Radeon HD 8730M vs Radeon R9 270

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 8730M and Radeon R9 270, 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 8730M stacks up against Radeon R9 270, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 8730M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 8730M 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 8730M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 8730M Radeon R9 270
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x8 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1 x 6-pin
Memory type DDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 8730M is connected by PCIe 3.0 x8, and Radeon R9 270 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 8730M and Radeon R9 270 have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Radeon HD 8730M is used in Laptops, and Radeon R9 270 - in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 8730M is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon R9 270 - with GCN 1.0.
  • Radeon HD 8730M and Radeon R9 270 are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 21−24
ultra / 1080p 12−14
QHD / 1440p 0−1 7−8
4K / 2160p 5−6
low / 720p 1−2 40−45
medium / 1080p 0−1 27−30
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 270 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 4100% more, than Radeon HD 8730M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 8730M Radeon R9 270
Architecture GCN GCN 1.0
Code name Mars Curacao
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 16 November 2012 13 November 2013
Pipelines 384 1280
Core clock speed 650 MHz
Boost Clock 700 MHz 925 MHz
Transistor count 950 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 16.80 74.00
Floating-point performance 537.6 gflops 2,368 gflops
Length 210 mm
Memory bus width 128 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 2000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 32 GB/s 179.2 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) 293 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
TrueAudio +
Design reference
DisplayPort support +
CrossFire +
DDMA audio +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 16 Mh/s
LiquidVR +
TressFX +
UVD +
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