Radeon HD 8790M vs Radeon R7 250X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R7 250X, 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 8790M stacks up against Radeon R7 250X, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 8790M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 8790M 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 HD 8790M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 8790M Radeon R7 250X
Power consumption (TDP) 80 Watt
Interface MXM-A (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None 1 x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 8790M is connected by MXM-A (3.0), and Radeon R7 250X uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R7 250X have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Radeon HD 8790M is used in Laptops, and Radeon R7 250X - in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 8790M is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon R7 250X - with GCN 1.0.
  • Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R7 250X are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8790M is 2875 MHz higher, than Radeon R7 250X.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 3−4 10−12
ultra / 1080p 1−2 6−7
QHD / 1440p 0−1 1−2
low / 720p 14−16 24−27
medium / 1080p 6−7 14−16
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R7 250X in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 133% more, than Radeon HD 8790M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 8790M Radeon R7 250X
Architecture GCN GCN 1.0
Code name Mars XTX Cape Verde
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 16 November 2012 13 February 2014
Pipelines 384 640
Core clock speed 850 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz 1000 MHz
Transistor count 950 million 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 21.60 38.00
Floating-point performance 691.2 gflops 1,216 gflops
Length 210 mm
Memory bus width 128 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 4500 MHz 1625 MHz
Memory bandwidth 64 GB/s 96 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1 5.1
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 80 Mh/s 152 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
DDMA audio +
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