AMD Radeon 840M vs AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Comparison

AMD Radeon 840M and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT occupy opposite ends of AMD’s graphics stack in the database. The 840M is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) built for low-power mobile systems, while the RX 9070 XT is a discrete, dual-slot add-in board designed for high-performance desktop workloads. Benchmark data shows the RX 9070 XT delivers overwhelmingly higher raw performance, but the 840M holds a distinct place for systems where power draw and physical footprint are constrained. The recorded specifications confirm a 4 nm process node for both parts, yet their architectures, memory subsystems, and compute resources diverge sharply.

FAQ

Q: What are the core architectures of the AMD Radeon 840M and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT?

A: The AMD Radeon 840M uses the RDNA 3.5 architecture on the Krackan Point chip, belonging to the Navi III IGP (Strix Point Mobile) generation. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT uses the RDNA 4.0 architecture on the Navi 48 chip, part of the Navi IV (RX 9000) generation.

Q: How do their memory configurations differ?

A: The 840M uses system-shared memory with a system-dependent bandwidth and bus width, meaning it relies on the host system’s RAM. The RX 9070 XT has 16 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: What is the difference in shading units and ray tracing cores?

A: The 840M has 256 shading units and 4 ray tracing cores. The RX 9070 XT has 4096 shading units and 64 ray tracing cores, representing a 16x increase in both metrics.

Q: Which GPU has a higher boost clock?

A: The RX 9070 XT boosts to 2970 MHz, while the 840M boosts to 2900 MHz. The RX 9070 XT also has a base clock of 1660 MHz and a game clock of 2400 MHz, whereas the 840M has a base clock of 400 MHz.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The 840M has a thermal design power (TDP) of 15 W and requires no power connectors. The RX 9070 XT has a TDP of 304 W, uses two 8-pin power connectors, and requires a 700 W suggested power supply.

Q: How do their benchmark scores compare?

A: The RX 9070 XT has an average benchmark score of 13543 across all tested workloads. The 840M has no recorded benchmark scores in the database, so direct numeric comparison is unavailable, but the RX 9070 XT’s specification advantage is substantial.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon 840M wins in scenarios defined by minimal power consumption and integration. Its 15 W TDP is a fraction of the RX 9070 XT’s 304 W figure, making it suitable for thin-and-light laptops where thermal and battery constraints dominate. The 840M is an IGP with a single-slot footprint (listed as "IGP" for slot width) and no external power connectors, so it fits into systems where discrete graphics cannot physically or electrically exist. It uses PCIe 4.0 x8, which is adequate for an integrated part sharing system memory.

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT wins in every performance-oriented category recorded in the database. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth dwarfs the system-shared memory of the 840M. The RX 9070 XT’s 4096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units enable pixel and texture rates that are orders of magnitude higher. Its PCIe 5.0 x16 interface doubles the lane count and doubles the bus generation compared to the 840M’s PCIe 4.0 x8. The RX 9070 XT also has 64 ray tracing cores against 4 on the 840M, giving it a clear advantage in ray-traced workloads.

The data shows no overlap in use cases. The 840M is for systems where the GPU must share power and space with the CPU, while the RX 9070 XT is for dedicated desktop builds with a robust power supply and adequate chassis airflow.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from different architectural generations, though both are fabricated on a 4 nm process at TSMC. The 840M uses RDNA 3.5, an iteration of AMD’s graphics architecture tailored for integrated graphics in mobile processors. The RX 9070 XT uses RDNA 4.0, the latest architecture for discrete GPUs in the RX 9000 series.

The chip designs are unrelated in scale. The 840M’s Krackan Point chip has unknown transistor counts and die size in the database. The RX 9070 XT’s Navi 48 chip contains 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 151.0 million transistors per square millimeter. That density figure is a direct measurement of how many transistors the RX 9070 XT packs into its silicon, but the 840M’s comparable data is not recorded.

Compute resource allocation differs fundamentally. The 840M has 256 shading units, 16 texture mapping units, and 8 render output units. The RX 9070 XT has 4096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units. Each of these is exactly 16x higher on the RX 9070 XT. Ray tracing cores follow the same 16x ratio: 4 on the 840M versus 64 on the RX 9070 XT.

Neither GPU has tensor cores listed in the database. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is identical. The 840M is part of the Navi III IGP generation with a predecessor listed as Navi II IGP. The RX 9070 XT belongs to the Navi IV generation with a predecessor of Navi III. The RX 9070 XT is the newer discrete generation, released five days after the 840M in the database’s timeline.

Specification Differences

The specification table shows clear divergences across every major category except process node and API support.

Clock speeds: The 840M has a 400 MHz base clock and 2900 MHz boost clock. The RX 9070 XT has a 1660 MHz base clock, 2400 MHz game clock, and 2970 MHz boost clock. The RX 9070 XT’s base clock is over 4x higher, and its boost is 70 MHz higher.

Memory: The 840M uses system-shared memory with a system-dependent bus width and bandwidth. The RX 9070 XT uses 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth and a memory clock of 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective).

