Maxwell GPU Surface Book vs Radeon R9 M290X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon R9 M290X, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the Maxwell GPU Surface Book stacks up against Radeon R9 M290X, check out specs charts below.

Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon R9 M290X are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon R9 M290X are only used in laptop graphics. They have lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Maxwell GPU Surface Book or Radeon R9 M290X here:

Main Specs

  Maxwell GPU Surface Book Radeon R9 M290X
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs
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  • Radeon R9 M290X has 3 GB more memory, than Maxwell GPU Surface Book.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • Maxwell GPU Surface Book is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon R9 M290X - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Maxwell GPU Surface Book is 104 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 M290X.
  • Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon R9 M290X are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Maxwell GPU Surface Book is 3812 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 M290X.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 8−9 16−18
ultra / 1080p 5−6 10−11
QHD / 1440p 0−1 4−5
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 20−22 30−35
medium / 1080p 10−12 20−22
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 M290X in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 81% more, than Maxwell GPU Surface Book.

Full Specs

  Maxwell GPU Surface Book Radeon R9 M290X
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name Surface Book Neptune
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 1 October 2015 7 January 2014
Pipelines 384 1280
Core clock speed 954 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 993 MHz 900 MHz
Transistor count 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 72.00
Floating-point performance 2,304 gflops
Memory bus width 64 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 5012 MHz 1200 MHz
Memory bandwidth 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX DirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0
Shader Model 5.1
OpenGL 4.4
OpenCL Not Listed
CUDA +
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0 x16
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 300 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Optimus +
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
DualGraphics +
ZeroCore +
Switchable graphics +
Mantle +
Compute units 20
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