AMD Radeon R9 M280X vs AMD Radeon R9 M295X vs AMD Radeon R9 M265X

AMD Radeon R9 M280X

The AMD Radeon R9 M280X is a 28 nm DirectX 12 graphics card based on the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture. Built primarily for large laptops, the card is positioned in the upper mid-range category as of 2014. It is based on the Saturn chip (Bonaire codename for Desktop R7 260(X)) and clocked at 900 to 1000 MHz (Boost). The R9 M280X offers 896 shader cores, 56 TMUs, 16 ROPs and a 128 Bit memory interface for up to 4 GB GDDR5 memory (1375 MHz / 5500 MHz effective, 88 GB/s).

The performance of the Radeon R9 M280X is on par with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 850M or GTX 950M. Games from 2015 therefore should run in middle to high settings in 1080p. Some more demanding games like Assassin's Creed Unity may only run fluently in reduced settings.

The 640 shader cores can be used with OpenCL 1.2 for general-purpose calculations (as 10 compute units).

Features of the R9 series include video decoding via UVD3 for decoding MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and Flash directly from the AMD GPU. Multi-View Codec (MVC) and MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid) HD videos are now compatible as well.

The Radeon R9 also supports automatic graphics switching between the integrated GPU and discrete GPU, called Enduro. The technology supersedes AMD's Dynamic Switchable Graphics and is similar to Nvidia's Optimus. Other features include ZeroCore for reducing power consumption when the display is turned off .

The Power consumption of the R9 M280X is not specified but should be around 70 to 80 Watt and therefore, the GPU is only suited for larger laptops and DTRs.

AMD Radeon R9 M295X

The AMD Radeon R9 M295X is a mobile graphics card that first appeared in the 5K iMac Late 2014 as an upgrade to the Radeon R9 M290X in the base model. The M295X is based on the new Tonga chip and therfore used the third generation of the GCN architecture. The power consumption should be between 100 Watt (like the 780M) to 125 Watts (680MX).

Our gaming benchmarks in the 5K iMac position the M295X usually somewhere between a Geforce GTX 880M to 970M. For demanding games in 5K however, the performance is not enough.

AMD Radeon R9 M265X

The 28 nm AMD Radeon R9 M265X is an mid-range notebook graphics card based on the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture. It was introduced in Spring of 2014 and supports up to DirectX 12 (FL 11_1). The underlying "Cape Verde" GPU features 640 unified shaders, a core clock of 625 MHz and a 128-Bit memory interface with 2 or 4 GB of GDDR5 memory at 1000 MHz (4000 MHz effective).

Architecture

The "Cape Verde" GPU codename is based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture and is processed in a 28 nm lithography. The GCN architecture features 10 processing units for a total of 640 stream processors. In addition, the AMD Radeon R9 M265X sports 40 texture units, 64 Z/Stencil ROP units, 16 color ROP units and a 512 KB L2 read/write cache.

The AMD Radeon R9 M265X is compatible with the lastest PCIe  3.0 Standard.

Performance

Depending on the clock rate (and maybe benefits from Boost), the AMD Radeon M265X ranks in the mid-range of mobile graphics cards as of mid 2014. Performance is sligthly above a GeForce 840M and a GeForce 940M. As a result, this AMD GPU can run current titles smoothly up to 900p with medium to high settings. Graphical settings will have to be reduced significantly when playing very demanding titles like Crysis 3 or Far Cry 3.

Features

A well-known feature of the AMD Radeon R9 M265X includes the “Eyefinity“ technology, which allows the user to connect up to 6 displays simultaneously. For notebooks, however, this feature is almost always limited by the number of available display ports.

The mid-range GPU also supports the “Enduro” technology for power efficiency, which is the counterpart to Nvidia's “Optimus”. While idle or in low load scenarios (Office, Internet, etc.), the system will deactivate the dGPU in favor of the more low-power integrated GPU.

The M265X also features the “Mantle” graphics API for gamers. This programming interface has been developed by the manufacturer as an alternative to Direct3D or OpenGL. Example titles with Mantle support include Battlefield 4, Thief, and The Sims 4 with more to come in the future.

With “App Acceleration”, AMD has also equipped the Radeon R9 M265X with technology for improving video quality and increasing application performance. However, support for OpenCL, DirectCompute, or DirectX video acceleration (DXVA) is required in order to use all described functions.

Power Consumption

With a TDP of about 35 to 40 Watt, the power consumption of the AMD Radeon R9 M265X ranges between the 840M (about 30 Watt) and the GTX 850M (~40 to 45 Watt). Thus, the graphics card is best suitable for 15-inch notebooks. Under low loads, automatic underclocking can save energy. When idle, the Enduro software can completely deactivate the card for additional power savings.