ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 vs R9 290

Place in the ranking	258	910
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	7.92	no data
Architecture	GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code name	Hawaii	Broadway
Market segment	Desktop	Laptop
Release date	5 November 2013 (10 years ago)	7 January 2010 (14 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$399	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 cores	2560	800
Core clock speed	947 MHz	500 MHz
Number of transistors	6,200 million	1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	275 Watt	30 Watt
Texture fill rate	151.5	20.00
Floating-point processing power	4.849 TFLOPS	0.8 TFLOPS
ROPs	64	16
TMUs	160	40

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).

Laptop size	no data	large
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
Length	275 mm	no data
Width	2-slot	no data
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin	no data

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	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	1 GB
Memory bus width	512 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	320.0 GB/s	64 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	No outputs
HDMI	+	-

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (12_0)	11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model	6.3	5.0
OpenGL	4.6	4.4
OpenCL	2.0	1.2
Vulkan	1.2.131	N/A

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:

900p	200−210 +953%	19 −953%
Full HD	270−280 +980%	25 −980%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

4−5

+0%

4−5

+0%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Battlefield 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 +0%	8−9 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	18−20 +0%	18−20 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +0%	10−11 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +0%	35−40 +0%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Battlefield 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 +0%	8−9 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	18−20 +0%	18−20 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +0%	10−11 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +0%	12−14 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +0%	35−40 +0%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 +0%	8−9 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	18−20 +0%	18−20 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +0%	10−11 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +0%	12−14 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +0%	35−40 +0%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

4−5

+0%

4−5

+0%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Far Cry 5	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	10−12 +0%	10−12 +0%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

5−6

+0%

5−6

+0%

4K
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn

1−2

+0%

1−2

+0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	0−1	0−1
Far Cry 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	0−1	0−1

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

3−4

+0%

3−4

+0%

This is how R9 290 and ATI Mobility HD 5850 compete in popular games:

R9 290 is 953% faster in 900p
R9 290 is 980% faster in 1080p

All in all, in popular games:

there's a draw in 53 tests (100%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	20.98	1.91
Recency	5 November 2013	7 January 2010
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	1 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	275 Watt	30 Watt

R9 290 has a 998.4% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 3 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

ATI Mobility HD 5850, on the other hand, has 816.7% lower power consumption.

The Radeon R9 290 is our recommended choice as it beats the Mobility Radeon HD 5850 in performance tests.

Be aware that Radeon R9 290 is a desktop card while Mobility Radeon HD 5850 is a notebook one.

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