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AMD Radeon R9 M290X

AMD Radeon R9 M290X: Overview of an Obsolete Mobile GPU in 2025

Current analysis for enthusiasts and budget users

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The Radeon R9 M290X is built on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 2.0 microarchitecture, released in 2013. This solution was part of AMD's lineup for high-performance laptops.

Manufacturing Process: The chip is manufactured using a 28nm technology, which looks archaic by the standards of 2025. Modern GPUs use 5-7nm processes, providing better energy efficiency and transistor density.

Features:

- Lack of modern technologies: The card does not support ray tracing, FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution), or DLSS equivalents.

- Mantle API: Once revolutionary, it is now outdated, having been replaced by Vulkan and DirectX 12.

Conclusion: The GCN 2.0 architecture is limited for tasks in 2025 but can handle basic scenarios.

2. Memory: Type, Capacity and Impact on Performance

Type and Capacity: 4 GB of GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus.

Bandwidth: 160 GB/s — a modest figure even for budget GPUs in 2025 (for example, the RX 6500 XT offers 224 GB/s with GDDR6).

Impact on Gaming:

- For games from 2014-2018 (e.g., The Witcher 3), the memory capacity was sufficient for medium settings at 1080p.

- In contemporary projects (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty), 4 GB is critically low. Even at low settings, performance drops may occur due to VRAM shortages.

3. Gaming Performance

Testing in 2025 (average figures):

- 1080p / Low Settings:

- Fortnite: 35–45 FPS (without FSR).

- Apex Legends: 30–40 FPS.

- 1440p: Not recommended — FPS often drops below 30.

- 4K: Not applicable for gaming tasks.

Ray Tracing: Not supported. In comparison, even the budget NVIDIA RTX 3050 Mobile manages hybrid rendering.

Advice: Best suited for older projects (before 2018) or indie games.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing:

- In Adobe Premiere Pro, rendering 1080p videos is possible but slow. GPU plugins (OpenCL) have limitations.

- The card is unsuitable for 4K editing.

3D Modeling:

- Blender (OpenCL mode): Simple scenes render in minutes, while modern GPUs can complete them in seconds.

Scientific Calculations:

- OpenCL 1.2 support is outdated. Modern frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch) require compatibility with Vulkan or CUDA, which are absent.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP: 100 W — a high figure for mobile systems.

Cooling:

- Requires a laptop with an efficient cooling system (2-3 heat pipes, high static pressure fans).

- Throttling may occur in compact chassis.

Recommendations:

- Regular dust cleaning.

- Use a cooling pad for the laptop.

6. Comparison with Competitors

Historical Analogues (2014-2015):

- NVIDIA GTX 880M: Comparable in performance but with better driver optimization.

In 2025:

- AMD Radeon RX 6500M (price: $200–250): 2-3 times faster, supports FSR 3.0, 4 GB of GDDR6.

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile (price: $180–220): Modest performance but more energy-efficient.

Conclusion: The R9 M290X lags behind even budget newcomers from 2025.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: A laptop with this GPU requires a power supply of at least 150 W.

Compatibility:

- Platforms: Support is limited to outdated laptops (e.g., Dell Alienware 17 R1).

- Drivers: Official updates ceased in 2020. There may be issues with Windows 11/12.

Advice: Consider switching to a more modern platform for guaranteed compatibility with new software.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price on the secondary market ($50–80).

- Sufficient for basic tasks and older games.

Cons:

- No support for modern APIs and technologies.

- High power consumption.

- Limited compatibility with new software.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the R9 M290X Suitable For?

Target Audience:

- Owners of old laptops looking to extend their life for browsing, office tasks, and retro gaming.

- Enthusiasts building budget PCs for experimentation.

Alternatives: If your budget allows $150–200, consider a new RX 6400 or Intel Arc A380 — they will provide support for modern standards and acceptable FPS.

Final Thought: The R9 M290X in 2025 is a relic of the past. It may serve as a temporary solution, but more modern GPUs are needed for comfortable work or gaming.

This article is relevant as of April 2025. The prices and specifications mentioned are based on market data from a hypothetical period.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

January 2014

Model Name

Radeon R9 M290X

Generation

Crystal System

Base Clock

850MHz

Boost Clock

900MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

2,800 million

Compute Units

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.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 1.0

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.

256bit

Memory Clock

1200MHz

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.

153.6 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.

28.80 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.

72.00 GTexel/s

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.

144.0 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.

2.35 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.

1280

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

100W

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

1.2

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_1)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

5.1

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.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.35 TFLOPS

OpenCL

Score

21442

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

T600 Max-Q

2.45 +4.3%

Radeon RX 460 1024SP

2.409 +2.5%

Radeon R9 M290X

2.35

P106 090

2.305 -1.9%

GRID K520

2.243 -4.6%

OpenCL

Radeon RX 6700S

62821 +193%

Radeon Pro 5300

38843 +81.2%

Radeon R9 M290X

21442

Radeon Pro 455

11291 -47.3%

Radeon HD 5750

884 -95.9%