Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition vs GeForce 7800 GTX

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking1160not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency0.64no data
ArchitectureCurie (2003−2013)GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameG70Pitcairn
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date22 June 2005 (19 years ago)23 November 2014 (9 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$599 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 coresno data1024
Core clock speed430 MHz850 MHz
Boost clock speedno data975 MHz
Number of transistors302 million2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology110 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)86 Watt80 Watt
Texture fill rate10.3262.40
Floating-point processing powerno data1.997 TFLOPS
ROPs1632
TMUs2464

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).

InterfacePCIe 1.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x16
Length228 mmno data
Width1-slotMXM Module
Supplementary power connectorsno dataNone

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 typeGDDR3GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount256 MB2 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed600 MHz1365 MHz
Memory bandwidth38.4 GB/s174.7 GB/s

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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x S-VideoNo outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX9.0c (9_3)12 (11_1)
Shader Model3.05.1
OpenGL2.14.6
OpenCLN/A1.2
VulkanN/A1.2

Pros & cons summary


Recency 22 June 2005 23 November 2014
Maximum RAM amount 256 MB 2 GB
Chip lithography 110 nm 28 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 86 Watt 80 Watt

R9 M290X Mac Edition has an age advantage of 9 years, a 700% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 292.9% more advanced lithography process, and 7.5% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between GeForce 7800 GTX and Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition. We've got no test results to judge.


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

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NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
GeForce 7800 GTX
AMD Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition
Radeon R9 M290X Mac Edition

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Community ratings

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3.6 32 votes

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3.5 2 votes

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Questions & comments

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