GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular card. It features 2816 SPUs along with 176 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290X should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 211200 (194%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X should be quite a bit (approximately 287%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 104400 (287%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30400 (146%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across 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 memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.