Radeon HD 7850 vs Radeon R9 M290X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7850 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 Radeon HD 7850 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

  Radeon HD 7850 Radeon R9 M290X
Power consumption (TDP) 225 Watt 100 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 7850 has 125% more power consumption, than Radeon R9 M290X.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 3.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • Radeon R9 M290X has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7850.
  • Radeon HD 7850 is used in Desktops, and Radeon R9 M290X - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 7850 is build with GCN 1.0 architecture, and Radeon R9 M290X - with GCN.
  • Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon R9 M290X are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon R9 M290X is 1200 MHz.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 18−20 16−18
ultra / 1080p 10−12 10−11
QHD / 1440p 5−6 4−5
4K / 2160p 4−5 4−5
low / 720p 35−40 30−35
medium / 1080p 24−27 20−22
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7850 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 13% more, than Radeon R9 M290X.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7850 Radeon R9 M290X
Architecture GCN 1.0 GCN
Code name Pitcairn Neptune
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 5 March 2012 7 January 2014
Pipelines 1024 1280
Core clock speed 850 MHz
Boost Clock 1000 MHz 900 MHz
Transistor count 2,800 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 55.04 72.00
Floating-point performance 1,761 gflops 2,304 gflops
Length 210 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1200 MHz 1200 MHz
Memory bandwidth 153.6 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
Shader Model 5.1 5.1
OpenGL 4.6 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 Not Listed
FreeSync + +
Bus support PCIe 2.1 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 249 Mh/s 300 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity + +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
DualGraphics +
ZeroCore +
Switchable graphics +
Mantle +
Design reference
CrossFire +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 12.5 Mh/s
Compute units 20
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