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AMD Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition

AMD Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition: An Outdated Warrior or a Relevant Solution in 2025?

Review for Enthusiasts and macOS Users

Introduction

The AMD Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition is a discrete graphics card released in 2014 for Apple computers. Despite its age, it can still be found in some Mac Pro and iMac models from the late 2010s. In 2025, its relevance is under question, but it may still be useful for certain tasks. Let's explore who this model is suitable for and what its weaknesses are.

Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: Based on GCN 2.0 (Graphics Core Next), which provided a good balance between performance and energy efficiency in 2014.

Process Technology: 28 nm — an outdated standard, resulting in less efficiency compared to modern 5–7 nm chips.

Features:

- Support for DirectX 11.2 and OpenGL 4.4.

- AMD Mantle and Eyefinity technologies for multi-monitor setups.

- Missing modern features: ray tracing (RTX/DXR), FSR/FidelityFX, DLSS.

Mac Edition Specifics: Optimized for macOS, including support for the Metal API (versions 1.0–1.2), which is important for Apple’s creative applications.

Memory

Type and Size: 4 GB GDDR5.

Bus and Bandwidth: A 256-bit bus provides up to 176 GB/s.

Impact on Performance:

- In 2025, 4 GB of video memory is insufficient for gaming at 1440p/4K or working with heavy textures.

- For basic tasks (office, web browsing, 1080p video), the memory is adequate, but 4K editing or 3D rendering will be problematic.

Gaming Performance

Modern Games (2025):

- Cyberpunk 2077 (2023): 15–20 FPS on low settings at 1080p.

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V (2024): 25–30 FPS (1080p, low settings).

- Indie Projects (Hollow Knight: Silksong and similar): 60+ FPS without issues.

Resolutions:

- 1080p: The only acceptable option for 2020s games on low settings.

- 1440p/4K: Not recommended due to lack of memory and weak GPU.

Ray Tracing: Not supported — even with FSR 3.0, playing RTX-enabled projects is impossible.

Professional Tasks

Video Editing:

- In Final Cut Pro X (versions up to 2022), it works reliably due to optimization for Metal.

- Rendering 4K videos in DaVinci Resolve 18 takes 3–4 times longer than on modern GPUs.

3D Modeling:

- In Blender (with OpenCL), rendering simple scenes is possible, but more powerful cards are needed for complex projects.

Scientific Calculations:

- Support for OpenCL 1.2 allows using the GPU for basic computations, but CUDA (NVIDIA) libraries are not available.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 125 W — requires quality cooling.

Recommendations:

- Cases with 2–3 fans for adequate ventilation.

- Regular thermal paste replacement (every 2 years).

- Avoid compact builds — the card tends to overheat in small cases.

Energy Efficiency: 0.8 FPS/W — an extremely low figure by 2025 standards (for comparison: RTX 4060 — 4.1 FPS/W).

Comparison with Competitors

Contemporaries (2014–2015):

- NVIDIA GTX 880M: 10–15% faster in games but worse in OpenCL tasks.

- AMD FirePro W6170M: Better for professional applications, but more expensive.

Modern Analogues (2025):

- AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (4 GB): 3–4 times faster in games, supports FSR 3.0.

- NVIDIA RTX 3050 (8 GB): Ideal for 1080p gaming and basic editing.

Conclusion: The R9 M290X is outperformed even by budget GPUs in 2025, but it may still be useful for upgrading older Macs.

Practical Advice

Power Supply: Minimum 450 W (with headroom for other components).

Compatibility:

- macOS: Versions up to Monterey (2021). Drivers are unavailable on Sonoma (2023) and later.

- Windows: Only via Boot Camp (official support ceased in 2020).

Drivers: Use the latest versions from AMD (released in 2022) — modern games and applications may not be optimized.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price (only on the used market; new units are unavailable).

- Compatibility with older Mac Pro and iMac models.

- Quiet operation in non-gaming scenarios.

Cons:

- Outdated architecture.

- Lack of support for modern APIs and technologies.

- Limited performance in gaming and professional tasks.

Final Conclusion: Who Is the R9 M290X Mac Edition Suitable For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Owners of older Macs who want to extend the life of their computers without replacing the entire system.

2. Enthusiasts building retro PCs for playing games from the 2010s.

3. Users who need basic GPU acceleration for work in older versions of Final Cut Pro or Photoshop.

Why You Shouldn't Get It:

- It's unfit for gaming in 2025.

- Modern applications may not run due to lack of driver support.

If you're not tied to macOS, consider budget GPUs from 2025, such as the Radeon RX 6500 XT ($199) or Intel Arc A580 ($179). They offer significantly higher performance and support for current technologies.

Conclusion

The AMD Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition is a relic of the past that may still serve niche scenarios. However, in an era where even integrated graphics from the Ryzen 8000 series outperform it, opting for this card should only be considered as a last resort.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

November 2014

Model Name

Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition

Generation

Crystal System

Base Clock

850MHz

Boost Clock

975MHz

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

2GB

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

1365MHz

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.

174.7 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.

31.20 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.

62.40 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.

124.8 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.

2.037 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.

1024

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

80W

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

2.037 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Quadro M2200 Mobile

2.164 +6.2%

Radeon RX 460

2.107 +3.4%

Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition

2.037

Radeon Graphics 512SP Mobile

2.007 -1.5%

Xe DG1

1.944 -4.6%