Home / AMD / AMD Radeon R9 290X2: Performance and Specs

AMD Radeon R9 290X2

AMD Radeon R9 290X2: A Guide to the Flagship Graphics Card of 2025

Overview of Architecture, Performance, and Practical Insights

Introduction

In 2025, AMD continues to impress gamers and professionals alike with the updated version of the legendary lineup — Radeon R9 290X2. This dual-chip graphics card is positioned as a solution for those demanding maximum performance without compromises. In this article, we will analyze what makes it stand out among competitors, how it handles modern games and tasks, and who should pay attention to it.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The R9 290X2 is built on a hybrid platform RDNA 4+, combining elements of RDNA 4 and optimized GCN blocks for improved compatibility with professional applications.

Process Technology: The 5nm process from TSMC ensures high transistor density and energy efficiency.

Unique Features:

- FidelityFX Super Resolution 3+: An AI-supported upscaling technology that boosts FPS by up to 50% at 4K.

- Hybrid Ray Tracing: Second-generation hardware ray tracing optimized for multi-GPU setups.

- Smart Cache Mesh: Dynamic cache memory distribution between chips to minimize latency.

Differences from RTX and DLSS: Unlike NVIDIA’s DLSS, FSR 3+ does not require Tensor cores, which reduces the cost of the card but slightly sacrifices detail quality.

2. Memory: Speed and Volume

Type and Volume: 16 GB HBM2E with a 4096-bit bus for each chip. The total capacity is 32 GB (16 GB available for synchronized operation).

Bandwidth: 2.4 TB/s (1.2 TB/s per chip). This is twice that of the RX 7900 XTX (960 GB/s).

Impact on Performance:

- In 4K gaming with ultra settings, HBM2E memory eliminates "drops" due to fast access to textures.

- For 8K video editing, a virtual buffer of 32 GB allows for uninterrupted timeline editing.

3. Gaming Performance

Test Projects (Average FPS, Ultra Settings):

- Cyberpunk 2077 (2025): 78 FPS in 4K with Hybrid Ray Tracing + FSR 3+.

- Starfield (2024): 144 FPS in 1440p, 95 FPS in 4K.

- GTA VI: 120 FPS in 4K.

Resolution Support:

- 1080p: Excessive for this card — FPS exceeding 200 in most games.

- 1440p: Optimal balance for 144+ Hz monitors.

- 4K: Enabling FSR 3+ is recommended for stable 60+ FPS in AAA titles.

Ray Tracing: Hybrid Ray Tracing on the R9 290X2 provides a 15-20% increase compared to RDNA 3, but still lags behind NVIDIA's RTX 5080 (by 25-30% due to specialized cores).

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing:

- Rendering 8K projects in DaVinci Resolve is accelerated by 40% thanks to the 32 GB of virtual memory.

- Support for AV1 and HEVC encoding.

3D Modeling:

- In Blender and Maya, rendering using OpenCL is comparable to NVIDIA RTX 4090, but CUDA acceleration is unavailable.

Scientific Calculations:

- Support for ROCm 6.0 (analogous to CUDA) allows for utilizing both chips for simulations in MATLAB and ANSYS.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 350W (peak up to 420W).

Cooling Recommendations:

- Cooling System: Liquid cooling included. For air cooling, a case with 6+ slots and 8 fans is necessary.

- Case: At least 2 fans on the top panel for hot air exhaust.

Tip: Do not use the card in compact PCs — the minimum recommended case length is 50 cm.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 5080:

- Pros: Best RTX, DLSS 4.0, lower power consumption (320W).

- Cons: Price from $1499 (compared to $1299 for R9 290X2).

AMD RX 8900 XTX:

- Pros: Higher IPC at 1080p, support for DisplayPort 3.0.

- Cons: 24 GB GDDR6X compared to 32 GB HBM2E.

Conclusion: The R9 290X2 outperforms competitors in memory-intensive tasks (4K+/8K) but falls short in energy efficiency.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: At least 850W (1000W Platinum recommended). Examples: Corsair AX1000, Be Quiet! Dark Power 13.

Compatibility:

- PCIe 5.0 x16 (backward compatible with 4.0).

- Not compatible with Mini-ITX motherboards.

Drivers:

- Use Adrenalin 2025 Edition with "Hybrid GPU Sync" mode to minimize micro-stuttering.

- Avoid beta versions — conflicts with multi-GPU setups may occur.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Best-in-class performance at 4K.

- Support for 8K textures and professional tasks.

- Competitive price ($1299).

Cons:

- High noise under load (up to 45 dB).

- Requires top-tier cooling and power supply.

- Limited optimization for ray tracing.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the R9 290X2 for?

This graphics card is ideal for:

1. 4K Gamers: Maximum FPS in ultra settings without compromises.

2. Professionals: 8K rendering, working with HBM2E.

3. Enthusiasts: Overclocking potential up to 2.8 GHz with liquid cooling.

However, if you value silence or want to save on power consumption, consider the RTX 5080 or RX 8900 XTX. The R9 290X2 is a tool for those willing to pay for raw power here and now.

Prices are accurate as of April 2025. The stated price ($1299) refers to new units in retail chains in the USA.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

June 2014

Model Name

Radeon R9 290X2

Generation

Volcanic Islands

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

6,200 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.

176

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 2.0

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.

512bit

Memory Clock

1350MHz

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.

345.6 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.

64.00 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.

176.0 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.

704.0 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.

5.519 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.

2816

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

1024KB

TDP

580W

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

2.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_0)

Power Connectors

4x 8-pin

Shader Model

6.3

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.

Suggested PSU

950W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

5.519 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon Pro WX 7100 Mobile

5.843 +5.9%

Radeon Pro 580

5.641 +2.2%

Radeon R9 290X2

5.519

GeForce RTX 2070 Max Q

5.351 -3%

Radeon Pro 5600M

5.193 -5.9%