GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290X, which comes with GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2816 SPUs, 176 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 290X		10609 points
GeForce GTX 560		3030 points
	Difference: 7579 (250%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 290X should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 560 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 191872 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X is quite a bit (approximately 210%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 95440 (210%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be much (approximately 98%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 560, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25280 (98%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.