AMD Radeon E9260 MXM

AMD Radeon E9260 MXM

AMD Radeon E9260 MXM: Compact Power for Mobile Systems

Review of Architecture, Performance, and Practical Value in 2025


Architecture and Key Features

RDNA 2: The Heart of E9260 MXM

The AMD Radeon E9260 MXM graphics card is built on RDNA 2 architecture, which debuted in 2020 but remains relevant due to optimizations. The chip is manufactured on TSMC's 6nm process, ensuring a balance between energy efficiency and performance.

Unique Features

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 3.0: Upscaling technology that increases FPS in games with dynamic resolution support.

- Ray Accelerators: Hardware-based ray tracing, though it is less advanced compared to NVIDIA's RTX 40 series.

- Smart Access Memory (SAM): Accelerates CPU access to video memory in systems with Ryzen processors.


Memory: Speed and Impact on Performance

GDDR6 and Modest Sizes

The E9260 MXM comes with 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus. The bandwidth is 192 GB/s, which is sufficient for 1080p gaming and basic professional tasks. However, in games with high-resolution textures (for example, Cyberpunk 2077), the memory capacity might become a bottleneck at ultra settings.

Tip: For comfortable performance at 1440p, it's recommended to lower the texture quality to "High."


Gaming Performance: What to Expect in 2025?

1080p: Primary Realm

- Apex Legends: 75–90 FPS at high settings (with FSR 3.0 — up to 110 FPS).

- Elden Ring: 50–60 FPS (max settings, without ray tracing).

- Call of Duty: Warzone: 60–70 FPS (medium settings).

1440p and 4K: Limited Potential

At 1440p, FPS drops by 30–40%, and 4K remains unattainable for AAA games without serious compromises. Ray tracing reduces performance by 25–35%, so it should only be activated in less demanding projects (for example, Fortnite with FSR).


Professional Tasks: Not Just Gaming

Video Editing and 3D Modeling

With support for OpenCL 3.0 and Vulkan, the E9260 MXM handles rendering in Blender and DaVinci Resolve, but it lags behind NVIDIA cards with CUDA. For instance, rendering a scene in Blender Cycles takes 20% longer than on the RTX 3050 Mobile.

Scientific Calculations

The card is suitable for machine learning on basic models (TensorFlow via ROCm), but 4 GB of memory limits its capability with large datasets.


Power Consumption and Cooling

TDP 65W: Energy Efficiency First

The E9260 MXM is designed for compact systems and thin laptops. Active cooling with two heat pipes is recommended, but even in passive mode (with a heatsink), the card maintains stability under load up to 70°C.

Build Tip: For a PC with this graphics card, choose cases with rear ventilation (e.g., Silverstone ML09).


Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 Mobile:

- Pros of NVIDIA: Better ray tracing support, DLSS 3.5.

- Cons: Higher price ($250 vs. $220 for the E9260 MXM), limited compatibility with AMD platforms.

AMD Radeon RX 6400:

- Closest analog for desktops, but the E9260 MXM wins in energy efficiency.

Intel Arc A380M:

- Cheaper ($180), but has worse drivers and stability.


Practical Tips

Power Supply: A 400W PSU is sufficient for a system with the E9260 MXM (e.g., be quiet! Pure Power 11).

Compatibility: The card requires an MXM Type B slot, relevant for business laptops in the Lenovo ThinkPad P-series and Dell Precision lines.

Drivers: Use Adrenalin Edition 2025 Q1 — optimized for FSR 3.0 and stable in professional applications.


Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low power consumption.

- Supports FSR 3.0 and SAM.

- Affordable price ($220–240).

Cons:

- Only 4 GB of memory.

- Weak RT performance.

- Limited compatibility with laptops.


Final Conclusion: Who is the E9260 MXM Right For?

This graphics card is an ideal choice for:

1. Mobile Workstations: Engineers and designers will appreciate the balance of price and performance.

2. Budget Gaming Laptops: Suitable for 1080p gaming with FSR.

3. Compact HTPCs: Quiet operation and support for AV1 decoding.

If you need maximum power for 4K or AI rendering, consider the Radeon RX 7600M or NVIDIA RTX 4060 Mobile. However, for its price, the E9260 MXM remains one of the best solutions in the "compactness vs. performance" segment.

Basic

Label Name
AMD
Platform
Mobile
Launch Date
September 2016
Model Name
Radeon E9260 MXM
Generation
Embedded
Base Clock
1090MHz
Boost Clock
1200MHz
Bus Interface
MXM-A (3.0)
Transistors
3,000 million
Compute Units
14
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
48
Foundry
GlobalFoundries
Process Size
14 nm
Architecture
GCN 4.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
4GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
128bit
Memory Clock
1750MHz
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
112.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
?
Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.
19.20 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
57.60 GTexel/s
FP16 (half)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.
2.150 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
134.4 GFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
2.193 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
896
L1 Cache
16 KB (per CU)
L2 Cache
1024KB
TDP
50W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
1.2
OpenCL Version
2.1
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_0)
Power Connectors
None
Shader Model
6.4
ROPs
?
The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.
16

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
2.193 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
2.335 +6.5%
2.243 +2.3%
2.149 -2%
2.064 -5.9%