GeForce RTX 2070 vs Radeon R9 290

Place in the ranking	257	94
Place by popularity	not in top-100	97
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	7.89	33.73
Power efficiency	5.28	16.56
Architecture	GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)	Turing (2018−2022)
GPU code name	Hawaii	TU106
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	5 November 2013 (11 years ago)	17 October 2018 (6 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$399	$499

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

RTX 2070 has 328% better value for money than R9 290.

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 cores	2560	2304
Core clock speed	947 MHz	1410 MHz
Boost clock speed	no data	1620 MHz
Number of transistors	6,200 million	10,800 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	12 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	275 Watt	175 Watt
Texture fill rate	151.5	233.3
Floating-point processing power	4.849 TFLOPS	7.465 TFLOPS
ROPs	64	64
TMUs	160	144
Tensor Cores	no data	288
Ray Tracing Cores	no data	36

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).

Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	275 mm	229 mm
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin	1x 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 type	GDDR5	GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	8 GB
Memory bus width	512 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	1750 MHz
Memory bandwidth	320.0 GB/s	448.0 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 Connectors	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x DisplayPort, 1x USB Type-C
HDMI	+	+
G-SYNC support	-	+

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

VR Ready

no data

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (12_0)	12 Ultimate (12_1)
Shader Model	6.3	6.5
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	2.0	1.2
Vulkan	1.2.131	1.2.131
CUDA	-	7.5

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

R9 290 20.97

RTX 2070 41.85
+99.6%

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

R9 290 8093

RTX 2070 16149
+99.5%

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

R9 290 11860

RTX 2070 23186
+95.5%

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

Full HD	60−65 −110%	126 +110%
1440p	40−45 −108%	83 +108%
4K	30−35 −110%	63 +110%

Cost per frame, $

1080p	6.65	3.96
1440p	9.98	6.01
4K	13.30	7.92

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

70−75

+0%

70−75

+0%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	101 +0%	101 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	87 +0%	87 +0%
Battlefield 5	164 +0%	164 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	116 +0%	116 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	70−75 +0%	70−75 +0%
Far Cry 5	124 +0%	124 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	148 +0%	148 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	246 +0%	246 +0%
Hitman 3	116 +0%	116 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	258 +0%	258 +0%
Metro Exodus	144 +0%	144 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	110 +0%	110 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	207 +0%	207 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	254 +0%	254 +0%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	135 +0%	135 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	73 +0%	73 +0%
Battlefield 5	156 +0%	156 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	106 +0%	106 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	70−75 +0%	70−75 +0%
Far Cry 5	101 +0%	101 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	108 +0%	108 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	227 +0%	227 +0%
Hitman 3	113 +0%	113 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	248 +0%	248 +0%
Metro Exodus	144 +0%	144 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	108 +0%	108 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	85−90 +0%	85−90 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	244 +0%	244 +0%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	64 +0%	64 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	65 +0%	65 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	78 +0%	78 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	70−75 +0%	70−75 +0%
Far Cry 5	79 +0%	79 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	110 +0%	110 +0%
Hitman 3	94 +0%	94 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	139 +0%	139 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	150−160 +0%	150−160 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	87 +0%	87 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	64 +0%	64 +0%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

+0%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	106 +0%	106 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	75 +0%	75 +0%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	52 +0%	52 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	50 +0%	50 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	58 +0%	58 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	30−35 +0%	30−35 +0%
Far Cry 5	60 +0%	60 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	215 +0%	215 +0%
Hitman 3	64 +0%	64 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	104 +0%	104 +0%
Metro Exodus	82 +0%	82 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	100−110 +0%	100−110 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	60−65 +0%	60−65 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	240 +0%	240 +0%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

+0%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	53 +0%	53 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	44 +0%	44 +0%
Hitman 3	41 +0%	41 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	116 +0%	116 +0%
Metro Exodus	76 +0%	76 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	63 +0%	63 +0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	36 +0%	36 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	31 +0%	31 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	33 +0%	33 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	14−16 +0%	14−16 +0%
Far Cry 5	31 +0%	31 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	63 +0%	63 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	55−60 +0%	55−60 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	27 +0%	27 +0%

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

+0%

This is how R9 290 and RTX 2070 compete in popular games:

RTX 2070 is 110% faster in 1080p
RTX 2070 is 108% faster in 1440p
RTX 2070 is 110% faster in 4K

All in all, in popular games:

there's a draw in 72 tests (100%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	20.97	41.85
Recency	5 November 2013	17 October 2018
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	8 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	12 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	275 Watt	175 Watt

RTX 2070 has a 99.6% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 4 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 133.3% more advanced lithography process, and 57.1% lower power consumption.

The GeForce RTX 2070 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon R9 290 in performance tests.

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