GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 290, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 290 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 127616 (66%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be quite a bit (more or less 159%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78592 (159%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14144 (38%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.