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    Radeon HD 8790M vs Radeon R9 M290X

    If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 8790M 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 8790M stacks up against Radeon R9 M290X, check out specs charts below.
    Radeon HD 8790M Check Price
    Radeon R9 M290X Check Price

    Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R9 M290X are Laptop Graphics Cards

    Note: Radeon HD 8790M 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 Radeon HD 8790M or Radeon R9 M290X here:

    Radeon HD 8790M Laptops
    Radeon R9 M290X Laptops

    Main Specs

      Radeon HD 8790M Radeon R9 M290X
    Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt
    Interface MXM-A (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
    Supplementary power connectors None None
    Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
    Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
    Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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    • Radeon HD 8790M is connected by MXM-A (3.0), and Radeon R9 M290X uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
    • Radeon R9 M290X has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 8790M.
    • Both cards are used in Laptops.
    • Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R9 M290X are build with GCN architecture.
    • Both graphics cards have the same core clock speed.
    • Radeon HD 8790M and Radeon R9 M290X are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
    • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8790M is 3300 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 M290X.

    Game benchmarks

    high / 1080p 3−4 16−18
    ultra / 1080p 1−2 10−11
    QHD / 1440p 0−1 4−5
    4K / 2160p − 4−5
    low / 720p 14−16 30−35
    medium / 1080p 6−7 20−22
    The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 M290X in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 233% more, than Radeon HD 8790M.

    Full Specs

      Radeon HD 8790M Radeon R9 M290X
    Architecture GCN GCN
    Code name Mars XTX Neptune
    Type Laptop Laptop
    Release date 16 November 2012 7 January 2014
    Pipelines 384 1280
    Core clock speed 850 MHz 850 MHz
    Boost Clock 900 MHz 900 MHz
    Transistor count 950 million 2,800 million
    Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
    Texture fill rate 21.60 72.00
    Floating-point performance 691.2 gflops 2,304 gflops
    Memory bus width 128 Bit 256 Bit
    Memory clock speed 4500 MHz 1200 MHz
    Memory bandwidth 64 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
    Shared memory - -
    DirectX 12 (11_1)
    Shader Model 5.1 5.1
    OpenGL 4.6 4.4
    OpenCL 1.2 Not Listed
    Vulkan 1.2.131
    FreeSync +
    Bus support PCIe 3.0 x16
    Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 80 Mh/s 300 Mh/s
    Laptop size medium sized large
    Eyefinity +
    HD3D +
    PowerTune +
    DualGraphics +
    ZeroCore +
    Switchable graphics +
    Mantle +
    Compute units 20
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