Radeon RX 640 OEM vs R9 290

VS

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 4.0 (2016−2020)
GPU code nameHawaiiPolaris 23
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date5 November 2013 (11 years ago)9 April 2020 (4 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 cores2560640
Core clock speed947 MHz1295 MHz
Number of transistors6,200 million2,200 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)275 Watt50 Watt
Texture fill rate151.551.80
Floating-point processing power4.849 TFLOPS1.658 TFLOPS
ROPs6416
TMUs16040

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 x8
Length275 mmno data
Width2-slot1-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pinNone

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 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1250 MHz1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth320.0 GB/s96 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 DisplayPort1x DisplayPort 1.4a, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (12_0)12 (12_0)
Shader Model6.36.7 (6.4)
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL2.02.1
Vulkan1.2.1311.3

Pros & cons summary


Recency 5 November 2013 9 April 2020
Chip lithography 28 nm 14 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 275 Watt 50 Watt

RX 640 OEM has an age advantage of 6 years, a 100% more advanced lithography process, and 450% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon R9 290 and Radeon RX 640 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.

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 RX 640 OEM
Radeon RX 640 OEM

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
4.3 9 votes

Rate Radeon RX 640 OEM 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.