GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1250 MHz on this card. It features 2816 SPUs as well as 176 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 195 Watts (186%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 262400 (456%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X is quite a bit (approximately 319%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 107200 (319%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be much (more or less 433%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (433%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.