Radeon RX 550 512SP vs R9 290X

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking	289	not rated
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	4.91	no data
Power efficiency	4.55	no data
Architecture	GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)	GCN 4.0 (2016−2020)
GPU code name	Hawaii	Baffin
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Design	reference	no data
Release date	24 October 2013 (11 years ago)	13 October 2017 (7 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$549	$79

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

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	2816	512
Core clock speed	no data	1019 MHz
Boost clock speed	947 MHz	1071 MHz
Number of transistors	6,200 million	3,000 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	250 Watt	50 Watt
Texture fill rate	176.0	34.27
Floating-point processing power	5.632 TFLOPS	1.097 TFLOPS
ROPs	64	16
TMUs	176	32

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).

Bus support	PCIe 3.0	no data
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x8
Length	275 mm	145 mm
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin	None

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	2 GB
Memory bus width	512 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth	320 GB/s	96 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, 1x DisplayPort
Eyefinity	+	-
HDMI	+	+
DisplayPort support	+	-

Supported technologies

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

AppAcceleration	+	-
CrossFire	+	-
FreeSync	+	-
HD3D	+	-
LiquidVR	+	-
TressFX	+	-
TrueAudio	+	-
UVD	+	-
DDMA audio	+	no data

API compatibility

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

DirectX	DirectX® 12	12 (12_0)
Shader Model	6.3	6.4
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	2.0	2.0
Vulkan	+	1.2

Pros & cons summary

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Recency	24 October 2013	13 October 2017
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	2 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	250 Watt	50 Watt

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