Radeon R9 290X2
Radeon R9 290X2

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


4.2 553 votes

Rate Radeon R9 290 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
3 6 votes

Rate Radeon R9 290X2 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.