GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 290, which features 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 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 290		9876 points
GeForce GTX 650		2263 points
	Difference: 7613 (336%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 236 Watts (369%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 is 300% quicker than the GeForce GTX 650 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 240000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be much (approximately 278%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 650. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 94144 (278%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (more or less 202%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 650, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34272 (202%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.