Quadro FX 4800 vs Radeon R9 M290X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Quadro FX 4800 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 Quadro FX 4800 stacks up against Radeon R9 M290X, check out specs charts below.

Radeon R9 M290X is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon R9 M290X is only used in laptop graphics. It has 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 Radeon R9 M290X here:

Main Specs

  Quadro FX 4800 Radeon R9 M290X
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt 100 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin None
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1536 MB 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 2x DisplayPort, 1x S-Video No outputs
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  • Quadro FX 4800 has 50% more power consumption, than Radeon R9 M290X.
  • Quadro FX 4800 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon R9 M290X uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Quadro FX 4800 has 1532 GB more memory, than Radeon R9 M290X.
  • Quadro FX 4800 is used in Desktops, and Radeon R9 M290X - in Laptops.
  • Quadro FX 4800 is build with Tesla 2.0 architecture, and Radeon R9 M290X - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon R9 M290X is 248 MHz higher, than Quadro FX 4800.
  • Quadro FX 4800 is manufactured by 55 nm process technology, and Radeon R9 M290X - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Quadro FX 4800 is 400 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 M290X.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 2−3 16−18
ultra / 1080p 0−1 10−11
QHD / 1440p 0−1 4−5
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 12−14 30−35
medium / 1080p 3−4 20−22
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 M290X in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 283% more, than Quadro FX 4800.

Full Specs

  Quadro FX 4800 Radeon R9 M290X
Architecture Tesla 2.0 GCN
Code name GT200B Neptune
Type Workstation Laptop
Release date 11 November 2008 7 January 2014
Pipelines 192 1280
Core clock speed 602 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 1,400 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 55 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 38.53 72.00
Floating-point performance 462.3 gflops 2,304 gflops
Length 267 mm
Memory bus width 384 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1600 MHz 1200 MHz
Memory bandwidth 76.8 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model 4.0 5.1
OpenGL 3.3 4.4
OpenCL 1.1 Not Listed
Vulkan N/A
CUDA 1.3
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0 x16
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 300 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
DualGraphics +
ZeroCore +
Switchable graphics +
Mantle +
Compute units 20
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