Radeon R9 290X2 vs Apple M1 8-Core GPU

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking356not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Architectureno dataGCN 2.0 (2013−2017)
GPU code nameno dataHawaii
Market segmentLaptopDesktop
Release date10 November 2020 (4 years ago)24 June 2014 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)no data$1,399

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores82816
Core clock speed1278 MHz1000 MHz
Number of transistorsno data6,200 million
Manufacturing process technology5 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)no data580 Watt
Texture fill rateno data176.0
Floating-point processing powerno data5.632 TFLOPS
ROPsno data64
TMUsno data176

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interfaceno dataPCIe 3.0 x16
Widthno data3-slot
Supplementary power connectorsno data4x 8-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeno dataGDDR5
Maximum RAM amountno data4 GB
Memory bus widthno data512 Bit
Memory clock speedno data1350 MHz
Memory bandwidthno data345.6 GB/s
Shared memory+-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectorsno data2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
HDMI-+

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectXno data12 (12_0)
Shader Modelno data6.3
OpenGLno data4.6
OpenCLno data2.0
Vulkan-1.2.131

Pros & cons summary


Recency 10 November 2020 24 June 2014
Chip lithography 5 nm 28 nm

Apple M1 8-Core GPU has an age advantage of 6 years, and a 460% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Apple M1 8-Core GPU and Radeon R9 290X2. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Apple M1 8-Core GPU is a notebook card while Radeon R9 290X2 is a desktop one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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Apple M1 8-Core GPU
M1 8-Core GPU
AMD Radeon R9 290X2
Radeon R9 290X2

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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4 915 votes

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3 6 votes

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Questions & comments

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