AMD Radeon R9 290X: specs and benchmarks

Price now 133$

Games supported 85%

Year of release 2013

Performance 25.27

Summary

AMD started Radeon R9 290X sales 24 October 2013 at a recommended price of $549. This is GCN architecture desktop card based on 28 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 4 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.25 GHz are supplied, and together with 512 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 320 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is dual-slot card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 275 mm. 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 250 Watt.

It provides good gaming and benchmark performance at

25.27%

of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

Radeon R9 290X

GeForce RTX 3090 Ti

General info

Of Radeon R9 290X's architecture, market segment and release date.

Place in performance rating	206
Value for money	35.26
Architecture	GCN (2011−2017)
GPU code name	Hawaii XT
Market segment	Desktop
Design	reference
Release date	24 October 2013 (8 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$549
Price now	$133 (0.2x MSRP)	of 49999 (A100 SXM4)

Value for money

To get the index we compare the characteristics of video cards and their relative prices.

Technical specs

Radeon R9 290X's general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of Radeon R9 290X's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	2816	of 18432 (AD102)
Boost clock speed	947 MHz	of 2903 (Radeon Pro W6600)
Number of transistors	6,200 million	of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	of 4 (H100 PCIe)
Thermal design power (TDP)	250 Watt	of 900 (Tesla S2050)
Texture fill rate	176.0	of 939.8 (H100 SXM5)
Floating-point performance	5,632 gflops	of 16384 (Radeon Pro Duo)

Compatibility, dimensions and requirements

Information on Radeon R9 290X's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus support	PCIe 3.0
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	275 mm
Width	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin

Memory

Parameters of memory installed on Radeon R9 290X: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don't have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bus width	512 Bit	of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	of 21000 (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti)
Memory bandwidth	320 GB/s	of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260)
Shared memory	-

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon R9 290X. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.

Display Connectors	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
Eyefinity	+
HDMI	+
DisplayPort support	+

Technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by Radeon R9 290X. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

AppAcceleration	+
CrossFire	1
Enduro	-
FreeSync	1
HD3D	+
LiquidVR	1
PowerTune	-
TressFX	1
TrueAudio	+
ZeroCore	-
UVD	+
DDMA audio	+

API support

APIs supported by Radeon R9 290X, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX	DirectX® 12
Shader Model	6.3
OpenGL	4.6
OpenCL	2.0
Vulkan	+
Mantle	-

Benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance of Radeon R9 290X. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.

Overall score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. 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 290X 25.27

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
3DMark Ice Storm GPU
Unigine Heaven 3.0
3DMark Vantage Performance
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
3DMark Fire Strike Score
Unigine Heaven 4.0
Passmark

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

R9 290X 73987

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

R9 290X 332042

Unigine Heaven 3.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark using Unigine, a 3D game engine by eponymous Russian company. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. Version 3.0 was released in 2012, and in 2013 it was superseded by Heaven 4.0, which introduced several slight improvements, including a newer version of Unigine.

R9 290X 140

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

R9 290X 37284

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

R9 290X 16168

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 seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic enough graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

R9 290X 11717

3DMark Fire Strike Score

R9 290X 9835

Unigine Heaven 4.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.

R9 290X 1547

Passmark

This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various 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 290X 7425

Mining hashrates

Cryptocurrency mining performance of Radeon R9 290X. Usually measured in megahashes per second.

Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256)	623 Mh/s
Decred / DCR (Decred)	1.07 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto)	25.75 Mh/s
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight)	0.76 kh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash)	350 Sol/s

Game benchmarks

Let's see how good Radeon R9 290X is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

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

Full HD	87
4K	49

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	24−27
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	24−27
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	24−27
Cyberpunk 2077	24−27
Far Cry 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	24−27
Hitman 3	24−27
Horizon Zero Dawn	24−27
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	24−27
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	24−27
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	24−27
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	24−27
Cyberpunk 2077	24−27
Far Cry 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	24−27
Hitman 3	24−27
Horizon Zero Dawn	24−27
Metro Exodus	24−27
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	24−27
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	75
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	24−27
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	24−27
Cyberpunk 2077	24−27
Far Cry 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	24−27
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	29
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	24−27
Hitman 3	24−27
Horizon Zero Dawn	24−27
Metro Exodus	24−27
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	24−27

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	24−27
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	24−27
Cyberpunk 2077	24−27
Far Cry 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	24−27
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	24−27
Hitman 3	24−27
Horizon Zero Dawn	24−27
Metro Exodus	24−27
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	24−27
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	28

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	24−27
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	24−27
Cyberpunk 2077	24−27
Far Cry 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	24−27
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27