Compute units: The 840M has 256 shading units, 16 TMUs, 8 ROPs, and 4 RT cores. The RX 9070 XT has 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, 128 ROPs, and 64 RT cores.

Fill rates: The 840M achieves 23.20 GPixel/s pixel rate and 46.40 GTexel/s texture rate. The RX 9070 XT achieves 380.2 GPixel/s and 760.3 GTexel/s.

Floating-point performance: The 840M delivers 1,484.8 GFLOPS for FP32 and FP16 (1:1 ratio). The RX 9070 XT delivers 48.66 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16, which is 48,660 GFLOPS.

Power and physical: The 840M has a 15 W TDP, IGP slot width, and no power connectors. The RX 9070 XT has a 304 W TDP, dual-slot width, two 8-pin power connectors, and a 700 W suggested power supply.

Bus interface: The 840M uses PCIe 4.0 x8. The RX 9070 XT uses PCIe 5.0 x16.

Display outputs: The 840M’s outputs are portable device dependent. The RX 9070 XT has 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1a.

Release dates: The 840M released on 2025-02-28. The RX 9070 XT released on 2025-03-05. The RX 9070 XT has a launch MSRP of 599 USD, stated once here.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains benchmark scores for the RX 9070 XT across ten tests. The 840M has no recorded benchmark scores, so a direct head-to-head comparison relies on the RX 9070 XT’s absolute results and the specification differences.

In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RX 9070 XT scores 7260 points. This test stresses rasterization and compute in a modern DirectX 12 workload. The 840M’s 1,484.8 GFLOPS of FP32 throughput is roughly 3% of the RX 9070 XT’s 48.66 TFLOPS, indicating the RX 9070 XT would complete the same workload far faster, though no direct score exists for the 840M.

Geekbench OpenCL gives the RX 9070 XT a score of 17428. Geekbench Vulkan yields 65879. These cross-API results show the RX 9070 XT’s strong compute performance under both general-purpose and graphics-oriented APIs. The 840M supports Vulkan 1.4 per its API list, but its 256 shading units and system-shared memory would limit throughput.

Passmark tests show a spread of results. The RX 9070 XT scores 154 in DirectX 10, 292 in DirectX 11, 78 in DirectX 12, 353 in DirectX 9, 1328 in G2D, 26795 in G3D, and 15864 in GPU Compute. The G3D score of 26795 is the highest single-test result, reflecting the card’s overall 3D rendering capability. The DirectX 12 score of 78 is notably lower than other API scores, which may reflect specific driver or workload characteristics in that test.

The RX 9070 XT’s average benchmark score is 13543, and it sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon HD 7770M with an average score of 13536 (0.1% difference), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 at 13515 (0.2% difference), NVIDIA P106-090 at 13470 (0.5% difference), and AMD Radeon Pro 555 at 13407 (1% difference). These deltas are all within one percent, meaning the RX 9070 XT’s average score is statistically similar to those older or lower-tier cards in the database’s scoring system. The RX 9070 XT’s 55th percentile ranking indicates it outperforms roughly half of all recorded GPUs, but its nearest rivals are not modern high-end cards, suggesting the average score is pulled down by the low DirectX 12 result and other API-specific tests.

The texture rate comparison is illustrative: the RX 9070 XT’s 760.3 GTexel/s is over 16 times the 840M’s 46.40 GTexel/s. The pixel rate difference is similar, with 380.2 GPixel/s versus 23.20 GPixel/s. These ratios align with the 16x difference in shading units, TMUs, and ROPs, confirming that the RX 9070 XT is not just faster but uniformly scaled up across the entire rendering pipeline.

The Verdict

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the dominant performer in every measurable metric recorded in the database. Its 4096 shading units, 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth, and 48.66 TFLOPS of FP32 compute put it in a completely different performance class than the 840M. The RX 9070 XT’s average benchmark score of 13543, with a 55th percentile ranking, confirms it delivers substantial 3D and compute performance. Its nearest rivals in the database, all within one percent of its average score, are older discrete GPUs, which shows the RX 9070 XT’s score is credible but not exceptional among the database’s full population.

The AMD Radeon 840M is a low-power integrated solution with a 15 W TDP and no benchmark scores. Its 256 shading units and 1,484.8 GFLOPS are sufficient for basic graphics output and light workloads, but the data provides no evidence of competitive performance. The 840M’s system-shared memory means its bandwidth is entirely dependent on the host system, which is a fundamental limitation compared to the RX 9070 XT’s dedicated 644.6 GB/s.

For users building a desktop system with a 700 W power supply and space for a dual-slot card, the RX 9070 XT is the only choice between these two. It supports PCIe 5.0 x16, has 64 ray tracing cores, and offers three DisplayPort 2.1a outputs plus one HDMI 2.1b. For a portable or low-power system where a discrete GPU cannot be installed, the 840M is the only option of the two, as it requires no power connectors and fits as an IGP. The choice is not competitive; it is dictated by the system’s physical and electrical constraints. The RX 9070 XT wins all performance categories, while the 840M wins only in power efficiency and integration simplicity, based strictly on the recorded specifications.